Sport is Cuba’s national passion. Due to historical associations with the United States, many Cubans participate in sports which are popular in North America, rather than sports traditionally promoted in other Latin American nations. Baseball is by far the most popular; other sports and pastimes include football (soccer), basketball, volleyball, and athletics. Cuba is a dominant force in amateur boxing, consistently achieving high medal tallies in major international competitions. Baseball and boxing are the most popular sports in Cuba, the former being the national sport. Association football is commonly played as well.
The Cuban Sports Program
Post Revolutionary Cuba prides itself on its success in sports. What the Revolution has done for sports in Cuba can be summed up by the phrase “Sport for All.” Fidel Castro believes that sports should be “the right of the people,” not the right of the wealthy . He compared Pre-Revolutionary and Post-Revolutionary Cuba by explaining that while before only the wealthy could enjoy sports, now everyone can enjoy sports. He also explains that talent in sport comes from hard work, and a strong will. These are not traits the naturally wealthy have; rather these are traits that working class people have . In modern Cuban society, sport and physical education begin when a child is only 45 days old. The mothers are taught to exercise their children’s limbs and massage their muscles to keep them healthy. Children are taught at a later age to play games that resemble physical exercise . These ideas were the basis for the modern sports program in Cuba, and clearly it is working. Considering that Cuba’s population is only around 11 million (the size of just a couple US cities), Cuba has a demanding 7.5 to 0.70 lead against the US in the number of sports medals won per million occupants .In 1961, just two years after the triumph of the Revolution, The National Institute of Sport, Physical Education, and Recreation (INDER) was created . This was the governing branch of all sport and recreation in Cuba. It developed all of the current sports and education programs in place today, including the EIDE, which is the program that finds the naturally talented young adults and gets them into sports oriented secondary schools . All first and secondary schools in Cuba teach sport and physical education as a compulsory subject. There are five sports taught in all standard secondary schools: track and field, basketball, baseball, gymnastics, and volleyball. The students who excel at a certain sport usually find themselves competing in the Cuban summer Junior Olympics which is where the EIDE sees their talent and recruits them to a specialized school that caters to just their sport .Most of these specialized schools are located on the Isle of Youth. This is a 2,200 square kilometer island to the south of Cuba which has more than 27 of these schools, each having about 600 children who attend. The majority of them are semi-boarding schools where the students get on a boat to the island every Sunday evening and return every Friday evening . The schools are spread out across the island and have citrus groves in between them. Being consistent with the ideals of the Revolution, all of the students are required to put in 3 hours of work a day picking or canning fruit.
Every school in Cuba participates in the Junior Olympic Program established in 1963. However many of the standard secondary schools only compete in the sports for which they have teams, for instance most of them do not have pools. The competition usually commences in July. The games have a traditional ladder system where first local schools compete, then the district winners will compete and finally the regional winners will compete. However for team sports, the winning teams will move on, but the best players from all of the losing teams will form a new team and also move on. This way no single great player will be tossed out because of a bad team. As of 1978 the Cuban Junior Olympics involved 20 sports: Chess, Weightlifting, Athletics, Tennis, Football, Table Tennis, Basketball, Modern Gymnastics, Gymnastics, Synchronized Swimming, Swimming, Diving, Volleyball, Water Polo, Cycling, Fencing, Judo, Pistol Shooting, Baseball and Wrestling .
INDER has many programs, including the National Institute for Sports Medicine, the National Coaches program, and the National Physical Education Institute. All of these were developed during the relatively strong economic period of 1960-1990. The Special Period of the 1990s-2000s created many special challenges for INDER, including budget cutbacks and a limited amount of electricity causing blackouts. In the early 1990s, many of the night sporting events were canceled to preserve electricity .
By 2006 Cuba had ironed out many of the issues which had been created at the beginning of the Special Period. Cuba was again able to start up the night games in lieu of extra power generated from Fidel’s Energy Revolution. “We are not waiting for fuel to fall from the sky, because we have discovered, fortunately, something much more important: energy conservation” explains Fidel . Pre-Special Period Cuba’s population all had inefficient light bulbs, heaters, air conditioners and stoves. Nearly all of these old appliances were replaced with new efficient models that freed up much more electricity for the country and allowed the night sports games to continue.
Cuba’s new sports program also began to pay for itself when many of the best players were allowed to retire early and take up position on apposing countries teams. These other countries wanted to hire them because of Cuba’s fantastic success in training winning athletes. These players would earn a large salary, and about 80% of it would go directly to the Cuban government. The players would then pocket the other 20%, which was more than what the average Cuban in Cuba was earning. It is worthy to note that Fidel abolished professional sport in Cuba in the beginning of the Revolution. What this meant was that all leagues and teams are considered amateur. This concept was imbedded in the ideals of the revolution, that everyone should be equal. However this outflow of the best athletes and trainers began to take its toll. In 1997 Cuba ended its 10-year, 152-game, winning-streak at the baseball International Cup by losing to Japan 11 to 2 . To fix this problem, Cuba began to offer material incentives like houses and cars to the good players to keep them from playing for other countries . These offerings weren’t to completely prevent talented Cuban’s from leaving the country instead they were there to keep the system balanced. By the year 2007 there were 50 nations around the world who employed several hundred Cuban sports trainers and coaches . Boxing in Cuba
Aside from the traditional cockfighting and other gambling sports, along with baseball, boxing was one of the most popular sports in pre-Revolutionary sports Cuba.
It is still very popular on the island today. By 1992, there were over 16,000 boxers on the island. Across Cuba today there are 494 boxing coaches and 185 facilities. Of the 99,000 athletes in Cuba currently, 19,000 are boxers, including 81 of Olympic competence, even though only 12 make the Olympic team.History of Boxing in Cuba
Boxing originally arrived in Cuba as a tourist attraction mainly as championship bouts between North American Boxers during the high tourist season. In 1909 Havana had its first professional fight. In 1910 a Chilean named John Budinich established the first boxing academy in Havana. Two years later government banned boxing due to the violence on the streets between blacks and whites. Boxing matches had to go behind closed doors as it grew popular throughout the island. Despite the banishment of the sport at the time, for the lower classes, boxing constituted a possible ticket out of poverty as well as steady and reliable entertainment.
Recognizing this, on December 13, 1921 Cuba decided to give boxing another chance and legitimized boxing with the establishment of the National commission on boxing and Wrestling. The lift on the ban brought tourist dollars with the bouts. Years later a national boxing academy was established to train talented athletes. The next decade Golden Gloves amateur competition had also arrived.
By 1959, Cuba had six professional world champions who were considered to be the founding fathers of boxing as well national heroes of Cuba. These gentlemen included, Gerardo “Kid Gavilan” Gonzalez, Benny Paret, and Eligio “Kid Chocolate” Sardinas. In spite of the sport’s promise of prosperity, the Cuban boxers who earned a lot of money in the ring almost commonly died impecunious. Some boxers also had ties with the Mafia and other sources of corruption.
Cuba’s boxing reputation also drew foreign boxers as well, such as Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, Jess Willard, Joe Lois, Joe Brown, and Sugar Ray Robinson. Although Cuba had traditionally done well in professional boxing, it did not win an Olympic medal in boxing until after 1959 due to considerable resources being devoted to the development of athletes as a result of the Cuban revolution.
In 1960, the professional boxer Benny Paret won the world welterweight title, and headed a strong contingent of professional Cuban boxers who followed up their fifth place at the 1954 games (two medals) with a first place, a position they have held in all subsequent Central American Games. In the Pan American games, where the competition was stronger, Cuban boxers also performed well, particularly from the late 1960s onward. The high international standard of Cuba’s boxers was evident in the Olympic arena.
In 1961, along with other sports, the Revolutionary government banned professional boxing. However, Cuba has built a reputation in amateur boxing. At the 1962 Central American and Caribbean Games, Cuba won first place in boxing. Cuba’s first place in 1962 was based on four gold, two silver, and two bronze medals. In 1968, Cuba won two silver medals. At the 1980 Moscow Olympics, Cuban boxers swept the field, winning ten medals, six of them gold. By the 1982 Games, Cuba’s boxers were dominant, capturing all the gold medals. At the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, the Cubans outdid themselves, with seven gold and two silver medals.
By the 1980s, Cuban boxers were dominant in all major international amateur competitions, including the Olympics. From 1968 in Mexico City to Sydney 2000, Cubans have participated in seven Olympic tournaments, winning twenty seven gold medals, thirteen silver medals, and seven bronze medals for a total of forty seven—a number unmatched by any country. Cuba is the only country that can boast of two three-time Olympic Champions: Teofilo Stevenson and Félix Savón.
Cuba’s amateur boxing continued to prevail. In fact, at the 2001 world Amateur boxing championships Cuba won more gold medals than the rest of the world combined. At the 2000 Olympic games, Cuban Boxing was the most successful out of all boxing teams that entered, picking up four gold medals.
 Cuban Amateur Boxing System
Foreign influence contributed to the development of Cuban amateur boxing. Before Fidel Castro took power in 1959, Cuba’s achievements in amateur boxing were diminutive. Components of their boxing style were derived from American Professional Boxing. After the Revolution, Eastern European methodology replaced the American influences. Andrei Chervenko of the Soviet Union has trained Teofilo Stevenson and Europe’s Vasili Romanov has trained boxers as well.
The Cuban government used sport as a means of exhibiting the success of the new socialist government, and winning medals in international competitions became a high profile means of promoting the ideals of new Cuba. The Soviet Union sent experienced boxing coach Andrei Chervorenko to help develop Cuban fighters in order to assist its socialist brethren in their goals. Along with Cuba’s own Alcides Sagarra, Chervorenko helped develop a comprehensive national recruiting and training program based on the Soviet model. Alcides Sagarra became cuba’s boxing head coach in 1960 and then later passed on his position to Sarbelio Fuentes in 2001.
The Cuban amateur boxing system along with other sports programs start in grammar schools. Sports are considered a high priority in the Cuban education system and it’s there a potential athlete can be recognized. From the age of 12, talented youths are sent to specialized schools where they can focus on enhancing their skills. From there the young boxers train throughout a very competitive youth program. The ones that graduate from the program are sent to the top school in Wajay, where they train advanced drills and exercises. The support that the state gives is crucial to the advancement of the highly technical boxing program.
Amateur boxer Teofilo Stevenson who had won three Olympic gold medals in (1972, 1976, and 1980) has made many contributions to Cuba and Cuban boxing. He is equally known for his sportsmanship and with the UNESCO Pierre de Coubertin Fair Play prize in 1989. After retiring in boxing in 1986 he has served both in the Cuban parliament and as a vice president of the Cuban Boxing Federation.
After a career of fighting for their country most Cubans continue to stay in the sport, many as administrators or trainers. Through this way the knowledge and experience is passed down to the next generation of athletes.