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 News from Around the Americas | August 2007 
Cuba’s Castro Yanks Boxers from Tourney in US
 Agence France-Presse
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 |  | Cuba will not sacrifice one shred of its honour and its ideas for Olympic gold medals.
- Fidel Castro |  | | Havana - President Fidel Castro announced Wednesday that Cuba will not compete in the World Boxing Championship in Chicago after two Cuban boxers defected in Brazil last week.
The tourney in Chicago presents a chance for promoters of US professional sports to “steal” athletes and damage the revolution in Cuba, he wrote in a newspaper column for the official Granma. However, the October 18-November 3 tournament is a qualifier for the 2008 Olympic Games in Peking.
A loss of gold medals would be tragic for sports-crazy Cubans, who follow boxing with nearly the same zeal as baseball, which Castro played. However, pride is important, too, he said.
“Cuba will not sacrifice one shred of its honour and its ideas for Olympic gold medals,” Castro wrote. Castro said predatory US sports promoters wanting to sign up Cuban athletes was the reason for skipping the Chicago tourney.
“Imagine, those sharks of the Mafia demanding young blood. We should warn them: we are not eager to make home deliveries,” he wrote. Castro had already pronounced dead the boxing careers of Guillermo Rigondeaux and Erislandy Lara, who defected in Brazil last week, followed by two other athletes who sought asylum there this week.
“What will stand above all is the morality and patriotism of its athletes,” said Castro. |
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