Do you think that you merely enjoy the Pan American
Games? Think again, and you will realize that no matter
your age, you run, jump, put the shots, throw javelins,
discuses and hammers; soar above hurdles and tracks, relay
batons, spike balls, score a basket, row, execute ippons,
turn your rival over, follow strategies, splash water over
yourself after running for two hours and even stop taking in
the oxygen that your lungs are demanding. What a wonderful
show the athletes put on for us!
But you do not just enjoy; you participate, especially
when athletes from your country are competing. In our case,
there is hardly any event where there is not a Cuban team or
athlete present.
Besides, July and August are months filled with
commemorative activities. This is also the warmest and most
humid period of the year. Added to this there is a magic
word: holidays! Your homes see millions of children,
teenagers and young people getting together. People from all
ages feel the obsessive need to relax in this stressful time
in which we live.
This is the time of mothers, especially of
grandmothers. With great love and determination they look
after their children’s children and even after their
grandchildren’s children. They are the heroines of the
marathon that goes on year after year.
Commemorations would lack every sense if it were not
for the advances achieved by our Revolution; these are the
sum total of examples set forth and efforts carried out for
a long time. Cuba is almost the only country offering free
education, health and sports services.
A special tribute should go to a comrade who exactly 50
years ago gave up his life fighting the tyranny: the young
22-year-old hero Frank País.
Those who fought for these ideals made it possible for
us to enjoy today’s levels of social justice, which includes
full employment for all men and women in our country.
The most important achievement of the Revolution has
been the capacity to resist a blockade for almost half
century as well as privations of every sort. Restrictions
in the variety and quality of foodstuffs and future threats
of unaffordable prices that may result from the imperialist
constraint of using much of this scarce and vital raw
material to produce fuel are not ruled out.
We have come to the end of the Pan American Games; I am
going to miss them.
Cuba won the first place in track and field, with 12
gold medals. As a country, it ranked second at the XV Pan
American Games with a total of 59 gold medals, preceded only
by the United States which won 97; in other words, they won
1.64 gold medals for each one that was won by our country.
But the United States has 26 times more inhabitants than
Cuba. According to conservative figures, they won one medal
per every 3.09 million inhabitants; we won one per every 195
thousand.
On 59 occasions we heard the spirited notes of the
Cuban National Anthem playing. In spite of everything!
Fidel Castro Ruz
July 30, 2007.
5:48 p.m.
