[NYTr] Boxers Who "Defected" Now Pining to Return to Cuba Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2007 16:47:58 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit ["Defecting" Cuban sports figures are really just naive apolitical Cubans who were lured to leave the nation that educated them and nurtured their talent (for free), tricked by swindler promoters' promises of Big Money and Rich Livin' in Yanquilandia. They grew up with the typical third world illusion of gold in the streets of the USA, and the rude awakening upon their arrival in the "Free World" is very disheartening. The idea that these people are "defectors" is ludicrous. As with many of the doctors who desert their aid missions abroad and claim they are "defecting," it's greed, not politics, that motivates these people. Apparently these two jerks will get their wish. Brazil, where they deserted, plans to deport them. German-Turkish promoter Ahmet Oner has publicly claimed he spent half a million yanqui dollars getting these two to desert. Sure. Although some of the US news stories claim Fidel Castro called them "defectors," what he actually said was that they'd both fallen for a sucker punch. -NY Transfer] The Miami Herald - Aug 4,2007 http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami_dade/story/192521.html Boxers who defected now longing for Cuba BY JORGE EBRO Two star Cuban boxers who apparently defected in Brazil but were later captured were quoted Friday as saying they now ''regret'' their actions and are ready to go home -- where one trainer says that ``as boxers, they are dead.'' Guillermo Rigondeaux and Erislandy Lara, who went to Brazil for the recently completed Pan American Games, were being held by police in a hotel in Rio de Janeiro. News reports say the Brazilian government plans to return them to Cuba. Their failure to turn up for weigh-ins during the Pan American games last month shook the amateur boxing world because of their star status. The bantam-weight Rigondeaux, 26, was Olympic champion in 2000 and 2004, and Lara, 24, was a promising welterweight. An article in the Brazilian daily O Globo said the two boxers claimed to have been duped by German-Turkish promoter Ahmet Oner and his aides, who -- the boxers said -- drugged them and removed them from the Pan American Village. But just days after the boxers disappeared, Oner stated publicly that he had signed the pair for five years and was keeping them in a protected place. Oner, who heads Arena Box Promotions, added that he had spent about $500,000 to assist in the Cubans' escape. The defection enraged Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who wrote in a newspaper column that the two boxers ``very simply . . . were knocked out by a punch to the chin, paid with American dollars. No countdown was needed.'' Oner's statements also angered Miami lawyer Tony GonzC!lez, who participated in an operation that allowed three other Cuban Olympic champions to defect in December and sign up with the German promoter. `HOW CAN HE BOAST?' ''He is interested only in publicity. . . . How can he boast about it in public,'' GonzC!lez asked, ``when the boxers were without papers, in plain sight, and from what I read, not in the best circumstances?'' Oner's Arena Box Promotions already has the services of Olympic champions Odlanier SolC-s, Yan Barthelemy and Yuriorkis Gamboa, who defected in Venezuela while training in December for the Pan American Games. Cuban boxing trainer Roberto Quesada, who coaches Gamboa, said the Cuban boxing careers of Rigondeaux and Lara are ruined. ''I very much doubt that they'll ever climb in a ring again if they return to Cuba,'' he said. ''From experience, I know that they will be treated like soldiers who deserted from the army in the middle of a battle,'' Quesada said. ``They may not realize it, but as boxers they are dead.'' Rigondeaux's wife, Farah Colina, told reporters Friday in Havana that authorities had taken away the car given to him for his sports achievements, but she hoped there would be no further reprisals. ''Maybe he made a mistake, but he didn't kill anyone. He didn't set off any bombs, he's not a terrorist,'' she told the Spanish EFE news agency. In a statement made public Friday, Oner said, ``We are in contact with the Brazilian authorities. There may still be a possibility that Rigondeaux and Lara will come with us. That's what I wish for both boys, who only want to be free and make money.'' Rigondeaux and Lara were found in a hotel in a resort town close to Rio de Janeiro. According to Brazilian media reports, they had been celebrating and had run up a large bill. The reports added that both fighters expressed remorse to the authorities at the time of their detention and said they were willing to return to Cuba, apparently hoping they could resume their sports careers. GonzC!lez, who said he had signed a contract with Rigondeaux before the boxer turned to Oner, said he believes the Cuban government may use the two boxers for propaganda. ''They could go to prison, or [authorities] could organize in Cuba a spectacle with the two, as a lesson for younger boxers who want to become professionals,'' GonzC!lez said. SOUGHT HELP FROM U.S. The Miami attorney said he had made some last-minute contacts with U.S. government figures to ask them to intercede on behalf of the boxers and prevent their deportation, but his effort apparently came too late. He said the two boxers ``have been the victims of irresponsible people, and now they're the only ones who will pay. . . . They are in a third country, without documents and under police custody, so nothing can be done.'' ''If it weren't so tragic, one might say this was a comedy of errors,'' he added. ``Rigondeaux and Lara had a future ahead of them. Now they have nothing.'' B) 2007 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved. *** Xinhua via People's Daily Online - Aug 4, 2007 http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90779/6231896.html Runaway boxers to be deported back to Cuba Cuba's champion boxers Erislandry Lara and Guillermo Rigondeaux, who abandoned their delegation during the Pan American Games, will be deported back to their country, Brazilian Federal Police announced on Friday. The athletes were found on Thursday in the municipality of Araruama, Rio de Janeiro state's northern coast. They were accompanied by two entrepreneurs, one of whom was also Cuban. According to the police, they are expected to return to the Caribbean island as soon as Cuba's government sends back their passports and there are seats available on a fight to Havana. Since the two disappeared from the Pan Am Village on July 22, there have been several hypotheses over what happened to them. According to rumors, they would have left to Paraguay, which was proved to be false on Thursday. Additionally, Germany's sports agency Arena Box Promotions was believed to have hired the boxers, a version that was later confirmed by the company's owner, Ahmed Onar. The possibility generated attacks from the Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who released a statement saying that a German "mafia" made use of psychological methods and millions of U.S. dollars to steal boxers from Cuba. The German agency's attorney in Brazil, Rafael Vilhena, said that Arena offered the two athletes "regular contracts between promotion companies and boxers, like all others around the world." On Friday, Rigondeaux, 25, and Lara, 24, were taken to a hotel in Rio's metropolitan region, but their exact location was not revealed in order to prevent Arena's agents from approaching them, said the police. Rigondeaux, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in the bantamweight division, and Lara, a world half-middleweight champion, were some of Cuba's most promising assets in the Pan Am Games which was held between July 13-29 in Rio, but they abandoned the boxing team before their first fights in the competition. Along with two other desertions, that was regarded as the main reason for the anticipated departure of 200 delegation members in the evening before the end of the Games, which was later denied by the Cuban Olympic Committee. That was not the first time that Cuba's boxing stars fled the country. Bantam Yan Barthelemy, flyweight Yuriorkis Gamboa and heavyweight Odlanier Solis, all of them gold medalists in 2004 Athens Olympics, abandoned the team in Dec. 2006 when participating in a competition in Venezuela. They were hired by Arena Box Promotions, which currently relies on five Cuban boxers on its portfolio. Source: Xinhua *** Reuters via CNN - Aug 3, 2007 http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/08/03/cuba.brazil.reut/ Cuban boxers to be sent home from Brazil RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters)--Two Cuban boxers who deserted their team during last month's Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro will be sent home to the Communist-run island, Brazilian police said Friday. Cuban boxers Guillermo Rigondeaux, right, and Erislandy Lara arrive at a police station Thursday in Rio de Janeiro. Guillermo Rigondeaux, two-time bantamweight Olympic champion, and welterweight world champion Erislandy Lara were briefly detained Thursday in a resort town in Rio de Janeiro state for not having travel documents. After leaving their team, they apparently had wanted to go to Europe and made no request for asylum in Brazil, but a police source said they now wanted to go home. "They expressed their will to return to Cuba," a police source told Reuters. "They will be deported; we are waiting for their documents and air tickets from the consulate." Travel documents of Cuban athletes are usually kept by the leaders of the country's delegation. Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro has accused the two boxers of defecting, saying they betrayed Cuba for dollars. Police chief Felicio Laterca said Friday that the two were in a Rio hotel and police were watching them to prevent them "being seduced again" by foreign sports agents. One agent had sought to send them to Germany on professional contracts. Despite the desertions that often hit Cuban teams at international events, Cuba still snatched more gold medals in boxing than any other country at the Pan American Games with five out of 11. Rafael Dacosta, a member of the Cuban handball team, left the Rio athletes' village in the first week of the games and later was seen in Sao Paulo state trying to arrange a contact with a local handball team. At the 1999 Pan American Games in Winnipeg, Manitoba, 13 Cubans defected, while last December Cuban boxers Yan Barthelemy, Yuriolkis Gamboa and Odlanier Solis deserted while training in Venezuela. All three are now pursuing professional careers in Germany. Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved. * ================================================================= .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org . 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