Fidel Castro on Wednesday blasted the "rich and powerful masters" of the Olympics for dropping baseball from the Games' schedule beginning in 2012, and said two recent defeats to the US doesn't mean Cuba can't still win gold in Beijing.
In a brief but confusing essay, the ailing, 81-year-old former Cuban president talked about the “thundering indignation of the fans because of Saturday’s hard defeat.”
He was apparently referring to Cuba’s 4-1 loss to the US on Sunday, during the championship game of the 24th Haarlem Baseball Week in the Netherlands.
That loss came after the US topped Cuba in the World Cup final in November.
Cuba has nevertheless won three of the four Olympic gold medals since baseball became a medal sport in 1992 — settling for silver only in 2000, when it was upset by the US.
Castro wrote that the latest incarnation of the national team has “not been defeated.”
“We haven’t given up on them,” he wrote. “We send them a message to raise their spirits.”
He went on to suggest that jet lag could hurt Cuba’s chances at the Beijing Games, stating that members of the national team, “do not deserve major criticisms if something does not go right.”
“They are going to the Olympic Games, which will be played on the other side of the world, where sleeping patterns and the rhythm of life changes,” he wrote.
Baseball will not be on the Olympic program in 2012, though officials are hopeful it could return in the future.
Castro said the Cuban team has “all eyes on the last appearance of their sport in the Olympics, because that’s what the rich and powerful masters of the Games have decreed.”
He also said he wasn’t counting Cuba out, and seemed to be urging nervous baseball fans all over the island to do the same, writing “why don’t we wait until the end of the Olympics before discussing at length, and in a democratic way, the responsibility of all those who are involved in Cuban sports.”
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
Taiwanese badminton superstar Lee Yang broke down in tears after publicly retiring from the sport on Sunday. The two-time Olympic gold medalist held a retirement ceremony at the Taipei Arena after the final matches of the Taipei Open. Accompanied by friends, family and former badminton partners, Lee burst into tears while watching a video celebrating key moments in his professional sporting career that also featured messages from international players such as Malaysia’s Teo Ee Yi, Hong Kong’s Tang Chun-man, and Indonesia’s Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan. “I hope that in the future when the world thinks about me, they will
Former Formosa Dreamers player Ilkan Karaman was killed in a traffic accident in Datca, Turkey, Turkish media reported yesterday. He was 34. The former Turkish national team player was reportedly hit by a car, the driver of which was allegedly drunk, while he was standing on a sidewalk, Turkish newspaper Sozcu reported. Karaman and his friends were on their way to the beach town of Dalaman to go scuba diving when they stopped at a gas station to buy gasoline, it reported. Karaman was hit by the car while waiting on a sidewalk as his friends were buying gasoline, it
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later
RSS