Behind Mijaín López’s feat, the reasons for a fall – L’Express

He did. On August 6, Cuban wrestler Mijaín López won his fifth consecutive Olympic gold medal against Chilean Yasmani Acosta in the 130 kg final. An unprecedented performance in the history of the Olympics and an unforgettable moment for Herradura, a small town in western Cuba where the colossus is from. That evening, as the fight was ending, the crowd went wild in the stands of the Arena Champ-de-Mars. López, for his part, got down on one knee. He unlaced his shoes, kissed them, lifted them above his head and then put them back down. He would no longer need them. At almost 42 years old, the champion was retiring. This moment will undoubtedly go down in the annals of the Olympics. But for Havana, it is likely that the memory of these Paris 2024 Games will still carry a hint of bitterness.

With its six medals, including two gold, the Caribbean island should be able to achieve its goal of being among the top twenty-five countries in the Olympic rankings. But Cuba, a historic sports nation, has seen the big picture. Since its incredible breakthrough at the Barcelona Games in 1992, which earned it entry into the Top 5, it has never managed to repeat the feat. On the contrary, despite some great victories, the island has continued to fall in the rankings, Olympic Games after Olympic Games, going from 11th in 2004 (Athens) to 19th four years later in Beijing. It has subsequently fluctuated between 16th, 18th and then 14th in 2021. More surprisingly, this year, in some of its lucky disciplines such as judo, the country has not won any titles.

Another cruel symbol: Yasmani Acosta, Mijaín López’s Chilean opponent in the final fight, was actually born in Cuba and trained with him for years before defecting in 2015, due to lack of opportunities, to join Chile, where he obtained citizenship. On the communist island, athlete escapes are common. There were seven at the London Games in 2012 alone, and a dozen at the Pan American Games in October 2023. This year again, Cuban judoka Dayle Ojeda, who was part of the preparation team for athlete Idalys Ortiz, vanished shortly before the opening ceremony. In total, no fewer than 21 Cubans have competed at these Games under other flags (including the Refugee Olympic Team). A serious snub for the island, which sent only 62 athletes, its smallest Olympic delegation since… 1964, in Tokyo.

Economic crisis

“It’s not only indicative of the state of sport in Cuba, but also of the seriousness of the socio-economic crisis that the island is going through,” explains Robert Huish, associate professor of international development studies at Dalhousie University (Canada) and an expert on the Cuban case. For years, the island has been grappling with an economic crisis that has included, among other things, the tightening of the 1962 embargo under Trump (it had been relaxed under Barack Obama), the drying up of Russian imports due to the sanctions that the country has been subject to since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and finally the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Cuba, faithful to the “internationalist” doctrine inherited from the Castro years, had “invested a lot in helping its southern allies. But they have had difficulty returning the favor in terms of financial support because of the crisis,” summarizes Robert Huish.

Since 2021, nearly 500,000 Cubans have reportedly left the island (5% of the population), including many athletes. “Everything an athlete needs to progress is increasingly lacking in Cuba,” explains Camille Morata, a sports historian and visiting lecturer at the University of Montpellier. “A crisis means shortages, and a shortage means malnutrition. But a top athlete cannot afford to have deficiencies. Not to mention all the budget cuts in the sector, which make training conditions very difficult.” In 2023, several championships and sports competitions were suspended due to lack of resources, including the U23 baseball championship, Fidel Castro’s favorite sport that has become a national discipline… In recent years, several athletes have even resold their medals for a few thousand dollars. This is the case of the taekwondo champion at the Sydney Games (2000), Ángel Valodia Matos, or Yasmany Lugo, wrestler who won a silver medal in Rio in 2016.

Castro’s cumbersome legacy

The time when some Cuban athletes would turn down astronomical sums to turn professional seems like an eternity ago. In the 1990s, three-time Olympic boxing champion Félix Savón refused the twenty million offered by Don King, Mike Tyson’s promoter. “I will never exchange the love and affection of my people for all the millions in the world,” he explained. It must be said that since coming to power, Fidel Castro has established sport as a “people’s right”, by creating the National Institute of Sport, Physical Education and Recreation (Inder), and by nationalizing all sports clubs. By decree, the leader also banned professionalism in sport, which, according to him, enriched “a minority at the expense of many”. Many athletes thus had a bread-and-butter job alongside their sporting activity. “Cuban athletes have always been caught between this national ideal and the desire to progress in professional teams abroad, where they would have been better paid,” explains Robert Huish. “But today, leaving Cuba is no longer a question of personal ambitions. It is a question of survival.”

“Thanks to his charisma, Castro had managed to anchor the communist ideal in the minds of athletes. But since his death, the new generations are less politicized and more inclined to sell their talents abroad,” adds Camille Morata. Not to mention that many NGOs have raised the alarm about the human rights situation on the communist island. Even Havana’s attempts to open up have proved ineffective. Several years ago, the totem of Castro’s version of “amateurism” in sports was relaxed. “This has not prevented many athletes from fleeing, firstly because it does not solve the problem of the economic crisis, secondly because it does not concern all sports, and finally because even with this, the nature of the relations between the Cuban regime and certain countries such as the United States can be a hindrance to the recruitment of athletes by foreign teams,” Robert Huish explains.

Russian “ally”

Cuba, isolated, cannot rely on its Russian “ally” to get back on its feet. Until its breakup, the USSR was one of the island’s major sporting partners. So much so that many Cuban athletes have gone through Soviet training, like the boxer Teófilo Stevenson, triple Olympic champion, or the athlete who won two Olympic gold medals, Alberto Juantorena. Even Alcides Sagarra, who was the coach of the Cuban national boxing team (considered the father of Cuban boxing) was trained by coaches from the USSR. But today, the situation has changed.

Russia, subject to significant international sanctions since its invasion of Ukraine and banned as a nation from the Paris Olympics, has certainly revived its relations with its historic partner. In 2022, the two countries announced that they wanted to strengthen their “strategic partnership”, going so far as to sign a sports cooperation agreement the following year. But it is an understatement to say that, so far, the partnership seems to have benefited the Russian side more…

Cuba has thus participated in events such as the Future Games, a competition held in February in Kazan, Russia, combining traditional and virtual sports, or the BRICS Games, a sort of Potemkin Olympics held in June in the same city. Meanwhile, Cuban sports infrastructure is still as dilapidated as ever, and the crisis continues. But while the recent Kazan Games could have given rise to absurd scenes, with Russian athletes winning gold medals alone on the podium due to a lack of competitors, in Paris, Mijaín López offered his audience a legendary victory, fair and square, and a grand exit.