INDER: "The migration of athletes has affected us"

José Antonio Miranda, general director of High Performance of the National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation (INDER) admitted that the flight of athletes has significantly affected performance and winning titles in international competitions in the last year.

“The migration of athletes and coaches has affected us. 109 athletes stopped being with us in 2022, and in 2023 78, many of them with commitments to the Pan American Games,” said José Antonio Miranda this Tuesday in aRound table dedicated to the next Pan American Games, to be held in Chile from October 20 to November 5.

However, Miranda made the recognition after alluding to the “complex economic scenario” and the “blockade” as the main sources of the tough “challenges” of Cuban sports.

He was spurred on by Randy Alonso - who forced him to admit the drama of themigration- that Miranda ended up confessing that leaks are a problem for Cuban sports.

“That impact has been felt, that ‘campaign’ towards Cuba, yes, in relation to the emigration of athletes and coaches”said José Antonio Miranda between his teeth, who ended up putting figures on the table.

As a consequence of the massive and unstoppable flight of athletes, The delegation of 362 athletes (187 women and 175 men) that will travel to Chile will be “very young.”

For 62% of the Cuban athletes who will participate in the next Pan American Games, the experience will be their first time in an event of this type.

“This had not happened to us in previous cycles”, admitted the manager.

Cuba will also have a smaller participation in terms of the number of qualifiers who will compete, this time counting on 362 athletes. They are 58 less than the 420 who attended the previous onesLima Pan American Game, in 2019.

In this edition, the event calls for 425 events in 60 disciplines, of which 18 offer direct qualifications for the Paris Olympic Games.

Of that total, the Cuban delegation will only be present in 232 events, distributed in 36 categories.

“Cuba's main potential is between 18 and 22 gold medals. We will be working on that basis, although the scenario will decide to what extent we can fulfill that purpose.”, indicated Miranda, who anticipated that the first medal expected is that of Arlenys Sierra.

In recent months, a growing number of athletes from the most varied disciplines broke ties with the Cuban sports system.

Only in the last seven days, the escape of the ballplayers has already emergedYobanys Millan andFranky Quintana, who left a sports delegation in Mexico and Puerto Rico, respectively.

Added to this is the news of the recent arrival to the United States, apparently through immigration, of thetriple jump athlete Davisleidys Lupe Velazco Fernández.