ABSTRACT
The Cuban state took control of sports quickly after the 1959 revolution, largely through the Institute of Sports, Education, and Recreation (INDER). The government implemented an increasingly elaborate system of state support for mass and elite sports. After little more than a decade, Cuba finished in the top 20 nations for Olympic medals, where it has remained, with the exception of 2008 when it came in 28th in Beijing. Until the collapse of the Soviet Union (USSR), these achievements were almost exclusively funded by the Cuban state. After 1991, sport suffered along with the entire economy and, as Cuba has responded to its general economic challenges, it has moved to make sports largely self-funding. Despite many defections, Cuba has continued to send athletes and coaches to other countries, both to compete as well as to work. Furthermore, they offer sports education to poor nations through the School for International Physical Education and Sports (EIEFD) in Mayabeque. Certainly, facilities for popular participation have deteriorated; however, the nation remains committed to ‘making do’ (resolver) in sports, just as it has in other policy areas. A major challenge today is to sustain its successes in both popular participation and elite sport, in what has always been a difficult political and economic balancing act. An even bigger problem, perhaps, is the juxtaposition of an anti-capitalist ideology and the contradictory capitalistic methods currently being used to earn much needed hard currency by the sports system. Some people believe that the resumption of relations with the US, announced in December 2014, greatly increases the likelihood that Cuba will take the capitalist path. Of course, this would demonstrate to all Cubans that the system that has been demonized since 1959 is the one that actually works.
