Only seven months after the triumph of the Revolution, Cuban athletes competed in the Third Pan-American Games Chicago-1959.
Participating in the competition - if only a gesture just as the country was beginning to undertake radical transformations to make access to sports a right of the people – made clear the new, noble desire to fraternize with all countries on the continent.
Beyond placing eighth among the 25 nations participating, what was most important was the overwhelmingly friendly spirit that prevailed. Over the years, continued U.S. attempts to destroy the Revolution, especially the brutal blockade more recently tightened, intensified the animosity that prevented any interaction between the two countries.
After the 1959 Pan American Games, no Cuban sports team entered the country until August 1975, when Cuba won the North, Central American and Caribbean Volleyball Championships in Los Angeles, both the men’s and women’s.
Years before in 1966, Cuba faced a hostile situation during the Central American-Caribbean Games in Puerto Rico, when U.S. authorities on the sister island maneuvered to prevent our participation. Our athletes responded, making a daring voyage on the Cerro Pelado to arrive and compete.
I do not intend to recount, one by one, the number of events in different disciplines planned with the United States that have been cancelled, the annulled agreements, the refusals of visas to delegations that should have competed on different occasions in that nation, on the basis of rights granted by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). It would be a long list of crass, ruthless, and petty moves by a giant country against a small neighbor.
The current U.S. administration has reinforced the blockade, knowing that Cuba is struggling in a difficult financial situation and confronting the pandemic. This siege also harms sports.
Today we can ask ourselves: How much more could Cuban sports have accomplished with the nearly ten million dollars that the blockade has cost us, according to an analysis by the Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation (Inder) in 2019?
The impossibility of accessing essential resources for the training of target shooters, obliged the country to increase their stays abroad. Nine were organized between March 2019 and March 2020, involving an expenditure of more than 94,000 dollars.
It has been impossible to purchase boats and paddles for rowers preparing for the Tokyo Olympic Games from suppliers in Italy, since this equipment contains U.S. made components that, according to blockade regulations, prevents their shipment to Cuba. The only option would be to receive them directly in Japan, implying increased freight and handling costs, plus a short adaptation time for the athletes.
Access to supplies and reagents, required by Cuba’s National Anti-Doping Brigade, involves spending between 30 and 40% above their price on the international market, because it is impossible to buy them from U.S. companies or their subsidiaries in third countries.
The obligation to acquire monoclonal antibodies required for the determination of Erythropoietin (R&D Systems) in Europe, meant paying 107.37% more than their cost in the United States, inaccessible to Cuba.
The fact that we cannot obtain state-of-the-art technology from U.S. firms puts the Anti-Doping Laboratory in Havana at a disadvantage in relation to other similar institutions, which are not obliged to face the expenses generated by moving these procedures to other continents.
Due toU.S. persecution of banks that attempt to transfer funds to Cuba, our Anti-Doping Lab is deprived of income for services rendered to international anti-doping organizations.
Not even the nobility of projects like cancer research escape the extraterritoriality of the blockade. For this reason, the annual race held in our country in support of this work, which generated income on the order of 16,489 dollars, no longer has international sponsorship.
Academic and scientific exchanges between Cuba and the United States are now almost non-existent, and at the same time it is more expensive for the island to import equipment from that country that would contribute to our sports and research centers.
There are innumerable reasons that justify Cuba's demand for an end to the genocidal economic, commercial and financial blockade of the United States, outlined in the Inder report on damages it has caused sports in our country.
