Posted : Sun, 24 Aug 2008 11:52:52 GMT
Author : DPA
Category : Sports
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Beijing - Cuba said goodbye to the Beijing Olympics Sunday with a
feeling of bitterness and powerlessness: its sport is no longer the
regional leader in Latin America, its boxing still needs time to recover
and its baseball is not infallible. "There is no doubt: in terms of
numbers that these Games were not good for Cuba," an official of the
Cuban National Sports Institute (INDER) told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
"But we also have to see that we had 13 finalists and only two of them
won. We would be talking about something else if we had had 50 per cent
efficiency."
The truth is that Brazil ended four decades of Cuban medals supremacy in
Latin American sport on Sunday.
The final medals table at the Beijing Olympics left Cuba in 27th place
with 24 medals but only two golds. Brazil is in 22nd place with 15
medals including three golds.
Four years ago, in Athens 2004, Cuba ended in 11th place, with 27 medals
including nine golds while Brazil had finished 16th, with 10 medals
including five golds.
In Beijing, Cuba failed miserably in the boxing competition with the
wave of defections - in which four Olympic champions left the country
2006-2007 - bringing about a talent drain. It won only four silvers and
four bronzes in the sport following the five golds of Athens 2004.
"Just imagine! We are missing four Olympic champions, plus a fifth,
Mario Kindelan, who retired. What country could resist something like
that?" the INDER official stressed.
Still, he underlined the fact that Cuba was the country with most medals
in Olympic boxing.
To make matters worse, Cuba lost the Olympic baseball final to South
Korea, and one thing is clear: an Olympic Games without boxing and
baseball gold can never be a happy one for Cuba.
"Baseball is the national sport in Cuba. Even if there are no more
Olympic Games we will continue to target the World Baseball Classic,"
said Cuban national team coach Antonio Pacheco.
The truth is that the defeat against South Korea set a new landmark: it
was the first time since 1982, when South Korea were also winners, that
an internationally-relevant tournament was not won by the United States
or Cuba.
The last time Cuba did not lead Latin American sport in "normal"
Olympics was in 1968 when host country Mexico was 15th and Cuba was 31st.
Cuba boycotted Los Angeles 1984 and Seoul 1988, in which Mexico and
Brazil were respectively the regional leaders.
Among the few positive aspects of Beijing 2008 for Cuba there was Dayron
Robles' clear win in the 110m hurdles and Mijain Lopez's win in
Greco-Roman wrestling.
But Cuba cannot leave the Chinese capital in an upbeat mood, and not
just because of boxing and baseball.
Taekwondo fighter Angel Matos kicked a referee in the face late
Saturday, after he made Matos' rival the winner of a combat for bronze.
Cuba was ashamed of such behaviour, and not even the lifelong ban
imposed on the taekwondo veteran can take away the bitterness of his
reaction.
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/227743,cubas-bitter-olympic-games--feature.html
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