Cuban Sports Affected by US Blockade

By: Francisco Mastrascusa
Email: mastrascusa@juventudrebelde.cu

On October 28, Cuba will present a resolution against the US blockade of Cuba that will be voted on by the UN General Assembly.

A small part of the document that Cuba will present is a detailed analysis of the damages suffered in the sector of sports between May 2008 and April 2009.

Sports in Cuba is considered a right of the people and as such is heavily subsidized and promoted by the government. The US is one of the major producers of sports equipment, but Cuba cannot import any of their products and thus must import them at a much higher cost.

Other sectors that are acutely affected are Sports Medicine and the National Anti-doping Program. For example the Cuban Anti-doping Lab in Havana, approved by both the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the World Anti-doping Association (WADA), has to spend more money to buy reagents and reference samples used in testing, and for equipment and parts. In the one year period that was analyzed, the program was negatively affected at a cost of US$ 781,000.

Other increased costs over that period are for example in importing baseballs. Instead of buying baseballs from the US, Cuba is forced to buy them from Japan. For one season of the National Baseball League the country paid an increase cost of US$ 90,000 for baseballs alone!

The numbers speak for themselves. And these are just specks of dust in the overall picture of damages caused by the US blockade against Cuba.

Taken from the web site(www.juventudrebelde.co.cu)