Declaration of the Cuban Olympic Committee

We have been very aware of the proposal promoted by the European Athletics Federation that would withdraw the world records imposed before 2005, due to changes in anti-doping regulations.

The Cuban Olympic Committee considers that any such measure should be supported by scientific arguments, because only the rigorous demonstration of the infringement will sustain the fairness of such a decision.

Erasing records based on suspicion turns that action into a nonsense, since its authors are not responsible for the fact that at the time of their performances the samples were not sufficiently preserved to be re-examined now, in the light of new technical parameters.

Even if the intention is to eliminate the mantle of suspicions caused by the magnitude of certain times and marks, and the shameful episodes lived by that sport, nothing will justify a crusade without validated arguments since the opinion of laboratory analyses.

Cuba decided to have a laboratory of anti-Doping control sustained among the 29 currently accredited in the world. So we feel in the right to demand a vision of the matter that does not condemn without evidence, as if all those involved were perpetrators of crimes.

Morality given to us by the state and sports seriousness generating an open war to that scourge backs us. It expresses itself in the high expenditures and many other efforts we make to acquire resources and technology despite the obstacles caused by the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the governments of the United States for more than half a century.

Besides, the permanent work of a Sports Medicine Institute accompanies us, a body sharing with many prestigious health institutions in Cuba the commitment to sustain the human being at the center of all priorities, and countless pages of sculpted glories without the slightest trace of manipulation.

It would suffice to mention some as far as the conversion of Javeline thrower Maria Caridad Colon in the first Latin American Olympic champion in Moscow 1980, the more than 20 times high jumper Javier Sotomayor overcame the 2.40 meters or his current universal tops: 2.43 m (indoors in 1988) and 2.45 m (open air in 1993).

We publicize our position with the mixture of modesty and healthy pride other great Cuban athletes provide us like the also Javeline thrower Osleidys Menendez, with  two world records (71.54 m in 2001 and 71.74 m in 2005) or triple Olympic champions like boxers Teofilo Stevenson and Felix Savon, Greco-Roman wrestler Mijain Lopez and several stellar volleyball players.

It is known we are torchbearers of a clean, ethical, inclusive sport, forged as the people´s right and attached to principles and solidarity, values leading us not to support the proposal in question to consider it an attack on our traditional respect for the dignity of men and women who could never be related to wrong practices.

We do applaud the next steps supported by the scientific advances now available, as well as the multiplication of prophylactic actions that will never be enough in the midst of factors such as excessive marketing, theft of talents, nationalizations for convenience and other ills stimulating the premise of winning at all costs and demand a hard hand.

It is a very complex issue as we all know but we insist that no one is in a position to ensure the records called to disappear from the official books carry on them the doping´s mud.

Alternatively, what is the same, we are talking about a “new clean slate” destined to enter history under the sign of injustice.

Havana, May 16, 2017

Year 59 of the Revolution

Cuban Olympic Committee

 

Source: Radio Rebelde