{"id":478662,"date":"2025-08-15T13:43:22","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T17:43:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/uncategorized\/abandonments-a-decades-long-problem-for-cuban-sport\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T13:43:22","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T17:43:22","slug":"abandonments-a-decades-long-problem-for-cuban-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/sports\/abandonments-a-decades-long-problem-for-cuban-sport\/","title":{"rendered":"Abandonments, a decades-long problem for Cuban sport"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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<\/h1>\n\n\nLuque (Paraguay) (EFE).- The possible abandonment this week of four Cuban athletes from their concentration hotel in Asunci\u00f3n, main venue of the 2025 Junior Pan American Games, is the most recent episode of this kind of events that have occurred for more than three decades.\n\n\n

You may be interested in:<\/strong> President Abinader promulgates law declaring September 23rd of each year as “National Baseball Player Day” in honor of Osvaldo Virgil<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\nIn the early hours of the day in the Paraguayan capital, the Minister of the Interior of the South American nation, Enrique Riera, reported that his department is looking for four athletes from the island who participated in the Asuncion Junior Pan American Games, following a complaint from their delegation to the Police that the athletes did not return to their hotel since Wednesday and added that a case of abandonment of the team is presumed.\n\n“They haven’t yet taken any steps with Conare (National Commission for Stateless Persons and Refugees), but in principle that’s the assumption we have,” Riera told ABC Cardinal radio, referring to the entity that grants political refuges and asylums in the country.\n\nThe minister confirmed that, in any case, the search for the athletes has been activated.\n\nABC Cardinal reported that these are three rowers and a young woman from the handball team.\n\n\n

Baseball, the sport with the most dropouts in the past<\/h2>\n\n\nMany of the nearly 800 athletes who have defected from Cuban sports delegations in recent decades have been members of the baseball teams that represent the island in different competitions.\n\n\n
\"Las
Fotograf\u00eda de archivo del jugador de b\u00e9isbol Aroldis Chapman, de los Medias Rojas de Boston. EFE\/Miguel Sierra<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\nAmong the most famous defections in Cuban baseball<\/a> are Ren\u00e9 Arocha, Aroldis Chapman, Yoenis C\u00e9spedes, Jos\u00e9 Abreu and Orlando \u2018El Duque\u2019 Hern\u00e1ndez, who escaped from Cuba on a raft in 1997.\n\n\n

Boxing has also been greatly affected<\/h2>\n\n\nCuban boxing, which has produced figures like the legendary Te\u00f3filo Stevenson, has also suffered the impact of this particular phenomenon.\n\nFigures like Guillermo Rigondeaux, Odlanier Sol\u00eds, Yuriorkis Gamboa, Yan Barthelemy, Andy Cruz, Yoenlis Hern\u00e1ndez and Osvel Caballero are seen among the names who have left the Cuban ranks for different motivations.\n\n\n
\"Las
Fotograf\u00eda de archivo del boxeador Guillermo Rigondeaux (d), de Cuba. EFE\/Kena Betancur<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Other sports impacted<\/h2>\n\n\nWith a view to the London 2012 Olympic Games, the dropouts affected the Cuban teams so much that they could not qualify for the competition in the British capital.\n\nIn the case of athletics, elite athletes such as Jordan D\u00edaz and Yulenmis Aguilar -who acquired Spanish nationality-, Pedro Pablo Pichardo -naturalized Portuguese-, Andy D\u00edaz -Italian- and Yaim\u00e9 P\u00e9rez have decided to leave the island<\/a> for different reasons.\n\n\n
\"Las
Fotograf\u00eda de archivo de la atleta Yulenmis Aguilar, que proviene de Cuba pero representa a Espa\u00f1a. EFE\/Christian Bruna<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Paraguay and Abandonments from Other Countries<\/h2>\n\n\nThe South American nation has already been the scene in the past of abandonments of athletes from other countries.\n\nIn 2018, the Paraguayan rugby club San Jos\u00e9 stated that it had “sponsored” three Venezuelan players who decided to stay in the country and play for this team at the end of the South American under-20 championship that was played in Asunci\u00f3n between April 8 and 14, as explained to Efe by Gustavo Borgo\u00f1\u00f3n, director of the club.\n\nBorgo\u00f1\u00f3n highlighted that the three players “are already training” with the rest of their teammates as new members of the team, but that they still do not have the official registration to play matches due to their legal status in the country.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Luque (Paraguay) (EFE).- The possible abandonment this week of four Cuban athletes from their concentration hotel in Asunci\u00f3n, main venue of the 2025 Junior Pan American Games, is the most recent episode of this kind of events that have occurred for more than three decades. You may be interested in: President Abinader promulgates law declaring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":478663,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[662,611,40231,41186],"class_list":["post-478662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-cuba","tag-deultimominuto","tag-dominican-republic","tag-theperiodicodelatruth"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phj1q1-20wm","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/08\/Cuba-deporte1.webp","dum_api":{"author_name":"EFE","author_image":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/1200px-EFE_logo.svg-96x96.png","categories_name":["Sports"],"featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cdn.deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/08\/Cuba-deporte1.webp"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}