What’s Essencial is Recovering our Competitive Calendar both Domestic and International

Cuba knows how important it is to host international events, as well as rescuing the national competitive calendar in the different levels. Hence, despite the unpredictable plague of Covid-19 and practically two years of hiatus in which only the National Baseball Series took place, and some domestic competition, like the Playa Girón boxing match, Inder is trying to relaunch a very intense agenda at all levels in this 2022.

Especially when just around the corner of  2023, both the Central American and Caribbean Games in San Salvador and the Pan American Games in Santiago de Chile lurk, events for which Cuba will surely aspire to host a qualifying tournament.

With a scenario where coming events becomes somewhat more complex, and will surely be subject to the epidemiological situation that our country presents regarding the coronavirus, the director of programming and sports organization of Inder, Agustín Abril revealed that a total of 732 competitions are expected to be developed in the next 12 months, with the inclusion in that number of competitions like the military games and the Minint, the appointment for university students, and the one for workers (CTC), among others.

The official told the sports weekly Jit that:

“We have designed a calendar based on the number of events in recent years. These include, above all, the national championships and a group of provincial and international competitions that help prepare our athletes.

This idea may be expanded a little more, depending on the possibilities offered by the Cubadeportes S.A. Company, ready to seize any activity that is economically feasible and serves to provide quality shows to our people.”

We must be objective. The organization of sporting events goes through issues that on many occasions exceed infrastructural and logistical variables, although they are the most important, fundamentally knowing the tense situation of economic hardship our country is undergoing, and the not insignificant impact of the economic blockade imposed by the United States Government.

Emphasizing other contests that we’ll host in our territory, April avoided the 61 National Baseball Series; and the national boxing, wrestling, judo and athletics tournaments, as disciplines with the greatest thrust and which are principal in the development of our sports movement, in addition to being the core of our high performance pyramid.

The international arena also contemplates rescuing boxing matches, the International Granma-Cerro Pelado wrestling; the Judo Grand Prix; the Havana Triathlon, Marabana, some volleyball and others such as the Caribbean Table Tennis Championship”, said Abril, who also theorized on hosting the Modern Pentathlon Norceca, as well as leaving a window of possibility open for the Villa de La Habana fencing; the badminton Giraldilla, and perhaps in the long run a meeting of the Caribbean athletic circuit...

Implications and related elements for being a host

For Cuba, whether in the current scenario, or even before the presence of Covid-19, hosting international events, in my opinion, is positive. The first thing is to provide our national team athletes with a level of competition at home, corresponding to the category of the competition at hand. Logically, this would considerably reduce costs with respect to attendance at similar tournaments abroad, in addition to enabling the registration and chance to measure the levels of a greater number of teams, even in lower categories in almost all cases.

We are saying that at present being able to enter our athletes in international competitions has to be done with surgical precision. We are talking about longer and more expensive trips, due to the obligation to take other routes and stopovers; longer stay and higher costs in accordance with health protocols and medical examinations before, during and after any competition; troublesome situations in many cases associated with visa issues.

A fresh example was the decision not to attend the Wrestling World Cup that took place in Oslo, Norway, between October 2-10, after allocating the largest volume of Inder's annual budget to the preparation and presence in the Olympic Games of Tokyo.

Yes, sometimes our sports movement, bridging the gap, moves its cash carefully. Subterfuge to redirect capital based on well-defined priorities and other maneuvers are part of the Inder's permanent puzzle.

All factors that consolidate the positive balance of acting as locals, in addition to the fact that economically being organizers of a prestigious competition, usually leaves some margin of profit, or money to go on developing the sport at hand or another more urgent one.

And here we don’t turn our backs on the situation that our infrastructure of stadiums and possible venues are going through, with international quality standards to assume the organization of a certain event. Only Havana, and few exceptions in facilities located in main cities of other provinces essentially have such requirements; a problem we must address urgently, in addition to shortcomings.

The core of not losing sight of the foundations of the pyramid

If in the elite level the matter of the development of athletes, and the features that grant being the hosts of contests of various kinds, is important, imagine this same scenario in lower categories, which later give athletes directly to the high performance and function as the foundation of our sports pyramid. Regarding this issue, Abril remarked that:

“The main Cuban sporting event has been and will continue to be the national school games, which begin in April with the pioneer cups. We have not carried them out for two years and we must rescue them once and for all with all the guarantees. This hiatus is going to have a severe impact on our sport and we must stop it now, for which it is necessary to keep the pandemic at bay.”

He said that “in April we must start with the pioneer cups, then we will have the youth games, in June, and July the school competitions. Those competitions are being prepared with all efforts. It’s urgent to save as much as possible of these generations struck by covid-19. We are sure that with the efficiency of our athletes and coaches, and with all the effort of the organization in logistics, we’ll be able to offer quality events”.

Work, that’s the word, anticipating every possible factor, making punctual and precise calculations, the most transcendental, controlling the Covid-19 pandemic and establishing the necessary health protocols... but, without losing sight of organizing events, expanding and provide another development scenario, with all that being locals implies, to our athletes.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff