Ronal Quiñones

A few days ago, we outlined the goals that Cuba has traced for different individual sports disciplines for the Toronto Pan-American Games, set to take place from July 10 to 26. We now take a look at the country’s most important participating team sports.

Combat sports will once again carry the weight of Cuba’s performance at the 2015 Pan-American Games to be held in Toronto from July 10 to 26, followed by athletics, the other big medal-winning discipline for the island.

As part of a phenomenon that extends beyond the political and touches other areas of society, the sports sector reacted quickly and US professional clubs began to express their interest in hiring Cuban baseball players only hours after that historical announcement.

Though Cuba’s Villa Clara team had a poor showing at the Caribbean Series last year (the island took part for the first time after 50 years of absence from the tournament), Cuba expects its Pinar del Rio team to fare better at this year’s championship, set to take place in Puerto Rico from February 2 to 8.

About a decade ago, the Central American and Caribbean Games were a cake walk, for Cuba. The dominance of Cuban sports was such that it used to breeze at regional trials, where they even enjoyed the privilege of leaving their star athletes at home and still win the competition with ease.

There is nothing Cuban authorities fear more today than seeing the island end up behind Mexico, Colombia or Venezuela at the Central American and Caribbean Games to be held in Veracruz from November 14 to 30 this year, as these – for reasons more political than sports-related – are considered the most important sporting competition of the year.

Cuban sports authorities have just degraded yet another of their baseball greats: former player, coach and manager Antonio Pacheco, known as the “Captain of Captains” till recently.