A video published on Thursday on the Facebook profile of Ayer y Hoy showed the significant deterioration of the swimming complex at the Manuel "Piti Fajardo" sports school in Santiago de Cuba, where weeds, cracked tiles, and an empty Olympic-sized pool highlight years of neglect.
The images garnered over 25,000 views and more than 200 comments, many from former athletes who trained at the facility and expressed their pain and outrage at the current state of the place.
The complex featured at least three pools: one measuring 50 meters, another designated for water polo, and a diving tank with a springboard. For decades, its facilities were used to train swimmers, divers, and synchronized swimming athletes who later became part of national teams and triathlon selections.
"I used to train in the 50-meter pool; it was my favorite. It's painful; my son also studied there, and the kids from the school play ball inside," wrote a former athlete.
Another former student, who claimed to have made it to the national diving team, recalled the significance that pool had in his sporting life. "That pool was my girlfriend; it taught me how to swim, and thanks to it, I found my way to stay in Spain," he remarked.
A former water polo player also reacted, stating that he witnessed the construction of the complex and recalled that it was in that pool where he first managed to swim the 100 meters freestyle in under a minute. "It feels sad to see this," he wrote.
The level of degradation led another user to even question the description used to present the images. "That's not on the way to total destruction; that's completely destroyed," he stated, before suggesting that it might be more viable to build a new complex than to recover the existing facility.
Other comments highlighted the difficulty of replacing such infrastructure. "Not all provinces have a tank for diving, and even fewer have one of that size. I doubt they can recover it," noted another user.
The reaction of the former athletes highlights the loss of a space that was linked to sports training in Santiago de Cuba for decades, which is now shown in images marked by decay and neglect.
"Sports are a right of the people. Those swimming pools don't matter, but the ones in the hotels do," summarized a citizen in the comments, capturing in one phrase the bitterness of those who witness how the government neglects the facilities that trained generations of athletes.
In 2022, the National Institute of Sports, Physical Education, and Recreation acknowledged that only 27 out of 273 pools across the country were operational, a mere 9.8% of the total. The trend nationwide is a worsening of the situation.
The Río Cristal recreational complex in Havana has been reported with empty pools and rusty diving towers, and the Holguín Sports Ateneo with pools filled with putrid water.
In Santiago de Cuba, the deterioration of public infrastructure has accelerated in recent months. The Dream Park closed the summer with attractions shut down and a nearly empty zoo, the fair in the José Martí district was completely dismantled, and the former Hotel Venus has become an open-air garbage dump.
Hurricane Melissa, which struck in October 2025, affected more than 95,000 homes and around 2,000 state facilities in the province, exacerbating a pre-existing situation of structural deterioration.
Filed under: