Change in Leadership of Cuban Olympism

(ATR) One month before turning 95, Jose Ramón Fernández left the position of President of the Cuban Olympic Committee (COC).

The former gymnast Roberto Leon Richards, 54, was elected as the head of the COC by a "direct and secret vote" of the General Assembly of the institution, according to the note that appeared on the official website of the State Sports Institute (INDER).

Fernandez did not attend the meeting due to health reasons, confirmed an Olympic source from the island to Around the Rings.

The Ordinary Assembly elected him "Honorary Lifetime President".

Fernandez, one of the "historical" figures in the revolution of Fidel Castro, was elected head of the COC in 1997 after the death of Cuban Olympic leader Manuel González Guerra, who had been in office since 1963.

Fernandez accompanied Castro in the 1961 battle of the Bay of Pigs against a brigade of Cuban exiles organized in the United States, and held high responsibilities within the ruling Communist Party both before and during his role in the COC.

In 2012 he was appointed by President Raúl Castro as one of his advisors. In that year the current president of Cuba, Miguel Diaz-Canel had replaced him as vice president of the Council of Ministers.

In 1994 Fernández was among the possible Cuban candidates to the IOC but finally one year later the then president of the INDER, Reynaldo González, would be named a new member of the IOC.

Fernandez had been president of the organizing committees of the Central American and Caribbean Games in 1982 and of the Pan American Games in 1991 in Havana.

Both Fernández and León Richards, who acted as vice president of the COC, have been honored by the IOC with the Olympic Order.

Richards, the "number two" of the INDER, had been designated a few days ago as president of the Cuban gymnastics federation. He assumes the direction of the COC at a time when Cuban sport has been displaced from its traditional prominent place in the medals tables at the Olympics, Pan American Games, and Central American and Caribbean Games.

IOC Deputy Director General Peré Miró, in exclusive comments to Around the Rings, praised the figure of Fernández "for his many years of service to the Olympic Movement" and adding that he deserves "homage and respect ".

"We wish that the new leadership that has just been elected will be at the height of what is the great history of the Cuban Olympic Movement, so that Cuban sportsmen - who have great potential - can reach the maximum levels," said Miró, whois inBuenos Aires with IOC President Thomas Bach to attend the Youth Olympic Games,

Alberto Juantorena, double Olympic champion in Montreal in 1976, was confirmed vice president of the COC. The legendary athlete is also vice president of the IAAF.

In an unusual public statement in 2012, Cuban leader Fidel Castro had suggested Juantorena as the future president of the Cuban Olympic Committee.

"That is not a decision of Juantorena. The Cuban sports authorities will make the decision that suits the country best and that I will abide by and respect," said the legendary athlete in 2016 to this journalist in Havana.

For the other vice-presidency, José Peláez, president of the Pan-American Cycling Confederation and vice president of the International Cycling Union, was elected.

Former basketball player Ruperto Herrera, member of the Executive Committee of the Sports Organization of Central America and the Caribbean (CACSO), was ratified as the COC general secretary.

Reported by Miguel Hernandez.