Castro: Cuba may skip boxing meet due to defections

HAVANA (Reuters) -- Cuba is considering pulling out of the amateur World Boxing Championships in Chicago in October to avoid new defections by its boxers, Cuban leader Fidel Castro said Wednesday.

"Imagine all the sharks of the Mafia wanting fresh meat," the convalescing 80-year-old Castro wrote in a column published on the front page of the Communist Party newspaper Granma.

"I must tell them: we are not keen on delivering it to their doorstep," Castro said, commenting on an attempt by German boxing promoters to hire two of Cuba's top fighters during the Pan-American Games in Brazil last month.

Guillermo Rigondeaux, two-time bantamweight Olympic champion, and amateur welterweight world champion Erislandy Lara, who was captain of the Cuban boxing team, disappeared during the games in Rio de Janeiro.

They were arrested by Brazilian police last week carousing at a beach resort outside the city for not having travel documents and deported back to Cuba during the weekend.

Castro, who has not appeared in public since he underwent life-threatening intestinal surgery a year ago, said Cuban authorities are considering whether to change the roster of boxers who will compete in Chicago or not send a team at all.

For years, some of Cuba's top baseball players -- such as Jose Contreras and Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez -- have defected to the United States, drawn by million-dollar deals in the major leagues. More recently, Cuba's legendary boxing talent has been hit by defections.

In December, Olympic boxing champions Yan Barthelemy, Yuriolkis Gamboa and Odlanier Solis deserted while training in Caracas for the Panam Games.

They are now boxing professionally in Europe, where they signed contracts with the German company Arena Box Promotions.

Castro had said Rigondeaux and Lara would not be arrested on their return to Cuba but Wednesday suggested they would never again compete for Cuba after abandoning their team in Rio de Janeiro.

He quoted Brazilian press reports that said the two boxers were found at the beach resort in the company of prostitutes apparently provided by representatives of the German promoter.

"They have reached a point of no return as members of a Cuban boxing team," Castro wrote. "An athlete who abandons his team is like a soldier who abandons his fellow troops in the middle of combat," he said.

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