The journalist and television presenter Carlos Hernández Luján, specialized in sports, released a damning diagnosis regarding the state of Cuban sports, highlighting a declining trend in the Central American and Caribbean Games, Pan American Games, and Olympic Games.
"The Cuban sports scene diminishes every four years, with fewer gold and silver medals overall. This has been a repeating trend for over 20 years," said during the first episode of the podcast Team Vívela published on YouTube on June 19, 2026:
"They are performances that should not improve, they should not surpass what was achieved in previous events. It may even be difficult to match them, and it may continue to decline, because migration within Cuban sports has continued, as important figures have either left or retired," the communicator noted.
Among the factors contributing to this decline, Hernández Luján listed the ongoing emigration of athletes, the retirement of historical figures, limited participation in international competitions, low domestic competitiveness, and reliance on national training facilities due to the country's economic constraints.
"Much of the sports pyramid in Cuba has been lost. A lot has disappeared precisely due to economic issues, which have been the foundation of the successes of the Cuban sports movement," he emphasized.
His words carry special weight in the context of the Central American and Caribbean Games Santo Domingo 2026, where Cuba is currently in third place in the medal tally with 16 gold, 16 silver, and 20 bronze medals as of July 29, still far from the official goal of at least 67 gold medals.
As the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games approach, the journalist was equally pessimistic: "I would say that at least tying, matching the last performance in Paris in general. I'm not just talking about gold; I'm talking about the podium, I'm talking about medals in general."
In Paris 2024, Cuba finished in 32nd place with only 2 golds and 9 medals, its worst Olympic result since returning to the Games in 1992.
"You were going to the Olympic Games because you were going to win a gold medal at the Olympics. That forecast is very difficult nowadays," lamented Hernández Luján, who identified boxing, wrestling, some track and field events, judo, taekwondo, and canoeing as the sports with the greatest chances of winning medals in 2028.
In the same episode of the podcast, the narrator Renier González —with over 25 years of experience— joined in on the criticism with an equally forceful statement about soccer: “We are in the worst moment of Cuban soccer”, pointing out the complete disconnect between the Federation and the press, the poor treatment of figures like former captain Arichel Hernández, and a deficient communication strategy.
The numbers support both diagnoses. INDER acknowledged that 109 athletes left the sports system in 2022 and 78 in 2023.
In July 2026, nine of the 12 members of the Cuban canoeing team defected in Montreal during a competition leading up to the Central American Games, in one of the most notable episodes of the cycle.
"Unfavorable factors continue to emerge for a recovery and overall performance for Cuban sports in multiple events. It does not mean that there will be a dramatic fall, but neither should we expect an improvement," concluded Hernández Luján in an assessment that the very Mijaín López had already publicly supported in September 2025 by acknowledging the crisis in Cuban sports.
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