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Cuban television will broadcast the Olympic Games of Paris 2024.

Telerebelde will be on the air 24 hours a day between July 26 and August 11. The Educational Channel will also be enabled exceptionally, but before that, the Eurocup and the Copa America of soccer will arrive. What about blackouts?

Juegos Olímpicos © X/COI
Olympic GamesPhoto © X/COI

After the recent announcements about the broadcasts of the Euro Cup and Copa America soccer tournaments during a period marked by daily blackouts across the country, Cuban Television officially announced that it will also offer coverage of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Sports commentator and narrator Pavel Otero, one of the spokespeople for the officialism on the screens, was once again in charge of announcing the news on his Facebook page on the social network.

Cuban Television reports that the Paris 2024 Olympic Games will feature, as has been customary in recent years, 24-hour daily broadcasts through the Tele Rebelde Olympic Channel, starting from July 26th until August 11th," wrote Otero, who will be one of the special correspondents for the national press.

Facebook post by Pavel Otero.

Likewise, he added that "in case two important events for Cuba coincide, the Educational Channel will be enabled exceptionally."

It is striking that Otero himself was in charge of a strong critique of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for including two Cuban athletes in the Refugee Team (EOR) for Paris 2024.

In the sports segment of the television news, Otero criticized the decision of the IOC and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), who selected Fernando Dayán Jorge Enríquez, head of Tokyo 2020 in the 1000-meter double canoe, and Ramiro Mora Romero, weightlifting.

After providing a brief historical overview of the EOR, an idea that materialized in Rio de Janeiro 2016, the journalist asked a series of questions: "Did these two Cuban athletes participate in a war that separated them from Cuba? Are they persecuted because of the color of their skin or the religion they practice? Or were they expelled from Cuba due to their political beliefs?"

"We all know that this is not the case," he responded before continuing: "Therefore, the IOC and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees have modified, not to say manipulated, the original requirements and intentions for which this noble idea emerged to help refugee or persecuted athletes from around the world."

However, setting aside the double standard of Cuban media and some of its figures, the broadcast of football events and the Olympic tournament in France becomes excellent news for sports enthusiasts, although many actions are likely to be missed due to the lack of electricity, a recurrent issue that has been affecting the population for decades.

Currently, several areas are experiencing power outages of up to 20 hours a day, making normal life impossible. The blackouts are mainly due to the lack of investment and maintenance in the country's electrical infrastructure, as well as the dependence on imported fuels to generate energy.

Moreover, the President Miguel Díaz-Canel himself admitted in his new space on YouTube that there are no guarantees that the summer months will pass without disruptions in the electrical service.

Díaz-Canel reiterated what the Electric Union announced weeks ago, that power outages would increase due to the rise in maintenance work at the thermoelectric plants, in an effort to ensure service in July and August.

"We will have prolonged maintenance until the month of June in order to minimize the inconvenience of blackouts in the summer, especially in the months of July and August," stated the country's leader.

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