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The Cuban national electronic sports team is competing in the regional qualifiers for the Central American and Caribbean Games "Santo Domingo 2026," which will be held from July 24 to August 8 in the Caribbean city.
In the MOBA mode -League of Legends-, the team consists of three athletes from Villa Clara, students of the Central University "Marta Abreu" of Las Villas (UCLV), along with teammates from Havana and Matanzas.
The institutional profile of UCLV on Instagram described the moment with enthusiasm: "Although the road is tough, it is a historic moment: the first steps of Cuban Esports in the Olympic cycle."
The Cuban League of Legends team competes under the name "Neon Gravestones" and is vying with other teams in the region for five available spots to qualify for the event.
Other Cuban representatives in the qualifiers include Sergio Pérez in eFootball, Alfredo "Mael-Bonchan" Osorio in Tekken, and Kimokatt in Just Dance.
The Central American and Caribbean Games Santo Domingo 2026 mark a regional milestone: it is the first edition in which esports are included as an official discipline with real medals, surpassing the exhibition status they had at the San Salvador 2023 Games.
Behind this participation is the Electronic Sports Group of Cuba (ADEC), an organization that legally supports Cuban competitors through the Union of Computer Scientists of Cuba (UIC) rather than the INDER, highlighting the unconventional nature of this discipline within the Cuban sports system.
In December 2025, Javier Vidal, president of ADEC, stated in the magazine Juventud Técnica: "We will do everything possible to qualify as many disciplines as we can and, why not, dream of the possibility of returning with a medal as well."
ADEC closed 2025 with an expansion into provinces like Villa Clara, in collaboration with Joven Club, UIC, and INDER, and organized the First Electronic Sports Festival "Connecting Worlds" in that province, turning UCLV into an emerging talent hub.
Cuba's most recent competitive background in international esports was its participation in the first Pan American eSports Games, held in Santiago, Chile, in November 2023, where 12 Cuban competitors competed in Dota 2 and eFootball, although those medals did not add to the overall medal count as it was an exhibition event.
In April 2024, ADEC was admitted as an official member of the International Esports Federation (IESF), a step that opened the door to official international competitions and solidified the path towards participation in the regional Olympic cycle.
Cuba faces considerable technological challenges—frequent power outages and limited connectivity—that hinder online training and competition, making it even more significant that young Cubans have reached this qualifying stage.
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