Sports in Cuba

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The sport has been in Cuba a high priority. Sports like baseball and boxing were and are very popular. Today sport is heavily promoted by the state.

Situation before 1959

Since the 19th century, Cuba has been one of the countries in Latin America that paid great attention to modern educational systems, with particular attention to physical education . The first sports studio in Latin America was established in Havana in 1839 , which gave impetus to the establishment of similar facilities across the country.

The founders of the Cuban sports movement also include José de la C. Hernández , Rafael de Castro , Juan Gallet , Vicente A. de Castro and, as patrons and sponsors, Domingo del Monte (President), José de la Luz y Caballero and Francisco de P Coimbra .

At this time, sports education in Cuba still had deficits in its spread to the masses, but was influenced by two main currents: on the one hand by the young university students who established baseball from North America, on the other hand by the European trend, which sports such as fencing or gymnastics brought into the country.

At the end of the 19th century, gymnastics was introduced as a compulsory subject in middle schools .

With the beginning of the new (20th) century, physical education became compulsory in both public rural and urban schools. In 1902 this was agreed for primary schools throughout the country, but this remained practically without public control until 1935.

In 1928 the National Sports Institute was founded, where the first sports teachers were trained. This institute was closed again in 1932 and reopened in 1948. In order to be able to check the quality of physical education in schools, the National Commission for Sport was created in 1935 , which did not change the inadequate training of teachers or the lack of material equipment. In addition, many schools had no places to hold physical education classes.

A similar situation existed in secondary schools where many teachers did not have the knowledge to teach such a subject. In addition, students had to pay two pesos per semester to enroll in this subject. However, since this money was not used to purchase appropriate sports equipment and clothing, it was practically impossible to promote development in this area.

However, the situation at the universities was different, but with similar results. There were no physical education teachers here, but monthly contracts with coaches for a specific sport, most of whom came from the USA and whose main task was to find talent for competitive sports .

In general, the situation in physical education was characterized by the lack of a functioning national system of control and promotion at all school levels. The focus was on professional sports and not in popular sports .

After the revolution

Immediately after the Cuban Revolution , which ended victoriously on January 1, 1959, there were around 800 PE teachers in Cuba, a number that decreased further due to the subsequent emigration of numerous professionals to the USA. Due to this situation, the new government took numerous measures to improve this situation. These included:

  • Establishment of the Instituto Nacional de Deportes Educación Física y Recreación (INDER - National Institute for Physical Culture, Sport and Recreation) on February 23, 1961. The institute serves as the main body for planning, managing and executing sporting events in all parts of the island as well as internationally Area.
  • Dissolution of professional sports in 1962.
  • Announcement of a new slogan of the Cuban sports movement: "Sport is a right of the people", which should also become the general practice of the revolutionary sports movement, with a focus on training and overcoming professional sport. The Escuela Superior de Educación Física (ESEF - College of Physical Culture) was founded.

Organizational pillars of the Cuban sports system

The institution that is responsible for the establishment, administration and implementation of the agreed programs of physical education in Cuba is the INDER. As mentioned, it is also responsible for all sports and recreation activities across the country.

The INDER concentrates its work on the expansion of the sport to operate in all parts of the island in order to reach all social classes from children to the elderly. Another main goal is to perfect the system of sporting activities and to improve the technical and organizational aspects, closely related to achieving a higher quality of services and extensive and intensive use of the sporting facilities.

The work of the institute also extends to the institutions of high-performance sports with special attention to the athletes and all kinds of professional sports in order to achieve better athletic education of the population. It also oversees the production of sporting goods, investments in sports fields and installations, and scientific work and research in the field of sport. It was mainly worked with the GDR , so that many of the experts received their training at the DHfK .

Cuban sport today

Today's competitive sport in Cuba is very successful worldwide. As a result, Cuba is in a position to provide other Latin American countries, such as Venezuela , Bolivia or Brazil, with advice and cooperation. The trainer training takes place in the International School for Physical Culture and Sport . Cuba successfully takes part in numerous international competitions, such as the Summer Olympics , the Pan American Games, etc. The medal-promising sports are baseball , women's judo , wrestling (Greco-Roman), boxing and athletics . The successes in volleyball , freestyle wrestling , art and tower diving , chess , cycling , taekwondo and canoeing are also noteworthy .

A big problem for Cuban sport is that many successful athletes, especially boxers and baseball players, enjoy lucrative professional contracts abroad and therefore athletes often withdraw from competitions abroad or flee across the sea to neighboring countries. Although top athletes in Cuba enjoy privileges as state amateurs , the income gap compared to their professional colleagues abroad is immense. In 2013, the Cuban government allowed athletes to earn money abroad for the first time.

baseball

→ Main article baseball in Cuba

The baseball is in Cuba national sport. The Cuban national baseball team is one of the most successful teams in the world. She is the record baseball world champion and record baseball olympic champion .

At national championships, the Serie Nacional de Béisbol , each of the fourteen provinces is represented by a team. The capital Havana is with Industriales and Metropolitanos two. Many games are broadcast live on Cuban television.

Boxing

Cuba achieved many boxing successes . His team plays a huge role in the global landscape. The local championships do not achieve such a big spectacle, but they are very successful at major international events. Cuban boxers won a total of 67 medals (34 gold, 19 silver, 14 bronze) at the Olympic Games and 121 medals (67 gold, 30 silver, 24 bronze) at world championships.

Among the best Cuban boxers were the three-time Olympic and six-time world champion Félix Savón , as well as the three-time Olympic and three-time world champion Teófilo Stevenson .

Cuba hosted the 1974 World Championships , the 1982 Central American and Caribbean Games , the 1970 and 1983 Central American and Caribbean Championships, the 1990 World Cup, the 1991 Pan American Games , and the 1987, 1996 and 2002 Junior World Championships. The Cuban boxing model is special It was marked with a series of feint, which clearly differs from the masters from the former Eastern Bloc.

Judo

Judo developed into an increasingly important sport from year to year. At the international tournaments, the Cubans became more and more successful, especially in the women with the three-time Olympic medalist Driulys González .

Soccer

Soccer is not as popular in Cuba as baseball or boxing, but the Cuban national soccer team has already qualified for a World Cup. They succeeded in doing this at the 1938 World Cup . There the Cubans were eliminated in the quarter-finals after an 8-0 defeat against Sweden. Another success is winning the internationally not very important football Caribbean championship in 2012 .

The umbrella organization of Cuban football is the Asociación de Fútbol de Cuba , the highest league is the CNDFDC ( Campeonato Nacional de Fútbol de Cuba ) founded in 1912 . The current record champion is Villa Clara with 13 titles.

Cycling

In recent years, Cuban athletes have had international success in track cycling . In particular, the two athletes Lisandra Guerra (world champion in 500 m time trial) and Yumari González (world champion in scratch ) regularly ensure top places at UCI track world championships , track bike world cups and Pan-American games and championships.

American football

American football was very popular before the revolution, especially in the 1930s, as Cuba was culturally and politically influenced by the USA . After the revolution under Fidel Castro , the American sport was gradually given less and less attention as the sport was viewed as a capitalist sport by the imperialist class enemy. Nowadays the sport is hardly played any more and is of little importance in Cuba.

Championships

Numerous sports championships are held in Cuba:

Cuba at the Olympics

Cuba regularly takes part in the Summer Olympics. The most successful games in the Cuban history were the 1992 in Barcelona with 14 gold medals, giving the fifth corresponded in the medals table. In total, the Cubans won 208 medals at the Summer Olympics . In the international medal table, Cuba ranks 16th. In the first games in which Cuba took part, they won gold only once and in London in 1948 there was only one silver and one bronze. At that time, sport was not yet funded by the state. It can also be seen from the statistics that after the Cuban Revolution , Cuba won more medals on average and overall than before the revolution. This can be explained by Fidel Castro's reform (“Sport is a right of the people”).

Cuba at the Pan American Games

At the last Pan American Games , the Cuban team presented themselves extremely successfully in their typical sports, but they also competed in football , basketball , cycling and other sports.

Possibly one of the biggest surprises was the hard-fought victory for the gold medal in volleyball against the strong team from Brazil .

The numerous victories in athletics, baseball, basketball, women's volleyball, judo, wrestling, boxing and other sports made Cuba one of the most medal winners in international competitions.

Cuban sport and medicine

Medicine plays a key role in the Cuban sports movement for achieving optimal results . Officially, it also serves the fight against doping . The sport should be clean and healthy and the athletes, coaches and officials should be trained accordingly. Cuba's anti-doping laboratory is the fifth largest in America and is also open to third world countries. The Cuban Institute of Sports Medicine is responsible for maintaining the health and rehabilitation of athletes and sees its sphere of influence throughout Latin America.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wagner, Eric A. (1988): Sport in Revolutionary Societies: Cuba and Nicaragua, in: Joseph L. Arbena (ed.): Sport and Society in Latin America. Westport: Greenwood, pp. 113-136.
  2. ↑ Arnd Krüger : High-performance sport - the high-performance sport in the early GDR, in: W. BUSS, C. BECKER u. a. (Ed.): Sport in the Soviet Zone and the early GDR. Genesis - structures - conditions. Schorndorf: Hofmann 2001, 535 - 556.
  3. ^ Taz : Athletes' flight from Cuba from January 12, 2009
  4. ↑ Klaus Ehringfeld: Travel Policy: Cuba's top athletes are now allowed to earn money abroad. In: Spiegel Online . September 29, 2013, accessed June 10, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Ayman Rashad Hafez Hussein: The feint in boxing: an investigation using the example of the 2000 Olympic Games. Diss. Göttingen. 2004; http://resolver.sub.uni-goettingen.de/purl/?webdoc-245
  6. ↑ http://www.thewareaglereader.com/2013/06/the-1937-bacardi-bowl-auburn-footballs-first-post-season-appearance-was-the-first-real-bowl-game-played-overseas /