US blockade limits sports development in Cuba

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Cuba

Sports

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17 February 2021

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Havana, Feb 17 (Prensa Latina) The US blockade today limits the progress of sports in Cuba, whose economic losses amounted to nearly 10 million dollars between April 2019 and March 2020.

In a virtual event broadcast by the @SiempreConCuba platform on Facebook, Youtube and Twitter, the first vice president of the Cuban Sports Institute (INDER), Raul Fornes, affirmed that the extraterritorial policies of the US government force to take alternative routes to keep the flame of physical activity alive.

Fornes denounced that the island cannot access credits or state-of-the-art technologies in third countries, has difficulties to buy equipment and receives continuous refusals in visa applications.

According to official data, the INDER used a total of 9,995,585 dollars in additional expenses to obtain the necessary resources and ensure the practice of sports.

Our revolutionary sport suffers because of the blockade, said the director. It limits the development of our physical and technical-tactical capacities, sports medicine, training centers and the anti-doping center in Havana, he explained.

He also illustrated the situation with the national sport, baseball: On the way to the pre-Olympic Games in Arizona, United States, the team had to travel to Mexico to apply for U.S. visas, which caused an additional expense of 35,000 dollars.

Fornes clarified that if the interviews had been held in Cuba, the cost of the process would have been 7,200 dollars; he also reminded that the event was postponed due to Covid-19 and such expenses will have to be paid again when the event is rescheduled.