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• 07 / 18 / 2008

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The fanatics were upset due to the hard setback on Sunday. But the word says it all: fa-nat-ics!

They forget that our team is now in South Korea, a country where we do not even have an embassy. There, our athletes continue to train.

Anyway, they are not the ones who deserve the strongest criticisms. They will be taking part in the Olympic Games that will be held on the other side of the world, where sleeping hours and life pace are different. They have an intense program of physical training with a view to the last presentation of this sport at the Olympics, as determined by the rich and powerful masters of such games. They have not been defeated. Let’s not discourage them. Let’s send them a message of encouragement.

Why don’t we wait until the conclusion of the Olympiads to engage in a full and truly democratic discussion on the responsibility of everyone involved in Cuban sports?

We dazzle our people with descriptions of sport successes and promises but then we don’t even dare publish the names of those who betray their homeland and sell off to the enemy. Our bureaucratic style in the education of our sportspeople seems to run high on science and low on conscience, even though sports are socially vital and our objective should not be glory or gold medals but our people’s physical and mental health. How it hurts when some of them sustain injuries related to sport drills or accidents, as in the case of Pedro Pablo Perez! The painful accident that keeps him on the verge of death is also impacting on a great Olympic promise, his companion Yoanka Gonzalez.

Let’s not forget Ana Fidelia’s exploits.

Despite adverse circumstances, our athletes shine for their human and patriotic virtues. Not even one out of ten morally yields to the torrent of offers they receive from a world full of greediness, vices, drugs, doping and consumerism, one where our homeland shines as an example hard to imitate.

We should never allow the traitors to come visit the country showing off the luxury obtained through infamy. Let’s blame ourselves for that.

Fidel Castro Ruz, July 16, 2008, 4:21 p.m.

(Juventud Rebelde)