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Dear
Randy:
I’m
sending this statement because you have also criticized our
baseball players.
I
learned today that they are very upset.
Fidel
Castro
July
16, 2008
4:26 pm
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. |
