Former Olympic boxing champion Guillermo Rigondeaux has defected to the US, 18 months after he was kicked off the Cuba team as punishment for a previous defection attempt.
Farah Colina said on Tuesday her husband was out of professional options and had no choice but to try again to flee Cuba.
“I’m surprised on one level because he left home at the end of January saying he was going to Santiago,” Colina said, referring to the eastern city that was Cuba’s second largest. “But, on another level, I think he was obligated to do this.”
During an interview at the home in Havana’s Boyeros district that she shared with Rigondeaux, the couple’s seven-year-old son and her 17-year-old boy who the boxer raised as his stepson, Colina said her husband called a neighbor on Saturday to say he made it to Miami.
The family does not have a phone.
She declined to give details about his journey to the US, but said Rigondeaux sounded both happy and nervous on the phone.
Luis de Cubas, an agent for Arena Box Promotions in the US, confirmed 28-year-old Rigondeaux was in Miami and keen to fight professionally.
Rigondeaux won two Olympic bantamweight titles and hoped to try for a third at last year’s Beijing Games. But in July 2007 he and 2005 welterweight world champion Erislandy Lara disappeared during the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro. Both were arrested for overstaying their visas and sent back to the island.
Rigondeaux and Lara insisted they never intended to defect, but a German promoter said they signed pro contracts. Former Cuban president Fidel Castro wrote in an essay after their return to Cuba that the pair “had reached the point of no return” with the national boxing team. Lara defected to the US last year.
In an interview with The Associated Press in August, Rigondeaux insisted he deserved a second chance to box for Cuba. He called being arrested in Brazil an act of “great indiscipline.”
His wife said that after returning to Cuba, Rigondeaux continued to train for months but became increasingly depressed.
“He’d been destroyed for a year and a half, although he knew it was his fault,” Colina said. “But he always thought they would give him another chance. Those were very hard moments and nobody came to even offer him a job.”
Colina, a housewife, said she did not expect Cuban authorities to hold Rigondeaux’s defection against her.
The 2025 International Federation of Bodybuilding and Fitness (IFBB) Mr Universe Chinese Taipei competition began yesterday at Xinzhuang Gymnasium in New Taipei City, with more than 150 athletes showcasing their physiques. It is the first time in 16 years that the IFBB has held a competition in Taiwan, the last being the 2009 World Games in Kaohsiung. The professional bodybuilding contest is bringing together athletes from Taiwan and 16 other countries, including Malaysia, Japan, the US, France and Mexico. IFBB Chinese Taipei president Hsu An-chin said in an interview yesterday that the event came to Taiwan thanks to his lobbying efforts at last
Top seeds Alexander Zverev of Germany and American Coco Gauff on Tuesday advanced to the third round of the Canadian Open after both players were pushed hard by their opponents. World No. 3 Zverev, playing in his first match since his first-round loss at Wimbledon, was far from his best, but emerged with a 7-6 (8/6), 6-4 win over Adam Walton under the lights in Toronto. Momentum shifted firmly in Zverev’s favor when he won a 52-shot rally in the first set tiebreak and he sealed the win on a double fault by the Australian in the second set. “It was a very
Cycling great Marianne Vos won the opening stage of the women’s Tour de France with a brilliant late attack on Saturday. The 38-year-old Dutchwoman overtook her Visma–Lease a Bike teammate Pauline Ferrand-Prevot approaching the line, and then held off Mauritian rider Kim Le Court in the closing meters of a grueling uphill finish. Ferrand-Prevot looked set to win the stage, but the Frenchwoman attacked too early from 600m and could not withstand the late surge from Vos, who punched the air with her left fist as she crossed the line. Moments later, Vos hugged an exhausted-looking Ferrand-Prevot, the Paris-Roubaix winner. “I didn’t know if
TAIWANESE EXITS: Fellow Australian Christopher O’Connell joined Tristan Schoolkate as a winner following his 6-1, 6-2 defeat of Tseng Hsin-chun Australian qualifier Tristan Schoolkate on Monday dispatched rising Brazilian talent Joao Fonseca 7-6 (7/5), 6-4 at the ATP Toronto Masters, ensuring a breakthrough into the world top 100. The 24-year-old from Perth moved to 98th in the ongoing live rankings as he claimed his biggest career victory by knocking out the ATP NextGen champion from November last year. Schoolkate, son of a tennis coach, won his first match over a top-50 opponent on his sixth attempt as he ousted the world No. 49 teenager from Brazil. The qualifier played a quarter-final this month in Los Cabos and won through qualifying for his
RSS