[NYTr] Cuban boxers deported from Brazil

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

AP via Yahoo - Aug 5, 2007
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070805/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cuba_boxers

Cuban boxers deported from Brazil

By ANITA SNOW 

HAVANA - Two boxers deported by Brazil were back in Cuba Sunday after
they disappeared during the Pan American Games last month and were
arrested at a resort where officials said they partied and ran up an
exorbitant bill.

Convalescing leader Fidel Castro said in comments published Sunday that
the boxers would be confined to guest houses upon their return,
although he promised not to harshly punish them.

Guillermo Rigondeaux, Cuba's top boxer and a two-time Olympic
bantamweight champion, and Erislandy Lara, an amateur welterweight
world champion, arrived in Cuba early Sunday after being deported from
Brazil, Cuban state radio and TV reported without offering any
specifics.

The boxers had failed to show up for their scheduled bouts during the
Pan American Games last month, prompting their disqualifications.
Brazilian police arrested them Thursday for overstaying their visas in
the coastal resort city of Cabo Frio, near Rio de Janeiro, where
authorities said they had been partying and had run up an exorbitant
tab at a hotel.

Last month, German boxing promoter Arena said it had signed Lara and
Rigondeaux to five-year contracts. Details of that deal are not clear.
The two boxers told Brazilian police they had been contacted by a
German businessman, and they had given their uniforms and passports to
him.

Castro, who is recovering from intestinal surgery and hasn't been seen
in public for more than a year, had blamed American money for their
desertions last month, saying they were "knocked down with a blow
straight to the chin, paid up with U.S. bills."

In his remarks published Sunday in the Communist Youth newspaper
Juventud Rebelde, however, he was quoted as saying the boxers had
"communicated that they had committed an error and that they repented."

Police also said the boxers had asked to go home.

Brazilian federal police inspector Felicio Laterca said Friday it
remained unclear why Rigondeaux, 25, and Lara, 24, abandoned their
delegation. But he said the boxers were "saying they are very dear
athletes in their country and that's why they want to return."

Rigondeaux won the Olympic gold medal in 2000 and 2004 and is also a
world champion. He became Cuba's top boxer after the retirement of
Mario Kindelan in 2004 and was looking for his third Pan American Games
title.

Castro wrote in his essay published Sunday that after the boxers return
to Cuba, they "will be transferred provisionally to a guest house and
they will be given access to their families. The press will also be
able to contact them if it so desires."

He added that they would later be "offered decent tasks in sports
according to their knowledge and experience."

"Brazilian authorities can rest easy in the face of inevitable
campaigns by adversaries. Cuba knows how to handle itself in these
circumstances. I, for my part, will sleep well," he wrote.

Castro did not say whether the men would be allowed to compete in the
future, but top baseball players suspected of trying to desert in the
past have been cut from the national team and given minor coaching or
other unimportant sports-related jobs.

Baseball slugger Kendry Morales was cut from Cuba's national team in
early 2002 for unspecified "lack of discipline" following reports that
he had tried to leave the island several times. He left Cuba for good
on his eighth attempt two years later and was signed by the Los Angeles
Angels.

Since the 2004 Olympics, Cuban boxing has been beset by defections,
with several champions now fighting professionally in the United States
and Europe.

In March, Arena signed Cuban Olympic champions Yan Barthelemy,
Yuriorkis Gamboa and Odlanier Solis to contracts. The trio stole away
during training in Venezuela in February for the Pan American Games,
then crossed into Colombia and eventually traveled on to Germany.

[Associated Press Writer Tales Azzoni in Sao Paulo, Brazil, contributed
to this report.]