• INDUSTRIALES-CIEGO DE AVILA
Cuban baseball championship to be decided
May 25,12
ALL of Cuba is living within a baseball weighing only 142 grams, with a circumference of less than 24 centimeters. The country is celebrating its most important sports event, the most coveted title, the national baseball championship. Taking center stage are the team from Ciego de Avila, a city 400 kilometers east of Havana, and Industriales, the capital’s main team.

• London ’12 Olympic flame lit at Hera’s Temple
May 17,12
THE flame which will burn during the London Olympic Games was lit at the site where the ancient Olympics were born, marking the beginning of the Olympic Torch Relay which will end July 27 at the opening ceremonies.

• London ’12
Cubans on track
May 17,12
OPPORTUNITIES remain for Olympic hopefuls to qualify for the London 2012 Summer Games, scheduled to begin July 27. The Cuban athletics team, which will send the largest group to the event - with 18 members already qualified – is hoping to add another 12 when the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) finalizes its list of participants in July, according to the point minimum established.

• Cuban baseball play-offs, a national celebration
May 10,12
ALL of Cuba is enjoying the country’s most important sports celebration. Western and Eastern Division champions for the 51st National Series are being determined as this edition goes to press, to set the stage for the finals.

• Cuba in the Olympics
May 10,12
ALTHOUGH Cuba did not attend the first Olympic Games and participated irregularly in subsequent competitions, the country burst upon the scene, winning medals especially during the last 48 years.

• Industriales: first team to qualify for semi-finals
May 4,12
April 30, Havana’s Industriales became the first to qualify for the semi-final play-offs in Cuban baseball’s National Series, defeating Cienfuegos in just five games. Having won four games, there was no need to complete the full seven game quarter final series.

• CUBAN BASEBALL NATIONAL SERIES PLAY-OFFS
Championship to be decided
April 26,12
For the second season in a row, last year's champions in Cuban baseball's National Series will not be defending their crown. After an unremarkable campaign, plagued by instability, Pinar de Río is out of running for the championship, which now will be contested by eight very evenly matched teams, making predictions difficult.

• LEINIER DOMÍNGUEZ
Finding a balance in everyday life
April 11,12
Leinier Domínguez, with 2 730 Elo points is Latin America’s best chess player, well-known among elite players around the world. He considers Cuba’s José Raúl Capablanca (World Champion 1921-27) his greatest mentor.

• Yarelis Barrios – A great among the greats
April 4,12
YARELIS Barrios has always mustered more than enough courage in the big competitive moments of her career, gaining herself a spot on the medal podium in World athletics competitions since 2007, despite not having set new personal records.

• Cuban wrestlers look to London 2012
April 4,12
CONSIDERING the current prospects for Cuba’s wrestlers, going into the London Olympics, we can confidently say that they are in a better position than they were prior to Beijing ’08, where only Mijaín López (120kg) in the Greco-Roman competition contributed to keeping the country’s string of victories going – a stretch which goes back to Barcelona ’92.

• Vuelve tope Cuba-EE.UU.
March 29,12
THE re-initiation of baseball games between Cuba and the United States, 16 years after they were suspended, is scheduled for July 5, 2012, according to a letter of understanding signed by the two countries.

• IN LONDON
Men’s judo hopes to leave its mark
March 22,12
TAKING in Olympic prospects pragmatically, it is perhaps true that there are sports and there are other sports. The difference is not arbitrary.

• PAN AMERCIAN CYCLING CHAMPIONSHIP IN ARGENTINA
Yumari González takes a gold medal
March 15,12
MAR DE PLATA, Argentina.— Cuban Yumari González took the gold medal in the Pan American Cycling Championship’s individual road race here. Cuba’s three representatives came away with five medals among them.

• Leinier Domínguez moves up in world chess ranking
March 8,12
CUBAN Grand Master Leinier Domínguez (2730) has moved into the 20th position in the world chess ranking according to the most recent report from the World Chess Federation (FIDE).

• Raquet in hand, on to London
March 8,12
IN table tennis, players of Asian descent are considered indomitable – among the 10 best male players in the international ranking, only German veteran Timo Boll (7) and his compatriot Dimitri Ovtcharov (10) have managed to consistently defeat players from that part of the world.

• MEN’S TRIPLE JUMP
Resurrecting Cuba’s chances
March 1,12
IF there is one test in Cuban athletics which demonstrates tradition, class and strength in world elites, it is the triple jump. For that reason, hopes are high that the country’s performance in this discipline will see a resurrection in the London Olympics, after its absence from the podium in Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008.

• LONDON 2012
Illegal betting threatening Games
February 23,12
THE International Olympic Committee (IOC) is to continue its battle against the threat of mafia elements controlling illegal betting invading the London Games.

• Cuba’s La Cruz selected as best boxer in the Americas for 2011
February 16,12
HEAVYWEIGHT Julio César La Cruz was selected as best boxer in the Americas for 2011, according to the AIN news agency.

• LONDON ON THE HORIZON
Breaking the barrier
February 16,12
HIGH jumper Víctor Moya is training in Havana’s Pan American Stadium with other athletes on Cuba’s national team, with his sights set on the Indoor World Championship, to take place in Istanbul, Turkey, March 9-11.

• Cuban judokas dominate Arlon tournament
February 2,12
CUBA'S women's Judo team dominated the Open Tournament in Arlon, Belgium, winning four gold medals, one silver and one bronze, competing with 249 athletes from 19 countries.

• DAYRON & ANTÚNEZ
Cubans preparing to attack London hurdles
26.Enero.12
POLISHED technique, strength in attacking the hurdles and speed in the stretch characterize Cuba’s best two athletes who compete in the hurdles: Olympic champion and World record holder Dayron Robles (12.87), and 20-year-old Orlando Ortega.

• 50 YEARS AGO
A new baseball is born
19.Enero.12
CUBAN baseball wasn’t even called what we call it today: the National Series. The press of the era used the term National Amateur Baseball Tournament or simply the INDER Tournament, with four teams emerging from the regional elimination tournaments, in the six provinces existent in the country at the time.

• THE GENESIS OF CUBAN BASEBALL
Pedro Chávez: Baseball is a central part of my life
19.Enero.12
IT couldn’t be any other way for someone who devoted 60 years of his life to Cuba’s passion – baseball. Pedro Chávez González, 75 years of age, still emanates the commitment and assertiveness which defined him during his career as an active player.

• THE GENESIS OF CUBAN BASEBALL
A colossal player from the España sugar mill
19.Enero.12
AT 76 years of age, Edwin Walters’ bearing still recalls the strong physique of his youth. He is a tall man, trim, with long arms and big hands, ideal for playing baseball.

• 50 years of revolutionary baseball
January 12,12
BASEBALL is more than balls and strikes for Cubans; it represents something more: feeling, emotion, passion…

• THE GENESIS OF REVOLUTIONARY BASEBALL
Fidel instilled in us a passion for the sport - Andrés Telemaco
January 12,12
GUANTÁNAMO.— Not even his inclusion on the Cuban national team to play in the 1969 World Championship in Santo Domingo left a greater mark on Andrés Pilotaje Telemaco than January 14, 1962, the day Fidel inaugurated the first Cuban National Series in what is now the Latinoamericano Stadium, and put an end to baseball for profit in the country.

• Yarelis Barrios and the art of discus
January 5.12
CUBA’s best individual female athlete of 2011 has a special talent to make the discus soar. Those who don’t see it that way can ask her rivals in the Diamond League, the World Championship, the Olympics and any other competition in which Yarelis Barrios participates. This 28-year-old Pinar del Río native is, in my opinion, the most consistent athlete currently competing in this specialty.

• Best athletes of 2011
December 29.11
THE notable performance of the Cuban delegation at the Guadalajara Pan American Games, as well as outstanding results in world events made the selection of the country’s Best Athletes of the Year a huge problem.

• REGIONAL ATHLETICS
Cubans inducted into Hall of Fame
December 22.11
SAN JUAN.— Cubans Ioamnet Quintero, Yoel García and Aliecer Urrutia were inducted into the Central American and Caribbean Athletics Hall of Fame, December 18 in Havana, according to the regional federation.

• LORENZO PEREZ
The power of determination
December 22.11
AT times life throws us a curve ball and we are put to the test. The outcome depends on a person’s will power to struggle and overcome adversity. That is precisely what Granma native Lorenzo Pérez has been doing for the last five years and today is filled with pride having won a triple crown at the Gudalajara 4th Parapan American Games

• 100 YEARS LATER
Cuban football’s long history
December 15.11
ON December 11, Cuban football celebrated its centenary and much has been said recently about that first game played on Palatino field between Hatuey and the Rovers – the former winning with a single goal from team captain Jack Orr.

• New international competition plan for baseball
December 8.11
THE International Baseball Federation (IBAF) has announced a new system of international competitions beginning in 2012, designating the World Classic as its principal event.

• Doctor Sócrates dies
December 8.11
BRASILIA.— A moment of silence was observed in all of Brazil's soccer stadiums, accompanied by much applause, during the last day of the National Football Championship in memory of the former player and doctor Sócrates, who died during the dawn hours December 4, at 57 years of age, as a result of an intestinal infection.

• 51st National Series
A new look
December 1.11
PERHAPS never before has the word 'new' been so appropriate. Cuban Baseball's 51st National Series will see the debut of 11 new managers, one more team, an extra six games and two new measures meant to reduce the escalating dominance of the offense.