Doping has no ideology

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Image: La Danza de Henri Matisse

Cubans, despite being among the elites of Baseball, do not even have access to the best games in the sport. The US and Japanese Major Leagues are forbidden to their Cuban fans.

However, in truth, there of course are some people in our upper echelons that do have unlimited access to information, even sports news. Recently a journalist ‘favored’ by those in charge wrote an article about doping and, interestingly and ironically enough, Randy Alonso didn’t mention a single Cuban.

I am glad that the athletes of this sport can be so open, without a care, however we here live in a glass house and one of our own glorious athletes’ career was forever tarnished in the scandal of doping. I speak of none other than Javier Sotomayor.

There are some trainers, doctors and perhaps even team owners, who are not above being miserable wretches and lying to an athlete, administering him illegal substances. If, then, the athlete finds out and changes nothing, he is left alone to cheat at the game and cheat his fans.

And so, the said article accuses major league players of being liars. Perhaps we should give this label to only a few? Others have competed with honor and are role models among children and young people. This is the case with Greg Maddux, Nolan Ryan, Tani Pérez, Marichal, Sandy Coufak, Derek Jeter, Iván Rodríguez, Carlos Delgado, Bartolo Colón, in fact many are honest with themselves and with their fans.

As for doping related to the Olympic Games, there are so few dopers that to mention Yelena Isimbayeba, Dayron Robles, Jan Zelesny, Serguey “the incredible one” Bucka, Teófilo Stevenson, Tied Staff, Michael “the duck” Johnson, Carl Lewis, Alexander Karelin, Michael Pfhel, Miguel Induráin, these names completely overshadow those who have cheated.

Greed cannot become the symbol for the sport, nor slavery disguised as heroism to the motherland. I have so much time on my hands, but so little access to information, in my condition as a prisoner of conscience. I am limited to only one newspaper, full of only the news they want me to read, and a television ailing sadly from the same condition, scarcely touching on the sports world.

And yet, even through all this, and for the love of the sport, I will continue to write about it. Someone once said, music is the universal language. I believe this can also be true of sports.