The former volleyball player Abel Sarmientos Bios, a member of a generation that led Cuban volleyball to climb to the top positions in the world, passed away in Havana at the age of 61, immersed in poverty and oblivion.
Sarmientos was an extraordinary attacker for the national team for 14 years, from 1981 to 1994.
Born on July 22, 1962 in Camagüey, he won his first gold medal in 1981 at the Central American and Caribbean Games in Havana. He would repeat the same title in 1993.
He won the title in the 1989 World Cup, and that same year he also took home the silver medal at the World Championship. He also won silver at the World Cups in 1981 and 1991.
Three-time medalist in the Pan American Games, with two silver medals (Caracas 1984 and Indianapolis 1987) and one bronze (Mar del Plata 1995).
He was part of the team that attended the 1992 Olympics, where they finished in fourth place.
"At the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, we only lacked the medal. We had a team. The excitement and Olympic inexperience weighed on us. The same happened in the 1990 World Cup final against Italy. They studied us well throughout the year. They had the technology. They made precise analysis of each one of us. They played flawlessly," he remembered on one occasion.
According to the state agency Prensa Latina, Sarmientos retired in 1994 and later fulfilled several agreements for sports collaboration abroad. He also worked at the University of Physical Culture and Sports Sciences Manuel Fajardo.
The Italian press recalled his outstanding career as a forward for more than a decade and described him as a "proud opponent of the Azzurri (Italy's national soccer team)."
The end of his life was sad, as he himself stated in interviews with some sports websites in his country, reduced to poverty without any help from the sports structure of the Caribbean country, INDER, as reported by I Volley Magazine.
In September 2022, it emerged that Sarmientos was surviving by repairing shoes and working as a security guard in a pharmacy.
The former star athlete was complaining about the treatment he received in recent years from the National Institute of Sports, Physical Education, and Recreation (INDER), stating that rumors about him were spread there that greatly damaged his reputation.
"I am not a drunk, nor an alcoholic. I don't know where that came from. Anyone can have a drink. Many Cubans do it. Yes, I drink, but I'm not the one who does it the most. They have been lying about me for years," she declared to the newspaper Trabajadores, in which she bitterly recounted her situation.
I was on the national team for many years, with results, and then as a professor at the University of Sciences of Physical Culture and Sports. Can an alcoholic do that? They have never come to ask me or find out if I am a drunk. If I walk drunk down the street. I am convinced that this came from some who do not know me," he added.
Sarmientos then recounted that over 20 years ago he was assigned a car. "It broke down and they took away my fuel allocation. They said I had to take it to the Provincial Sports Directorate. How do I do that? Broken and out of gas. I know there are those who have made a profit with their cars. I have not. Who came to verify the condition of my car? Nobody," he denounced.
"Thanks to my family, I was able to move forward," stated the former volleyball player, who revealed that during his career he received offers to leave the country but chose not to go because his "fight" was there, on the Island.
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