CUBA: Atlanta leaves a Bitter Taste Despite Honourable Outcome

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Aug 5 1996 (IPS) - Although Cuba managed to pick itself up at the last moment and “save its honour” with strokes, thrusts and right-hooks, the Atlanta olympic games left a bitter taste in the mouths of most Cubans.

Coming home with nine gold medals, eight silvers and eight bronzes, the Caribbean island sank down to eighth position in the medal ranking after the United States, Russia, Germany, China, France, Italy and Australia, when it had come fifth in Barcelona four years ago.

However, president of the International Olympics Committee, Juan Antonio Samaranch, classed it as an “extraordinary” feat for Cuba to come amongst the 10 leading world nations and at the head of Latin America.

For those who followed the games from day to day, the final position “couldn’t have been better” in some of the most “dramatic” areas for Cuba, not so much for the results, which sometimes depend on a stroke of luck, but for the performances.

Accustomed to seeing the main figures of Cuban sport win or lose, but “with a lot of honour,” local Cuban sports fans lived through the last few days in constant agony, going from one disillusionment to another.

This Monday, the group of men in their social gathering on the “hot corner”- the famous sports club of the streets of Havana – met again in the Central Park after their two week break for the Atlanta olympics.

Despite the varying criteria, most of the participants agreed with Vitalio Gomez, a 58 year-old pensioner, that “they thought they would have the same luck they had in Barcelona.”

Gomez added that they had counted too heavily on this, and that was where they went wrong.

Pausides Cabrera, sports commentator on the weekly ‘Tribuna de la Habana’ said Sunday Atlanta had shown how “dangerous” it could be to “risk predictions, without taking into account the changing world panorama.”

In their enthusiasm to maintain the winning position they held in Barcelona, Cuba went to Atlanta with a long list of recently injured team members, with a lack of international experience and a poor idea of the quality of their rivals.

For while Ana Fidela Quirot’s silver in the 800 metres was a happy event, though no surprise, on the island, the defeat of Javier Sotomayor, world record holding high jumper, was no news either.

Sotomayor is the only high jumper in the world to have beaten the 2.40 metres mark, and he has been unable to repeat this height since 1993, as a leg injury has weakened his performance.

However, his injuries were not given much consideration as public attention has been far more dedicated to his extra-sporting actions, such as his recent appearance in a rap video on television.

Then, of course, there were the planned medals from the weightlifters Joel Casamayor and Ramon Garbay, who at the last minute swapped their participation in the Atlanta games for exile in the United States.

The other ‘deserter,’ Rolando Arrojo, had been the leading pitcher in Cuban baseball, and though the team still won the gold, they suffered many tight moments, mainly due to deficient pitching.

For while the decision of the three sportsmen could be seen in a similar light as that of any other Cuban who decides to emigrate, for the local observers, there was obviously “a good sum of money in the middle” in order to persuade them to take the jump just before the olympics.

“The greatest dream of any sports personality is to participate in the olympics. The normal course of action would have been to go to Atlanta, perform there, and not return to the island,” said one local radio commentator.

Meanwhile, Cuba’s President Fidel Castro said Jul. 10, that as on other occasions, the deserters had let themselves be led by “mercenary motives, commercialism and ambition,” betraying the country.

In his goodbye speech to the delegation heading for Atlanta, Castro said that despite the crisis in the country this decade, sport has kept its budget of 115 million pesos (equal to dollars at official exchange rates).

With a population of 11 million people, Cuba has 100 special sports schools with 24,000 pupils, 32,000 sport teachers and 11,000 sports centres.

Local commentators said the olympic results reflected the quality of the system of grants, and financial help from national federations which facilitated many of the “surprises” of the games.

In the light of the Atlanta outcome, government officials started to talk of the need to introduce reforms in the system of sports organisation.

“We have become bogged down,” said Cabrera, explaining that while Cuban performance has not actually worsened, the other nations have improved, leaving it straggling behind.