Gianlu33

Cuba has a storied history of success in the Olympic Games. Since its Games debut at Paris 1900, its much-vaunted boxers have won 73 medals (second only to the United States), and its fabled baseball program has won three of five golds (and won silver the other two times). Outside of those two signature sports, Cuba has made its mark in other sports, notably track & field, judo, wrestling, and even fencing. The women's volleyball team won three straight golds between 1992 and 2000, with a bronze in 2004. At Barcelona 1992, Cuba hit its high point in the medal count - 31 total, and fifth place in the medal count. Those were the Games of high jumper Javier Sotomayor, boxer Felix Savon, and middle-distance runner Ana Quirot. Boxers, including Savon, won nine of 12 possible medals (including seven gold). Women's volleyball started their three-gold streak. Judo and wrestling saw gold medal wins, too. Cuba won the inaugural baseball tournament.

For the next four Games, the island nation experienced a consistent level of high performance: 25 medals at Atlanta 1996, 29 at Sydney 2000, 27 at Athens 2004, and 30 at Beijing 2008. Those years, there was an admirable sense of Cuba being able to 'punch above its weight' in its success. Despite increasing isolation as a lone socialist state burdened by economic sanctions, its athletic programs remained a vibrant, vital area of showcase pride for the nation. But the last two Olympics has seen its star power ebb. Cuba managed only 15 medals at London 2012 and 11 at Rio 2016. As well, after reaching second in the Pan American Games medal table in 2011, Cuba dropped to fourth in 2015 and sixth in 2019.  And now, and despite its legendary aura in the sport, Cuba will not qualify for Tokyo 2020's baseball tournament. Given its recent slide  - in the WBSC Premier12 event in 2019, Cuba ranked tenth and last alongside Netherlands and Puerto Rico - the result in qualifying isn't too surprising. But the Cuban absence will be noticed given the team's legacy in the sport. For sentiment's sake, one hopes Cuban baseball doesn't follow that lead and can make a comeback in time for Los Angeles 2028. But history is  not a promising guide.

That women's volleyball team of the mid-to-late 1990s suffered a similar fall. After just missing the podium in fourth place at Beijing 2008, the team has failed to make an Olympics since. They placed 21st and 22nd in the last two World Championships, and came nowhere near Tokyo 2020 qualification after finishing sixth in the 2019 NORCECA Championship, with the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico ahead and taking bragging rights for current Caribbean power.
As far as the nation's boxers, they will again be standard bearers, with Tokyo 2020 qualification in each of the eight men's weight classes (but note, no women's). Collectively, the Tokyo-bound team already has six Olympic medals dating from as far back as Beijing 2008 - a sign of longevity, but also of a lack of younger athletes breaking through. Judo, wrestling, and track & Field again promise the best chance for medal support to boxing this summer, but the nation will probably be hard-pressed to significantly improve its results from Rio 2016.

Cuba's sport prowess has certainly diminished. Has the difficulty in maintaining a consistently strong sports development feeder system in its closed society finally taken a toll? There's a good opportunity for a socio-economic study in the question. In the meantime, this summer's Games quickly approach. Can Cuba again rise to consistent sporting heights?   This opinion was originally published on gamesandrings.com on June 2, 2021.

The UIPM has recently announced the introduction of the New Olympic Pentathlon, which aims to shorten the time of the competition and make it more attractive to the audience. The approval of the format by the Executive Board caused a mostly negative reaction, from the athletes, whom the changes will affect the most. The following is an interview with Shiny Fang, UIPM Secretary General, in which she tries to explain the biggest doubts about the changes.
 
The first question is, what is on the mind of the Pentathlon community – what is the reason for those changes?
 
To aim for the future, to embrace the youth, and to widen the sport’s audience with a more compact and understandable sport product for media, also to demonstrate our most complete athletes in a shorter time without losing audience in between parts of the longer competition.
 
Modern pentathlon’s place in the Olympic programme is a crucial thing for the sport, which is also a legacy of being founded by Baron Pierre de Coubertin himself. Was the proposal consulted with the IOC representatives as they should be the ones to know better, in which direction the changes should go?
 
Certainly UIPM as the world governing body of the sport knows better how we can improve the sport and its product/format. However, if we are talking about Pentathlon in the Olympic Games, we first need to understand what is the IOC’s vision for future Games, and what would be the most valuable things to evaluate the sport’s impact in the Games. Therefore, it is a collective effort by all involved or responsible parties in the Games, including valuable advice from OBS, Olympic Channel and Paris 2024.
 
Modern pentathlon has been changing for some time, but this is a true revolution. Doesn’t it bring confusion to new pentathlon fans to learn the sport from the beginning?
 
Well, what we are changing or innovating is about our sports product, to smoothly shape it to a fan-friendly and media-friendly format so that audience can see a compact and complete sport within a shorter time. As you might know well, the sport has come from 5 days, to 1 day, to 5 hours, and now to 90min. However, what we haven’t changed is the core essence of the sport created by Coubertin –  that is, the historical elements/disciplines are still the same since the sport was born.
 
The proposed changes apply for only the Olympic Games (and the Olympic qualifiers, as far as I understand). Would it not be harder for fans to learn one format for the Olympics and another for all other competitions?
 
We do have EB approved Olympic format and qualification events format, and those Olympic qualification events will be major UIPM competitions. Therefore, in terms of the format for UIPM major competitions, we will keep the same direction as the Olympic format, but with certain flexibility, such as number of athletes in final group, length of the breaks between each disciplines, etc.
 
For UIPM competitions, we will have relatively more time to test and to fix more details, since the qualification events will only start from 2023. But for the Olympic format, we must be in line with the timeline of the IOC and Paris 2024, to give organisers enough time. By the way, it is quite normal that some other sports also have an Olympic format and a different IF format, so nothing unusual.
 
The athletes are openly against it, and primarily because of the increased injury risks caused by a shortened warm-up time. Was the new format consulted with them?
 
Actually the athletes are not against innovations, they are open-minded and intelligent, also sometimes they give us a lot of good ideas. For the new format, due to a series of processes which we also want to keep low profile with mainly athletes representatives in each working group and committees, it is normal that a lot of athletes who haven’t joined in athletes meetings at earlier stage, haven’t been well informed.
 
Clearly, the communication with athletes is the key, and during the athletes call on November 11, a lot of their questions and doubts were addressed. But it is not enough, we will certainly engage more with them during the rest of the process.
 
There were also very few test events with the new format – just the two in Budapest and Cairo, where the participation of athletes from all around the world was limited due to Covid-19 pandemic. Has the UIPM tried to conduct more test events, for example during the national competitions that were held in different countries, for example Russia, Belarus or Poland?
 
Actually, we felt fortunate that we were able to manage two decent tests during this pandemic time with full support of our organizers, and yes, we will have more tests in 2021 before and/or after the Tokyo Olympics. More details will be fixed early in 2021.
 
The changes were to be introduced this year, but because of the pandemic the Congress will be held in 2021. Were there ideas to postpone it to the 2024-2028 Olympic cycle, as the pre-Paris one is a shortened one after?
 
No we won’t postpone, innovation has been a continuous process for decades in UIPM, Paris is a milestone that we cannot miss, and it will demonstrate more possibilities for LA 2028 as well.
 
 
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