By Alejandra Garcia
When Cuban athletes return from Santo Domingo, the figures will occupy much of the headlines: 51 gold medals, 48 silver, and 56 bronze. Cuba finished third in the medal standings at the XXV Central American and Caribbean Games, behind Mexico and Colombia, once again confirming its historic place among the region’s leading sporting powers.
But behind those numbers lies another story. One that begins long before the competition and that can hardly be measured in seconds, meters, points, or medals.
It is the story of young people who trained in a country marked by shortages, economic hardship, and blackouts, a crisis fueled by unprecedented pressure from Washington. Young people who arrived in Santo Domingo after preparing under conditions that, in many cases, were far removed from those faced by their main competitors.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel summed it up when he presented the delegation with the national flag: many of these athletes had trained “amid blackouts and shortages” and, despite this, refused to give up.
There lies one of the most human images of these Games. Not in the exact moment when an athlete steps onto the podium, but in the hours before: in a training facility with fewer resources than needed, in the efforts of a coach to maintain motivation, in a family following every competition from afar, or in the uncertainty of someone who knows that representing their country means not only competing, but also carrying the expectations of millions.
The Cuban delegation arrived in Santo Domingo with 497 athletes, of which 271 are men and 226, women, competing in 42 sports. It had secured 507 qualification spots, which Cuban sports authorities considered the first success of the preparation process.
There were moments of joy, defeats, records, frustrations, and disputed refereeing decisions. But there was also something statistics cannot capture: the ability to keep competing when the economic conditions imposed on the country by more than six decades of the U.S. blockade, together with a policy of hostility toward the island from the United States, make the path even more difficult.
An athlete should not have to train amid blackouts to prove their commitment. Resilience can be admirable, but it should never become a substitute for the conditions necessary to fully develop sporting talent.
Cuba maintains a sporting tradition built over decades. Its schools, coaches, doctors, sports officials, and other workers continue to sustain a system that has produced generations of champions. At these Games, 106 Cuban coaches also contributed to athletes from 19 countries winning 52 gold, 58 silver, and 83 bronze medals. That figure tells another story: that of knowledge and expertise that continue to transcend the island’s borders.
Likewise, behind every athlete there is much more than a sports federation. There are doctors. Coaches. Workers at sports schools. Families. Training partners. People responsible for preparing facilities, uniforms, and travel arrangements. It is a generation that has grown up amid profound changes in Cuban society and has had to learn to manage not only the pressure of competition, but also the difficulties of everyday life.
Now another challenge begins. The 2027 Pan American Games in Lima are already on the horizon. The question should not be only how many medals Cuba will be able to win there. We should also ask what conditions this generation will have to endure when resilience is no longer an indispensable condition for achieving peak performance.
