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 are being held in guest houses while the communist
government decides what their new profession will be.
Relatives of Rigondeaux said this week he had always planned to
return home and had even bought a pig before leaving for a feast to
celebrate his victories on his homecoming.
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."