MADRID, Spain.- The Cuban regime approved women’s boxing on the island this Monday, after more than a decade of demands from women to be able to practice this sport like everyone else, no longer be excluded because of their gender.
“We are going to recover what we lost. A thorough study was done. We do not let ourselves be pressed for time. Today is the day we are convinced, after all the investigations carried out. It is a safe step, it is the moment and we will not take any risk”, said Alberto Puig de la Barca, president of the Cuban Boxing Federation and national commissioner.
During a press conference in the Ciudad Deportiva assembly hall, Puig announced that in January 2023 she will open the discipline in sports teams so that any woman who wishes to practice boxing legally.
Just as he indicated that in the Sports Initiation Schools (EIDE) this discipline will be incorporated in the 2023-2024 academic year in the 15-16 year-old category, and in the 2024 School Games there will be simultaneous events with the men’s event.
While in 2023 the first national women’s boxing championship will be held, in preparation for the 2024 Olympic Games.
In addition, he referred to the training stages to reach the Central American and Caribbean “with a team with a minimum of preparation so that they give us medals, even if it is a short time.” On December 16 and 17, a boxing event will be held with about 42 competitors to choose 12, of which six will go to said event.
In Cuba, many women box in gyms, in parks and other open-air places, at home, but up to now without having had the chance to compete.
Among these women is the Cuban boxer Yisel Bello who, upon learning of the recent approval, said she had been “waiting for this news for a long time.”
In interview with CNN, Bello declared: “I want to have a sporting life as a boxer and give my best and win a medal. And if in the future we women here in Cuba can become a professional, I’d be delighted as well”.
Among the Cuban boxers who saw the possibility of making a career in this sport cut short in Cuba is Namibia Flores, whose story emerged after a documentary by the American Meg Smaker.
In an interview with the BBCIn 2015, Flores explained: “They tell me that I cannot box because the late wife of Raúl Castro, Vilma Espín, who was the president of the Federation of Cuban Women, rejected the request to approve women’s boxing, apparently because it was very violent, a very abrasive sport for women.”
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