The International Olympic Committee was born on June 23, 1894, in Paris, thanks to the tireless work of Pierre de Coubertín, and the first Games under its auspices were held two years later, in Athens. In other words, this 2021 will be the 125th anniversary of the competitions, and over this extensive period of time, Cuba has travelled along two different paths: one of practical anonymity, and another, going toe to toe with the best from huge, powerful countries.
How could a small country change its status so dramatically in such a demanding environment? The answer lies in a transformative axis, around which only a participatory and inclusive work could revolve, the only way the country could start from scratch and rise to the top of the world. Moreover, only in this way could physical culture, as a general expression of the sports movement, achieve its inherent social value and put an end to its exclusive, elitist character, as was the case in the first half of the 20th century.
Our small country today ranks among the top 20 countries in Olympic competition, 16th to the exact, over these 125 years of history. Ours is one of the 18 countries with more than 220 Olympic medals and one of the 16 with more than 75 titles in the greatest athletic event on the planet, in addition to the expertise of our coaches, the combativeness and the loyalty of our athletes. This has been possible because, via a massive sports movement, a healthy people has been forged, with a broad culture of physical exercise, and because the Revolution recognized and supported physical education as essential to the integral development of children. And, without chauvinism, no matter who it may bother, it must be stated that all this was only possible in a socialist model, in which the chubby, the skinny, the big and the small, the black and the white, women and men, those with a lot or those with little, all count.
Without digressions or rhetoric, it must be recognized that this feat was accomplished within a sovereign, independent process, which has been able, in the words of its main leader on August 24, 2008, to make sense of the historical moment. Fidel himself noted that we represent only 0.07% of the world's population, and that scientific advances in sports, based on an unbridled race for profit, are not within the reach of 80% of the world's population, of which Cuba is part. We have been obliged to adjust, to generate income through the export of highly qualified services, and, since 2014, to make incursions into the world of professional athletics.
But it has been done without abandoning our founding principles in this arena, and maintaining what, 62 years later, is one of the Revolution’s great conquests: Sports as a right.
