The Associated Press
8:16 AM CDT, August 9, 2007
HAVANA - Fidel Castro might bar Cuban boxers from competing in the world
championships in Chicago and other qualifying events leading to the
Beijing Olympics to prevent possible defections.
Castro wrote in a column in official newspapers that two Cuban boxers
who disappeared during the Pan American Games in Brazil last month, only
to be arrested and sent back to the island, "had reached the point of no
return" with the national boxing team.
"The athlete who abandons his delegation is not unlike the soldier who
abandons his fellow men in the midst of combat," he said.
Guillermo Rigondeaux, a two-time Olympic bantamweight champion, and
Erislandy Lara, a welterweight world champion, arrived Sunday in Cuba.
They were sent to state guest houses for more than two days, then
released while the communist government decides what to do with them.
Rigondeaux returned to the Havana apartment he shares with his family
Wednesday, saying he never intended to defect. Lara's family lives in
the easternmost province of Guantanamo and could not be immediately located.
"I was always ready to return to the fatherland," Rigondeaux told The
Associated Press at his apartment. "People didn't believe I would stay."
He called his disappearance in Brazil a moment of great "indiscipline"
and said he supports Castro's Cuban revolution wholeheartedly: "I am
very revolutionary."
Rigondeaux said he met with top Communist Party members since his return
and was waiting for "reorientation," so he can do "what the superiors
say." But he said he also hoped to fight again someday.
"I want to reclaim my titles," he said. "Retake what I've lost."
Castro said Cuban officials were compiling the list of fighters for the
2008 Olympics, a squad that was scheduled to compete in Chicago and in
two other qualifying events before the Beijing Games.
"Just picture the mafia sharks lurking about in search of fresh meat,"
Castro wrote of would-be promoters who could try to persuade Cuban
fighters to desert.
He said Cuban sports officials hoping to prevent defections are
"analyzing all possible alternatives, including the option of changing
the list of boxers or of not sending any delegation whatsoever, in spite
of the penalties that may be in store for us."
"Cuba will not sacrifice one bit of honor, nor any of its ideas, for
Olympic gold medals," Castro wrote. "The morale and patriotism of its
athletes shall prevail above all else."
Cuba is a boxing power. At the 2004 Athens Games, Cuba had five golds
among its nine medals in the sport. Arena, a German boxing promotion
company, announced in July it signed Lara and Rigondeaux to five-year
contracts.
But the fighters were arrested in the coastal resort city of Cabo Frio
for overstaying their visas. The fighters told police they wanted to
return to Cuba and hinted they were tricked into deserting, maybe even
drugged by promoters.
Castro wrote Wednesday that Cuba's government "kept its word," treating
the deported boxers humanely. He said Cuban state media interviewed
them, but the stories have not appeared in government-controlled
newspapers or on television -- apparently because reporters were not
convinced Rigondeaux and Lara sincerely wanted to return to Cuba before
their arrests.
Castro blamed the disappearances on Lara, writing that "who, as captain
of the boxing team, broke the rules and played directly into the hands
of the mercenaries."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-070809cuba-boxers,1,4001216.story
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