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The Kid Chocolate Multi-Purpose Hall in Havana, which for years served as a training facility for athletes and hosted national and international competitions in a large number of disciplines, is now completely in ruins, awaiting transformation into a hotel.
The venue, which had a capacity of 3,840 seats, presents a pitiful sight with its stands, bleachers, and other areas completely destroyed.
A report from the weekly publication Trabajadores shows the dissatisfaction of the staff and teaching personnel at the facility, who claim that overnight they had to move to the Ramón Fonst Polivalente, without anyone providing any explanation.
"I was officially informed in November 2018 that we had to leave; but the 'noise' had been going on for a while," revealed Alexis Valdés Domech, who has dedicated 46 years to physical culture and has been the director of the venue for five years.
Porfirio González, deputy director of events, reported that the workers themselves had to take care of dismantling the offices, the wrestling mat, and the judo mat.
"In that move, a truck from the province helped out, coming two or three times, but it wasn't enough. So we had to manage on our own. There are still things from the SKC that haven’t been brought over because we got tired of paying for it out of our own pockets and asking for favors," she reported.
For his part, José Martínez Cedeño, the top representative of sports in the capital, stated that he presented several arguments to avoid losing the facility, but the measure had been under consideration for three years. The government wanted to build a hotel there because "in the center of the capital, there are tourism investments, and a facility of this type doesn't fit in."
The transfer to the Fonst has not exactly been successful. It is a facility that underwent two health inspections in February and March, during which they were prohibited from holding events. According to its director, Isidro Paterson, “there are no conditions for all sports, although most have been reinstated and relocated. There is no water anywhere here, and repairs have been underway since 2017.”
The practice of sports has already been affected. The transportation of equipment finished in March, thanks to the help of the athletes' parents. Some disciplines are training on concrete floors.
Fredie Herrera, coach of the Habana futsal team, expressed regret that his players had no venue to play in for several months. Furthermore, they lost the court they had at Kid Chocolate, as it was cut up with a chainsaw and cannot be repaired. It was the best one in Cuba.
"We have always had provincial championships, but the youth tournament was suspended. This discipline is very popular. Only in May were we given an opportunity to train at the Fonst," he added.
Other affected sports include handball and judo. While the handball players have lost the venue for all their events and now their national team must practice at Cerro Pelado, on a problematic court, the judokas have been assigned a location at Fonst that lacks basic conditions and floods whenever it rains.
"We don't have weights, the mattress is practically on the floor, and although it has improved somewhat, it's still not ideal," complained judoka Joel Erasmo.
Coach Domech feels a pang of nostalgia every time he walks down Prado Street. “I witnessed the birth of that facility because I was the first director of the Baraguá Swimming Complex. The sense of belonging, responsibility, and love for the sport are the reasons for my life. I always thought we were going to be given a space or that another multipurpose hall would be built, because we keep losing more facilities, and the SKC operated from Monday to Monday. After the Latinoamericano Stadium, it was the facility that generated the most revenue,” he added.
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