CUBA: Money has 'tainted' Olympics
The head of Cuba's Olympics committee, Jose Ramon Fernandez, has accused Western commercial influences of corrupting sport. Fernandez, who is also one of the country's vice-presidents, charges that rich countries are promoting a "sports talent drain" from the Third World, similar to the "brain drain" of scientists and professionals.
In comments reported by Cuba's media on August 11, Fernandez defended his government's decision to deny permission to a former Cuban national, long jumper Niurka Montalvo, to compete in the Sydney Olympic Games under the Spanish flag. She received Spanish citizenship in 1999 and therefore does not comply with the three years stipulated by the International Olympics Committee for an athlete who acquires a new citizenship to compete for a new country.
"They should feel ashamed, trying to use a foreign athlete from a poor nation like Cuba to win medals for another rich and developed country", Fernandez told the Cuban Communist Party's Granma newspaper.
Sport in Cuba is largely, and proudly, amateur. While top sportspeople are adored by the public, enjoy excellent facilities and can travel the world, they receive only a modest US$25 a month salary.
Despite lacking the resources of its richer neighbours, Cuba has become Latin America's Olympic powerhouse, winning 46 gold medals in Olympic history and finishing eighth in the 1996 Atlanta medal count.
Nevertheless, Cuba finds it difficult to defend itself against the lure of the enormous wealth offered to elite athletes in the West and several of its top sportspeople have defected. "It is absolutely unfair that the rich countries — based on their economic capacity, offers of scholarships or gifts, conditions of life and other elements — take away the sporting talents of the poor nations, just as they rob the scientific brains", Fernandez said.
"It is sad to witness the original, noble ideals of the Olympic Games being tainted with corrupt commercialism. If Cuba accedes to the Spanish Sports Federation demand, those proudly representing their countries in the competition will no longer carry any meaning and victory will depend on simple economic power", an editorial broadcast by Radio Havana Cuba stated.
"Winning an Olympiad by buying athletes as if they were racehorses is denigrating for both the athletes that accept such a trade and their opportunist human negotiators", the station added.
Fernandez revealed that Cuba would maintain a similar stance in the cases of two other defectors: canoeist Angel Perez, who wants to compete for the US, and water polo player Ivan Perez, who wants to represent Spain.
Morocco has taken a similar stance against a request from the French Sports Federation to allow three former Moroccan athletes to represent France in Sydney.