Cuban sports

Before the 1959 revolution, Cuba had no government policy in the field of physical culture and sports.

In the past decade, 2/3 of the budget in Cuba was spent on education, health care and the social sector in general.

At the Olympic Games from 1960 to 2016, Cuba won 208 medals, while from 1900 to 1956 only 12. Even at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, when the island was going through a "special period" caused by the collapse of the USSR, the Cubans won 31 medals and took fifth place in the team competition. Currently, Cuba ranks first in the number of gold medals per capita. According to Fidel Castro, "sport is the right of the people."

Cuba won all the medals with the help of athletes born and raised on its territory. Other countries are eager to learn from Cuba's experience. To this end, the International School of Physical Education and Sports was created in 2001, a higher education institution that has produced many specialists for third world countries without paying a single centavo for tuition. Cuban athletes themselves work in other countries for minimal remuneration or even for free. In this way they contribute to the international development of sports.

The famous Cuban boxer Teofilo Stevenson resolutely rejected all offers to leave the island and become a professional boxer, answering that he would not trade Cuba even for all the money in the world.

Sports activities are managed by the National Institute of Sports, Exercise and Recreation (INDER), which was opened in 1961.

Boxing, volleyball and baseball are sports where Cubans have achieved impressive success