US Blockade, Enemy of Cuban Sports

The blockade imposed on Cuba by the US Government, with already more than a half a century of existence, has also affected seriously Cuban sports, something to which all the people in the island have access.

Cuban athletes have made history in the international arena after the triumph of the revolution in 1959 and is recognized worldwide that the mass sports practice and the support to this activity by the Cuban Government are, in a great extent, the cause of it.

However, that area is not free from the blockade by any means, and the daily efforts to stimulate foreign brain drain, even with a political objective, add to the damage and difficulties caused by the regulations of the US siege.

Irrefutable evidence can be found in the report presented by Cuba to the General Assembly of the United Nations on the damage caused by the measures applied by Washington to enforce the rules of the economic, commercial and financial blockade, which extends to areas as sports.

Sports institutions are prevented from purchasing, in the US market, implements, equipment and clothing for athletes of different disciplines, including mattresses for playing jump poles, hoops with folding spring for artistic gymnastics and electronic measuring equipment for athletics.

Likewise, the Cuban baseball team, champion of the Caribbean Series, could not collect their prizes by restrictions imposed by the blockade, as the Cuban athletes who won awards at the World Championship Relay Race and the Indoor World Cup were not able to do.

That action was possible because the bank used by the International Federation of those sports belongs to the United States and has frozen the funds for a total of $190,000 USD.

Moreover, the Institute of Sports Medicine in Cuba was unable to get the necessary technological support to develop their activity, including reagents and substances intended for antidoping laboratories or parts for the repair, spectrometry equipment, because the cruel blockade prevents it.

This action by US agencies engaged in implementing the blockade is obviously a violation of international trade and human rights of the Cuban sports sector.