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Cuba has developed a genuine and healthy sports culture

SPEECH DELIVERED BY COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF FIDEL CASTRO RUZ, FIRST SECRETARY OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CUBA AND PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCILS OF STATE AND MINISTERS AT A MEETING WITH MEMBERS OF THE DELEGATION THAT TOOK PART IN THE PAN AMERICAN GAMES IN WINNIPEG WITH SUPPLEMENTARY COMMENTS AND FIGURES ADDED BY HIM. AUGUST 13, 1999

(Translation of the transcript of the Council of State)

Dear athletes;

Dear comrades from the Olympic Committee and INDER;

Dear guests,

This is a small event in terms of the number of people present but it is of great significance. It is not so because you wanted to honor me on my birthday but because you are giving me the opportunity to thank you for this friendly, fraternal and affectionate gesture.

As you know, throughout my life as a revolutionary, for over two thirds of my lifetime and especially after the victory that took us to the leadership of the country, I have never celebrated my birthday publicly.

This time I was told that our athletes wanted to invite me to an unpretending ceremony. I saw it as a chance to express to you once again my great admiration for the feats you have achieved in following the revolutionary sporting traditions initiated just over 40 years ago. In particular, it provided me with the opportunity to address an issue that I consider terribly important: not our past and present athletic glories, but rather our future glories.

The events of the recent past, those that have just taken place at the Pan American Games, have been extensively and brilliantly discussed by a group of comrades on our television networks. I will not say a word about what happened in Winnipeg; I would prefer instead to address three announcements made at the round table on Wednesday. I will refer very briefly to two of them and discuss the third at greater length.

The comrades there made three announcements. Héctor, the program moderator, mentioned some comments I had made to him in a previous conversation. I told him how painful it was for us that at the most exciting moments in these games -moments of great patriotic passion, of tremendous interest, in the time-outs requested in each match or between innings- the viewers' attention was interrupted by commercial advertising, in the style so purely typical of capitalism and consumer society. This is the result of the extremely difficult situation we have had to endure in the worst years of the special period.

At a time, if we had not sought funds through advertising it would have not been possible to broadcast these sporting events which, as you know, are followed by millions of people in our country. During these past especially important, difficult and challenging competitions such commercials were more painful than ever, coming precisely at a time when we were suffering in Winnipeg the most disappointing consequences of the commercialization of something as pure as sports. Never again, said I, would there be commercial advertising during the broadcasting of sport competitions. Instead, these spare minutes should be used for explanations and comments on the events, and on the athletes' performance and merits. Such information as will further enrich our people considerable sports culture.

Secondly, comrade Humberto, chairman of the National Institute of Physical Education and Sports [INDER] announced that Cuba would immediately set out to create a laboratory. It would bolster our sports and help defend our country from any traps, dirty tricks or underhanded stunts staged at increasingly commercial competitions. This laboratory will also help safeguard our athletes' and our homeland's honor, even in the event that one of our athletes or coach made the mistake of seeking an advantage by using some sort of anabolic substance, something absolutely incompatible with our athletes' dignity, honor and courage, qualities which have won us a great many medals.

A good laboratory would protect us from any such circumstances while providing support to our sister nations in the Caribbean and Central and South America, which do not have the laboratories required to detect such substances and are thus forced to seek these services from highly developed countries and pay extremely high prices for any tests. Except for the Pan American Games when we rented some equipment to this end we do not have such laboratories and also need to have tests carried out abroad.

The creation of this laboratory will not require major expenses because the basic factors are the technicians and scientists, and we have a very large number with the highest qualification. The laboratory equipment will be very modern to help us save on the expenditures we currently need to make. The cost of the equipment will be gradually recovered through the services given to other countries, at minimal prices, much lower than those charged by the laboratories of the highly developed and wealthy nations. Those nations may have huge financial resources but we have in our country extraordinary human capital and the scientists, honesty and prestige necessary to be fully reliable. This is even more important than recovering the cost of establishing the laboratory, a rather modest cost despite the high quality of the equipment. We will be protected from both dirty tricks and errors. One who fails somewhat stains the glories and merits of all the rest and serves as ammunition for infamous and loathsome slander.

The third issue I want to address -one on which I will talk a bit more extensively- is the news released that same Wednesday toward the end of the broadcast by comrade Fernández, chairman of the Olympic Committee. He stated that our country will begin the battle to host the Olympics some day, a battle that will begin right now with our sights set on the year 2008, given that Athens has already been chosen for the 2004 games.

We have no complaints whatsoever about this decision because it was there that the history of the Olympic Games began over 20 centuries ago. That is where the games were born. We thought that on the centennial of the Olympics revival in 1896 it would have been proper to make Athens the host of the games, that is, if a bit of dignity, honor and justice prevailed in the world. Instead, the games were held in the city of Atlanta, in a wealthy, powerful country where television broadcasts and advertising could produce more funds and resources. Therefore, the same country was chosen for the fourth time this century and Athens was pushed aside until it has finally seen justice done.

We trust that even in this world so full of injustices, morality and reason will finally succeed. That is why we applaud the selection of Athens as host and we will attend that competition with our best athletes, increasingly better trained, to fight for a place of honor there. Later will come the 2008 Olympics. As I said, the battle must begin right now! In fact, it began the day we announced our legitimate aspiration. That does not mean that it will be easy for us to see justice done in 2008, that is, for morality and reason to triumph that day. But if we do not achieve our goal in 2008, we will achieve it in 2012, and I do not think it will happen later than the year 2016, if we fight well and keep up the effort. We could almost say that is the maximum time limit for achieving our goal.

I wanted to explain a few things so that you and our people understand what it means to fight for the Olympics, a battle that is beginning now, and which will initially be aimed at hosting the 2008 games.
What is the rational behind this request now although no formal procedures have been undertaken yet to host the Olympics? I will explain our reasons and I do not think that anyone, within or outside the country, anyone in the world, could refute our claims and our right.

To begin with, I will say that neither in the first or the second half of this century nor at any other time in history has a country done or achieved as much in sports as Cuba in an extremely short period of time. And it is a small Third World country, one that is additionally subjected to an economic blockade by the wealthiest and mightiest nation on Earth as well as to a thousand different forms of harassment and aggression.

Professional sport was removed and it also ceased to be the exclusive privilege of an elite minority to become every person's right. That right to practice sports and to compete with dignity and prestige in the international arena we have heroically defended. This was particularly true when the U.S. government arbitrarily denied visas to participate in a Central American and Caribbean competition hosted by the colonized neighboring sister nation of Puerto Rico. On that occasion, we consecrated this right with our courage, adding a new page of honor and glory to our history.

Physical education and sports have been massively promoted unlike anywhere else in the world. It reaches all children, of all ages, in all of the country's schools; all the youth, all workers, all of the people. Those who do not practice sports on a regular basis can fully enjoy them as an exciting, popular and healthy display.

The limited number of pages in our newspapers do not provide enough room to describe, for example, the hundreds of baseball teams created by our sugar industry workers and their ongoing competitions in every factory of our primary agricultural industry; and this is just one sector and one sport.

Today, Cuba is one of the few countries in the world, among those with a certain development in this area, where sports are neither commercial nor professional.

Cuba has never competed with foreign athletes in its teams; it has always competed with its own athletes, without a single exception, throughout 40 years.

Cuba has never stolen a single athlete or sports talent. On the contrary, we have trained coach and athletes who have gone on to compete for their own countries. I remember, among others, a young Puerto Rican boxer who dearly loved Cuba. He earned a bachelor's degree in physical education and sports here. He was a good boxer but upon completing his studies he returned to his native land to compete in his country's team, as it was his duty to do.

During the many international competitions held here in Cuba, in a wide range of disciplines, not a single visiting athlete, delegation member or journalist has ever been physically assaulted. On the contrary, they have been welcomed with every consideration and absolute respect. Nor has a single athlete or delegation member been morally assaulted or made the target of insults.

A good example is that hundreds of U.S. athletes, our greatest sports rivals, participated in the 1991 Pan American Games held here and absolutely no one can relate a single insult or offense, despite our political and ideological differences and the terrible damages inflicted by the United States. We are reasonable people with a highly developed consciousness and revolutionary culture, not a nation of blind political bigots. It is a source of pride for our homeland and our Revolution that not a single offensive word against a visiting athlete or delegation has ever been spoken by the people in our country.

Our press has never insulted or slandered an athlete from the United States or any other country. On many occasions, I have gone to greet an American volleyball, boxing or baseball team competing at the Ciudad Deportiva or some other facility and I have conversed with and even congratulated outstanding athletes from that country.

Any athlete of any nationality can feel absolutely undisturbed, relaxed and safe in our country, fearless of any shameful incident such as the one that took place during the game that would give us the glory of many years of consecutive victories in one of the sports that is most emblematic and exciting for our people, for it is not only our national sport but also a source of recreation and entertainment throughout close to six months every year.

II PART