Cuba's performance in the recent Central American and Caribbean Games, where maintaining third place in the overall medal count was a hard-fought battle, invites us to reflect deeply on the future of national sport.
The Commander-in-Chief bequeathed us ideas that are as relevant today as when he formulated them. A review of his seminal Reflections provides essential guidelines for maintaining and regaining our greatness, without ever abandoning our core values.
Regarding their debasement on the international stage, he wrote in "The Moral Importance of the Classic," published on March 17th, 2009. "At the beginning of the Revolution, the Olympics were an amateur event.
"When the concepts of developed capitalism managed to penetrate the Olympic Games, sporting activity ceased to be a matter of health and education, which had been its objectives throughout history.
"The only country in the world where this character was preserved was Cuba, which for a long time achieved the highest per capita gold medal count."
He returned to this theme during the Guadalajara 2011 Pan American Games, when he declared, at the end of October: "The transnational corporations of commercialized sports have left far behind the dreams of the creator of Olympism."
At the previous multi-sport event, Rio 2007, he pointed out that in several nations many athletes do not even represent their own country. "Some earn up to $102 million a year (…) Cuba relies solely on its own athletes, who are not professionals. It’s an unequal fight."
The realities mentioned included the poaching of talent, about which he commented, in the text titled "Brazil, a Substitute for the United States?", that among the methods used by the U.S. government to subdue Cuba is betrayal for money.
Faced with this scenario, in which industry predominates over the immeasurable pride of bringing joy to a country—a model followed by the Cuban Revolution—he warned us in one of his seminal works, "We Are the Guilty Ones," after Cuba’s elimination from the second World Baseball Classic.
"We have rested on our laurels and are now paying the consequences," he acknowledged with his characteristic candor.
He added: "Our hopes rested on the patriotic dedication of our athletes and the fervor with which they defend their honor and their people, coming from a pool of talent several times, or even dozens of times, smaller in human resources compared, for example, to Japan."
He summarized, "In short, we must revolutionize the methods of training and developing our athletes, not only in baseball, but in all sports."
And as always, whether the delegations won or lost, he sent a message full of encouragement and self-criticism: "They are not responsible for the mistakes that led them to the adverse result."
"We are the ones to blame, for not knowing how to correct our errors in time." These words still resonate in the voice of the visionary who knew how to look across all eras, led Cuban sport to unimaginable heights, and warned us to correct its setbacks.
