Cuba's Olympic Committee is considering all its options,
including not sending a boxing team to the Olympics, after two
boxers fled the team in the Brazilian city of Rio and returned home
in disgrace, the country's leader, Fidel Castro, said in a
Wednesday newspaper column.
"Sporting authorities are considering all the possibilities
including changing the list of boxers or not sending any delegation
at all," Castro said in the column, published in Cuban state daily
Granma.
Erislandy Lara and Guillermo Rigondeaux jumped ship from the
Cuban boxing team at the Pan American Games held in Rio last month,
at the urging of German boxing promoter Ahmet Oner.
Castro, citing Spanish news agency EFE, said the two had spent
their time getting drunk with prostitutes, bankrolled by Oner. The
agencies said that last week that police had arrested the boxers
for overstaying their visas, and they had then shamefacedly asked
to return home, claiming they had been drugged by the promoter.
Once back in Cuba, according to Castro, "the revolution kept its
world: reuniting them with their families, giving them access to
the press and giving them jobs in line with their knowledge. We
have given equal attention to their state of health," Castro
said.
Castro judged Lara, 24 and captain of the boxing team, more
guilty of the two. Despite his more responsible role "he delivered
himself directly into the hands of the mercenaries", Castro
said.
Rigondeaux is a two-time Olympic bantamweight champion and Lara
the amateur welterweight world champion.
Castro, who turns 81 on Monday, has not been seen in public for
more than 12 months. In late July last year, he handed power to
Raul Castro, his younger brother and the nation's defense minister,
in order to undergo an operation for gastric bleeding. He writes
regularly in the nation's newspapers on current affairs.
(Xinhua News Agency August 9, 2007)