Seven facts that show Cuban sports’ failure to succumb to politics

exist The Third Modern Olympic Gameswhich recently ended in Paris208 national Olympic teams, a refugee team, 9,000 athletes and around 45,000 volunteers took part. Millions of people from one end of the world and the other enjoyed the games and the emotions, as well as a stunning, beautiful and majestic closing ceremony featuring international superstars such as the American actor and producer Tom Cruise and more than a hundred acrobatic dancers. About Olympism.

Pierre de Coubertin, French educator, thinker and founder of the International Olympic Committee, said in his opening speech Modern Olympic Games1896: “The most important thing is not to win, but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not to win, but to fight; not to conquer, but to fight.” At the end of the event, IOC President Thomas Bach summed up the meaning of this sports festival in one sentence. In this polarized world, different people need friendship, peace, understanding, joy and love: ” Olympic Games “They cannot create peace, but they can create a culture of peace.”

The IOC emblem is a flag with five intertwined rings of different colors on a white background, representing harmony between the continents. Olympic GamesIt is considered a competition of individual athletes, not nations, which is why the IOC does not provide country results. However, there are several historical examples of the subordination of sport to politics – contrary to the principles of Olympism. Three of these are: the Berlin Olympics (1936), which Adolf Hitler used to promote National Socialism; those in Moscow (1980), which were boycotted by the United States and several allies; and Los Angeles (1984), which was boycotted by Moscow and other communist countries.

In the Republic of Cuba, presidents such as Gerardo Machado, Ramón Grau San Martín, and Fulgencio Batista created sports governing bodies, but None of them put the activity under government authority, as Fidel Castro did after 1959.

Cuba It first participated in the second Olympic Games (Athens) in 1900, and established the Cuban Olympic Committee in 1926. Until the recent Olympic Games held in Paris, it has participated in 23 games.

In Athens (1900) he won a gold medal and another silver in fencing. In St. Louis (1904) he won three gold medals in the same sport. In London and Tokyo (1948 and 1964) he won silver in each event. In Mexico (1968) he increased his silver medal titles to four. It was in Munich (1972) that Cuba, having artificially improved its economy with the subsidies it received after joining the Council for Economic Assistance to Socialist Countries, won eight medals, three of which were gold. He then began to climb all the way in Barcelona (1992), where he finished fifth in the medal table with 31 medals (11 of which were gold) out of 176 athletes.

From that point on, the crisis caused by the loss of Soviet aid began to worsen. Paris has just hit the bottom of its gradual declinehe fell to 32nd place from a projected five gold medals and a top-20 finish, Nine medals, only two of which were gold.

When a chronic crisis turns into a structural crisis, as was the case in Cuba, no part of the system can escape its impact, and this is not the case with sports. In the absence of freedom, the state bears all the costs of preparing athletes for competition in exchange for their intelligence and muscle being put into politics. And, because the inefficiency of Cuban totalitarianism forced them to rely on Soviet aid, when the Soviet aid disappeared, it became impossible to maintain sports spending.

Seven facts not mentioned by other delegations illustrate the failure of Cuban sports to be subordinate to politics:

1. Several of the 21 Cuban athletes competing for other countries won medals.
2. Cuba does not participate in any collective sports.
3. In the women’s triple jump, no Cuban athlete made the podium.
4. Cuba’s only triple jumper of four from the official delegation finished eighth, while three athletes representing Spain, Portugal and Italy won gold, silver and bronze medals.
5. Lorem Berto Alfonso, representing Azerbaijan, during a boxing match Remove Julio Cesar de la Cruz from the competition.
6. Judoka Yasmani Costa lost the gold medal with Mijaín López, but made a contribution Chile wins first medal In wrestling.
7. Dayle Ojeda, Judoka, Technical Support Staff, The entourage left Paris.

The disaster in Paris takes us back to an era when sport was monopolized by the state and subordinate to politics. The General Directorate of Sports, established in the 1940s, did not define the responsibilities of civil society, businessmen or franchises. It was replaced by the State Institute of Physical Education, Sports Education and Recreation (INDER) on February 23, 1961 in the process of dissolving existing institutions. From then on, the state borne all costs of the activity with subsidies from the Kremlin in exchange for the loyalty of the athletes as Participating as a soldier, feeling a sense of identification with the motherland and the “revolution”.

In October 1975, ecstatic, Fidel Castro “If there is no social revolution in other Latin American countries, if the social revolution does not develop, no matter how much technology they have, no matter how many coaches they hire, no matter how many things they invent, they will not be able to achieve the success that Cuba has achieved in sports,” he said. His death prevented him from seeing what was happening at the time. 2024 Paris Olympics.

one Irrefutable evidence of disregard for the principles of sports humanism On August 8, 1962, at a farewell meeting for athletes participating in the 9th Central American and Caribbean Games in Jamaica, the revolutionary leader said: “Provocateurs who attack Cuban athletes should not be left alive. A provocateur who breaks into the ranks of Cuban athletes cannot leave behind a healthy bone! A provocateur who tries to snatch the Cuban flag cannot leave behind a healthy bone and hair!