ESCAPING THE CUBAN DICTATORSHIP: HOW MANY CUBAN ATHLETES HAVE DESERTED?
A tik tok is circulating in which the Cuban Olympic boxer, Julio Cesar la Cruz, receives as a prize for his medal in Tokyo at the last Olympics in 2020, a fish and three soft drinks:
https://www.tiktok.com/@algoquevertv/video/7300826438792383749
Precisely today, July 28, 2024, this Cuban boxer is defeated and eliminated in Paris 2024 by a Cuban defector: Loren Alfonso, who is now Azerbaijani.
The “Shadow” La Cruz won the first round of the heavyweight fight, but lost the last two on three of the five judges’ scorecards so that the 3–2 decision leaned in favor of Alfonso, a Cuban defector who also won a medal in Tokyo 2020, that bronze in light heavyweight.
During the Cold War, the topic of defecting athletes could be a hot topic. Today, the news of Cuban athletes of all kinds who take advantage of a trip to any competition to abandon their delegation and ask for asylum in the country where they are, is a discolored story.
The defection in Cuban sports began with the triumph of the revolution in 1959 when professional sports were abolished. Departures increased in the 1990s.
The Cold War ended and the Cuban dictatorship remains.
According to official figures, more than 800 athletes have fled the Cuban regime in the first decade of the 21st century.
And the count continues to add up.
It seems that the constant addition of athletes seeking to escape from the island no longer represents a dishonor for Cuba and the dictatorship. It is already something that is taken for granted.
A misery that is no longer taken into account.
And how is this going in the second decade of the 21st century?
In October 2021, during the U-23 Baseball World Cup in Mexico, eleven Cuban athletes defected. It was considered one of the largest Cuban mass desertions at the beginning of the decade.
Then, in March 2022, Cuban long jumper Lester Lescay Gay, youth Olympic champion in 2018, escaped from the island’s athletics delegation during a tour in Europe. Just two days ago, the Cuban press highlighted Lescay’s participation, who finished third in the Belgrade Meeting, Serbia. The technical head of Cuban athletics, Daniel Osorio, said that the jumper Lezcay left the island’s team when he returned from the competition in Belgrade.
Has the Cuban government done anything to change this situation?
What they have done is interesting. They put on a show.
In December 2022, the Cuban government gave 20 cars to athletes and coaches with an outstanding career.
Peugeot cars and even a couple of Mercedes Benz were given to nineteen athletes. Some were Serguey Torres Madrigal (canoeing); Julio César La Cruz, Andy Cruz, Arlen López and Roniel Iglesias (boxing); Juan Miguel Echevarría, Maikel Massó, Yaimé Pérez (athletics); Omara Durand and her coach Yuniol Kindelán, Leonardo Díaz, Robiel Yankiel Sol and Leinier Savón (Para-athletics).
The event was repeated in May 2023. The National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation (INDER) of Cuba delivered seventeen new cars to, they said, “glories” of sport, athletes and coaches of the island in an official ceremony held at the Coliseum of the Sports City.
José Cedeño, general director of Physical Education and Sports for All, said that with the delivery of these vehicles “the sporting merit, integrity, political and social conduct, and participation in the activities of the Cuban sports system” have been recognized to the awardees.
The same official declared that “the migration of athletes and coaches has affected us, one hundred and nine athletes stopped being with us in 2022,” said the director, in an appearance prior to the Pan American Games, to be held in Chile from October 20 to November 5.
An important thing in this paragraph is that: they do not speak of defection but of migration, which is completely a lie. The athletes, the Cubans on the island cannot travel freely, so when they are in another country they literally and legally escape from their delegation.
According to journalist Francys Romero, author of the book “Historias de la emigración del baseball Cubano (1960–2018)”, in the last three years, more than a hundred athletes have left Havana or broken with the island’s federations, including Olympic stars such as Juan Miguel Echevarría, Ismael Borrero and Andy Cruz.
In an attempt to stop the exodus, the Cuban regime authorized its athletes to sign with foreign clubs in 2013.
Leonel Suárez, a two-time Olympic and two-time world medalist in the decathlon, agrees that Cuba must make “a good reform” and give better conditions to its athletes to “get out of the hole”.
But this measure, like the spectacle of the delivery of cars, has not changed things.
During the Pan American Games in Chile, after the delivery of capitalist cars, five players from the Cuban hockey team and a hurdler abandoned their delegation and their tracks went missing. By 2023 alone, around sixty athletes had taken advantage of traveling to international competitions to escape the dictatorship.
Speaking to Chilean Channel 13 on Thursday, one of the athletes who escaped in Chile said that since he was 17 he had been under a sports regime that imposed harsh restrictions on him.
“We can see the family twice a year. In case something serious or urgent happens, you can ask for permission and they let you go. But if by your own decision, you say you want to go home, you can’t.”
Due to the economic situation on the island, they also did not have the conditions that athletes require to train, he added.
“We went through a very bad time. We didn’t have shoes, we were training with one shoe on, another off, we didn’t have implements, we didn’t have face protectors,” Milanés told the Chilean television station.
Finally, we reached the year 2024, the year of the Olympics in Paris.
In February, there was a new car delivery.
The official press has not specified the number of this year’s winners, including retirees, trainers and active athletes, although it mentions the names of eighteen. Among them, the gymnast Erick López stands out, in charge of leaving the quotes of the day. “We are proud to evoke Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, eternal and undefeated leader of the sports movement to which we owe ourselves. On behalf of those recognized, we reiterate that we share this joy from the multiplication of the commitment to the homeland and the work that has placed Cuba on the international stage,” he said.
Among the lucky active athletes are Rafael Guerra (shooting), Luis Esteban Fuentes (para-athletics), Juan Caballero (wrestling), Gisell González (fencing), Eusebio López (Basque pelota), Guillermo Pérez (para-athletics), Andy Granda (judo) and Alain Román (softball). Gifts were also given to trainers of Olympic and world medalists such as Rolando Acebal (boxing) and Daniel Osorio (athletics) and Jhoen Lefont, who has several Guinness records for ball control in the water.
And with the new delivery of cars, in the same month of February, there were new Cuban athletes escaping from the regime.
Three Cuban athletes, members of the wrestling teams, left the island’s delegation. The athletes were concentrated in Acapulco, Mexico, to participate in the Pan American Championship of the Greco-Roman and freestyle modalities. They would then compete in a competition that would award tickets to the Paris Olympic Games.
The protagonists of the escapes are Susana Martínez (76 kg); Santiago Hernández (57 kg) and Osmany Diversent (yes, that's the name) (57 kg). This was reported on his social networks by Roly Dámaso, a figure close to that sport on the Island.
Santiago did not even wait for his luggage upon arriving at the Mexican airport. She decided to disappear and get away from the Cuban delegation as soon as possible.
One of those who left, Susana Martínez, made the trip to Mexico to support the training of several Cuban athletes. These are the cases of Yusneylis Guzmán (in the 50 kg category), Laura Herin (53 kg), Ángela Álvarez (57 kg), María Santana (62 kg) and Brenda Sterling (68 kg).
And we arrive on July 26, the opening day of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
That same day, the Cuban athlete, Dayle Ojeda, escapes.
Cuban judoka Dayle Ojeda left her delegation in France before the start of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Cuban media reported that Ojeda did not attend Paris as an athlete, but as technical support staff, and that she was due to return to Cuba one day before the opening of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. However, she did not board the plane that would take her back.
The 30-year-old made the trip to help train Olympic champion and multi-medalist Idalys Ortiz, who would compete in the games.
