Cuba’s Dayron Robles Out for 2013
HAVANA TIMES — Santiago Antunez, the trainer of Cuba’s Beijing Olympic gold medal hurdler Dayron Robles, said Saturday that the athlete will not compete in 2013 because he believes he has not received the assistance from his country’s sports authorities that he expected after being injured last year, reports AP.
“Dayron is very upset. He doesn’t see himself getting help, and it’s not an economic issue or anything like that, but a human problem, we’re talking about assistance as a person. Nobody (among the sports officials) talks to him, no one says anything, no one comes to visit him, they don’t treat him like a person, like an athlete. But I don’t want to say anything else,” said Antunez in an interview with the Associated Press.
The hurdler injured his leg in the finals of the 110 meter hurdles in the 2012 London Games and stopped running after the sixth hurdle.
First, let me say that I like and admire Dayron. To have accomplished what he accomplished is extraordinary. Okay, here it goes: given the likelihood that athletes of his stature will not likely be allowed to travel unless they are competing at officially sanctioned events, Dayron must know that the only way he could expect to be treated like a regular Cuban was by not competing this year. There happens to be a fall track meet this year which could likely pit him against the current American world record-holder and the Chinese hurdling champion. If he were able to compete in this race, he is guaranteed a huge payday. If he goes as an official Cuban athlete, he collects nearly nothing. If he travels as Dayron Robles, a Cuban tourist who just happened to be in town at that time, he uses an armored truck to carry his cut. Okay, I said it….