Puig: Cuban boxing will have strong impact in both the Pan American and Olympic Games

The so-called Cuban sports flagship, boxing, has the goal to contribute with a lot of medals at the upcoming Pan American Games to be held in Santiago de Chile.

This year, the Cuban boxing storms into Chile with the disappointment of not having performed well at the Central American Games held in San Salvador. However, the president of the Cuban Boxing Federation, Alberto Puig, is confident in Cuba’s return to the golden path. Regarding to the performance in San Salvador, he talked exclusively to CubaSí:

“Arlen lost ahead of schedule. And I believe one fight was not judged properly, that of Erislandy Álvarez, and the Cuban people could witness that fight. If these two results would have been different, we would have met our pre-competition goal of four gold medals. Let’s remember that we had four rookies on the Central American team.

We were not happy with the two losses and with Saidel Horta too, who had recently achieved the silver medal in the World Championship and lost in the first fight. (Fernando) Arzola was not regarded as a gold medalist and stunned everyone else but us, as we know about his potential, even though we are not pleased with the results. So we have taken care of business so things turn out differently in the upcoming Pan American Games.

I also want to highlight the performance of the women’s team. Our young women had only trained for six months and it was the first time they face such a major competition, since the ALBA Games show a low level. Nations with more a decade of experience could not boast any finalist in the competition and we had one. It was a noteworthy outcome, a feat for Cuban women.”

There are some divisions with no clear representative for upcoming events. How will you decide?

After three friendly sparring, we will decide the ones who will compete in Chile as there is strong rivalry in every division. We want our seven representatives to win medals, and some may even qualify for Paris 2024 since the two finalists will reach that goal. Here, the division is awarded with the qualification, not the boxer, and we want to take to Paris the athletes in better sporting shape at that time.

For instance, Arlen is training really hard (he even trained the same day he lost) since he knows it was a disappointment and wants his gold medal in the Pan American Games and Lazarito Álvarez, who did not compete there, you have all seen how well is doing.

What is the expectation for the women’s team?

In the case of women, two of them qualified for the Pan American Games in Chile (57kg and 75kg) and we paid for one more. They will likely be the three medalists from San Salvador. One of them, for instance, 57kg, grants four qualification tickets to Paris 2024 and we strongly believe we can win one of them. The rest of the girls needs to earn it by reaching the finals, same as men. The drawing is key here. They are training very well. But there are experienced boxers in the region.

Can we state that San Salvador was only a slip-up?

We are pretty sure that the Cuban boxing will have a strong impact in both the Pan American and the Olympic Games.

Translated by Sergio A. Paneque Díaz / CubaSí Translation Staff