CUBA PROVES ITS CLASS IN BOXING
by Ronnie Nathanielsz
Cuba has once again proved its class in amateur boxing at the Beijing Olympic Games.
Hounded by defections of five of its best boxers in the last one-and-a-half years most pundits believed the Cubans didn’t have the time to recover and they would be hard-pressed in Beijing to repeat their previous performances.
But the Cubans have stunned the non-believers by proving once again that when it comes to amateur boxing they have no equal.
In a report on its boxing site, Super Sport noted that in December 2006 Odlanier Solis, who had won the heavyweight title in Athens in 2004, as well as three world titles, and fellow Olympic gold medallists Yan Bartelemy (light-flyweight) and Yuriorkis Gamboa (flyweight) all went missing.
Six months later double Olympic and twice world champion bantamweight Guillermo Rigondeaux and 2005 world champion welterweight Erislandy Lara both went on the run after the Pan-American Games in Venezuela.
Despite these setbacks which many thought unsurmountable eight of the ten Cubans have qualified for the semifinals in Beijing on Friday and all ten are guaranteed medals.
No other country in the Beijing Olympics has come anywhere near the Cubans and head coach Pedro Roque has every reason to be proud.
Roque was quoted as saying how hard it was at times “for the Cuban people to believe how difficult it is to build a team after so many defections only one year before the Olympics. Now we are proud of our results and we can already say that we’ve made it.”
He paid tribute to his boxers saying “I admire the discipline and the camaraderie in this team because when we work as a team we got good results.”
Roque then provided a clue which the Philippines following another dismal performance should remember. He said “We have a very scientific approach. They’re very young, they’re a new team but they have been through a lot of international fights at the Pan-American Games.
“They may be young but they have a lot of experience and they train very hard. The winning factor is that they do a lot of physical training but also a lot of psychological work.
“I believe we have opened the door to the medals. I’m very excited and proud of all my fighters. Cubans have a boxing culture. We have a very strict training system.”
Super Sport reported that while Roque praised the fighters, they in turn put their success down to him.
The latest two to qualify for the semi finals were Andris Laffita at flyweight and Emilio Correa at middleweight. After his victory over Puerto Rican McWilliams Arroyo 11-2, Laffita said “We have a winning atmosphere because we’re all winning. We had an excellent preparation because our coach is the best in Cuba.”
