Published on Friday, August 10, 2007
HAVANA, Cuba (AFP): 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 honor 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, who accused Rigondeaux and Lara of "betrayal."
Rigondeaux was twice Olympic champ at 54 kilograms (119 pounds) and Lara
holds the world 69 kilogram (152 pounds) title.
The pair missed a weigh-in on July 22 prior to the Panamerican Games,
and Brazilian police arrested them near Rio de Janeiro, where they had
gone on a trip with the representative of a German company, Arena Box
Promotions.
Brazil deported them and on Tuesday they were back home in Cuba.
Castro promised not to jail them, but to give them decent jobs,
"according to their abilities."
Rigondeaux said he was very sorry, and told AFP: "I will return to
boxing. I am the athlete that has done the most so far and I will try to
defend my titles."
Earlier Wednesday, two Cuban athletes in Brazil requested asylum,
officials with a Roman Catholic aid organization in Sao Paulo said.
One of the athletes is handball player Rafael Capote, a spokeswoman for
Caritas in Sao Paulo told AFP.
The group could not confirm for reasons of "privacy" if the other was
trainer Lazaro Lamelas, who also defected from the Panamerican team
after the boxers.
The Pan American games were held in Rio de Janeiro July 13-29.
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