The death of Cuban sports legend Hermes Julián Ramírez Limonta at the beginning of September was a pretext to rescue from oblivion an Olympic feat by Cuban athletes that young Cubans were not aware of: the first medal for Cuba's relay team at the Games; specifically in the 4x100 m event in Mexico 1968 and one of the two silver medals garnered by Cuban teams. It was also Cuba's best result on a short track at the Olympic level.
However, the memory of that feat also turned a light on how Ramírez Limonta had been disregarded and forgotten, treatment that he complained about less than a year earlier in an interview with the state media newspaper Trabajadores. His case is not unique. DIARIO DE CUBA offers a list of ten athletes who, after having glorified their country's name at international events, have been ignored by the government.
Hermes Julián Ramírez Limonta
Ramírez Limonta was a young world record holder in the 100 meters, an Olympic runner-up in the 4x100 m in Mexico in 1968, a multiple medal winner at the Pan American and Central American Games, and ... an international combatant. This last fact, which lacks any athletic merit, makes the retired athlete's complaints to the state media source Trabajadores, in December 2023, all the more striking.
"Attention to athletes in Cuba, for whom? For those who are here, or for those who no longer are?" the retired athlete asked seven months ago in an interview with Trabajadores. "Many people complain about my situation when they see me with my cane, standing in line to buy chicken. There is no adequate mechanism. A few years ago they gave us the CUC so that we could live a little more comfortably. When they made the change, they multiplied it by 24, and that's not enough for us today."
Ramírez Limonta was referring to the fact that, in 2013, the Cuban Government established the payment of a stipend in convertible pesos for Olympic, World Championship and Pan-American medalists. He was one of the beneficiaries of the measure, but with the "Ordering Task" these athletes receive sums in national currency at the old exchange rate of 1CUC/24 Cuban pesos, which is far from covering their needs.
Marisleysis Duharte Morell
No case on this list is as sad as that of the junior world javelin champion Marisleysis Duharte Morell.
This young woman won the World Youth Championship in Nairobi in 2017, with a throw of 62.92 meters, which was a record for the event. Earlier, at the Cuba Cup, she had thrown the javelin 65.44 m. That year, she and triple jumper Jordan Diaz, who was also crowned at the international event held in the Kenyan capital, were the most outstanding athletes in the category in the country.
In 2022, more than four years after she was diagnosed with scleroderma —a degenerative disease that mainly attacks the muscles and skin, and for which there is no cure— that ended her sports career, Duharte Morell expressed regret that no one remembered her.
"I've gone several times to government institutions in my province and my municipality, and I haven't been able to get them to help me with anything that I need, and I really need it. I have no help from any of the people I expected it from, or from the institution I belonged to," she stated two years ago in a Facebook post.
"In our country there is talk of human rights, but at this time I don't know where they are, because with the situation I'm in, I believe that I have the right to be better served. I have the right to be better treated, and I have the right to better care from the INDER (National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation), which was where I got sick, and from the Cuban Government, not for what I have contributed, not because I was a world champion, or a good athlete, but because, as a 'vulnerable' person, according to our Government, they are supposed to be helping us the most," she said then.
The lifetime stipend for Olympic, World Championship and Pan-American medalists —which is subject to delays and can be withdrawn from the athlete if he or she incurs engages in what the authorities consider acts of indiscipline— does not encompass the lower categories. Hence, Duharte Morell, a world youth champion, receives nothing for her achievements, and has to "pick up the crumbs that others leave me, simply due to the simple fact that I'm unwell, and can't fend for myself. No one cares about the condition I'm in, or whether I'm still alive or not," according to her words in 2022.
Two years later the young former athlete is "all right, if you can say that," she told DIARIO DE CUBA
"I'm receiving aid in the amount of 4,095 pesos, and that is the only thing I've received, because they agreed that (for) everything they gave in the municipality (they) would give me priory, but they haven't. Yes, modules have arrived, but they always say that I don't have a right to them," she complained.
Silvio Leonard
When we talk about Cuban athletics and, specifically, track, we must mention Silvio Leonard, who was a national record holder in the 100 and 200 meters, as well as a champion at the Pan American Games and the Central American Games, and a world and Olympic medalist.
In January of 2022 he complained that the attention paid to athletes in Cuba was "for a select few," in an interview with the state newspaper Trabajadores.
The sprinter criticized the fact that they demanded a twelve-year stay at a high performance center to receive the funding for having won an Olympic medal.
"Whoever decided that was never an athlete It's hard to stay that long. The first Olympic medal after the triumph of the "Revolution" belongs to Enrique Figuerola, who spent ten years," said the retired athlete two years ago.
Osvaldo Lara
Also in 2022, but in June, another Cuban sprinter, Osvaldo Lara, complained about the oblivion to which he had been relegated by the country's sports authorities, decades after having been a medalist at the Pan American, Central American and Caribbean Games.
He could not fulfill his dream of competing in the Olympics, despite the fact that in 1984 he had times in the 100 m that would have secured him a place in the Olympic final, due to Fidel Castro's decision that Cuba would not attend the Los Angeles event in solidarity with the USSR.
"They forgot all about me, after all those years on the national team," Lara complained in an interview with Trabajadores.
"The truth is, they don't come to see him," he says. "I went to the municipal administration for attention to athletes, but they did nothing. They've never come from the INDER. Or the National Athletics Commission," his wife said.
"Lara receives 700 pesos for one of his medals. He has no pension, because when he started with hypertension he got scared. He became desperate and asked to stop working. Then he had a stroke and, you see," she said.
Norberto Téllez
When talking about the men's 800 meters in Cuba, the name that comes to mind is Alberto Juantorena, a two-time Olympic champion. However, the national record holder since the Atlanta Olympics, when he clocked a time of 1:42:85 minutes and crossed the finish line in fourth place, is Norberto Téllez.
Téllez also won a historic silver medal in the 4x400 m relay in Barcelona in 1992, and was a world runner-up in 1997 in the 800 m, as well as winning multiple medals at the Pan American and Central American Games.
In February of 2023 Téllez told Trabajadores that he never saw any of the money from the competitions; he never asked for any, and they never gave him anything.
"I did it out of love, out of passion, desire," he said. His reward is a stipend that is not even enough to eke by.
Téllez was one of the athletes who benefited from the Cuban Government's decision to pay a stipend to Olympic and world medalists, but he actually saw his purchasing power drop due to the Ordering Task.
"I used to get 200 CUC, and now I get 4,800 pesos. They reduced the reward for what you had done in your career. With 200 CUC, it was enough for everything, but now you can't buy anything. What can you do with 4,800 pesos? What did they do? Are they really trying to help? Why don't they give me the money at the exchange rate or in MLC (Free Convertible Currency)? And nothing is done about the issue, which has been raised everywhere," said the national record holder in the 800 meters a year ago.
Margarita Skeet
At the beginning of last September news about the multiple-medal-winning basketball player at the Pan American Games, Margarita Skeet, caused shock waves. It was not her death, but rather the fact that, at age 74, the woman dubbed the "The Antillean Canyon" and "The Cyclone" decades ago, was surviving thanks to her neighbors' charity.
Skeet was selected among the ten best Cuban athletes in 1976, and again four years later, in 1980. She was instrumental in the national team's fifth place at the Moscow Olympics.
"Today she is residing in a very modest space in the capital municipality of Cotorro, where she ended her career as a coach," former referee and journalist Ramón Rodríguez wrote in September in a post on th"Holguín: The City We Want" Facebook group.
"This unfortunate situation, affecting an all-time great of Cuban sports, cannot continue to be allowed, because it is an affront to our ethical and moral values, towards a person who gave everything to make those four letters on the uniform shine at countless events, inside and outside our borders," added the journalist.
Ariel Hernández
Two-time Olympic boxing champion (Barcelona '92 and Atlanta '96) Ariel Hernández worked as a guard for an MSME, at least until December 2023, to supplement the funds he received for his two titles under the five rings, he told Trabajadores at the time.
"For being a two-time Olympic champion, I receive 7,200 pesos. That's not enough," he said then. "When I was at the top, they gave me everything. Now what? The blows in life hurt more than those in the ring!" said the two-time world youth champion (the first time at the age of 16) and two-time world champion at the highest level.
Abel Sarmiento
Former volleyball player Abel Sarmientos, a champion at the 1989 World Cup in Japan with the Cuban national team, and captain of the 1990 FIVB Championship in Brazil, died on July 12, at the age of 61.
In 2022, he told Trabajadores that he got by mending shoes and working at a pharmacy.
Félix Isasi Mestre
Cuban baseball legend Felix Isasi Mestre, who participated in 11 international events with the national team, boasted a batting average of .336, and was the star player in the final of the World Cup in Cartagena in 1976, has also been slighted by the country's sports authorities.
In February 2023 he told the regime's newspaper Girón that he felt neglected by Cuba’s institutions.
The former player explained that he occasionally went to different sports entities to ask for a response to his requests, but they always gave him the cold shoulder. "I no longer hide the ball. Now they hide it from me," he said at that time.
A year before that interview, Isasi had suffered transient ischemia and spent several days in the hospital. No one visited him except friends.
Ronaldo Veitía
The legendary judo coach Ronaldo Veitía, the man behind the success of the Cuban women's team at the Olympics and world championships for three decades, died in December 2022 at the age of 75.
His athletes won 24 Olympic medals, including the five titles won by Odalys Revé (1992), Driulis González (1996), Legna Verdecia (2000), Sibelis Veranes (2000) and Idalis Ortiz (2012).
In April 2022, in an interview with journalist Julita Osendi for the independent media source Cibercuba, Veitía stated that he felt he could do more, but that he had been unfairly brushed aside.
"So many plans, hopes, new victories. But I was affected by misunderstandings, and betrayals, painful things that have corroded my soul, because, despite my age and my obesity, I was still very useful. Did I make mistakes? Let he who hasn't cast the first stone!" But they shouldn't have pushed me aside like that," he said eight months before he passed away.