HAVANA, Cuba – The most recent image of the two-time Olympic champion Alberto Juantorena that he has been able to access exclusively CubaNet does not suggest an improvement in the state of health of the former world athletics star 20 months after his last public appearance.
In this new photo, from just a few days ago, apparently at his residence, Juantorena (74 years old) was captured in a wheelchair and with a deteriorated physical appearance. “It remains the same,” said a source close to one of the most important figures in Cuban sports history.
As a scoop, last April, this newspaper published a photo of Juantorena with Roberto Vargas Leethe director of the Cuban Wushu School, also at his home, which corroborated the physical condition in which the legendary athlete was, with locomotion problems and speech difficulties.
These presumably degenerative complications were first reported in a note dated November 12, 2023.
The worsening is apparently a presumably sequel to the Covid-19 that affected him in 2022, possibly in Oregon during the World Athletics Championships, or later, during a stop for a few days in Miami on the way back to Havana. Already on the Island the disease was exacerbated by hemorrhagic dengue.
His health condition worsened to the point that the Institute of Tropical Medicine (IPK) where he was hospitalized issued several bulletins to the public. Juantorena reacted favorably to the treatment, was discharged and some time later returned to his normal activities as president of the Cuban athletics federation and the national Paralympic committee.
Then he was seen in good spirits during his meeting at the Pan American stadium with the president of the IOC, Thomas Bach, in March 2023, and days later, at the beginning of April, he presided over the presentation of the Half Marathon in Varadero. This marked his last appearance at a public event.
A new relapse, this time with unsuspected negative effects, removed him from the national and international scene, under the cloak of mystery as if his state of health were also a national security problem.
On this occasion, the Cuban medical system has not issued a single report on Juantorena’s health status. The state press has not contacted him in all these months. And the images that have come to light in his current convalescence process have been the two published by CubaNet.
Juantorena is also vice president of the Cuban Olympic Committee but has been absent from its last General Assemblies. IOC member Olympic champion María Caridad Colón has temporarily replaced him at the helm of national athleticsa sport plagued by desertions, poor international results and questions.
For Cuban sports followers, accustomed to the imposing figure of the “Elegant of the slopes” or “The Horse” as the American press baptized him after his “Olympic doubloon” in Montreal in the 400 and 800 meters, it comes as a “shock” See your current photos.
Juantorena was also vice president of INDER for 28 years. In 2014 he was elected to the Hall of Fame of the International Federation, the then IAAF. Between 2015 and 2019 he served as vice president of that world organization.
The former athlete tried several times to be a member of the IOC but according to a former INDER official “he never had the support he needed.”
His current illness prevented him from participating as a manager in 2023 in the Central American and Caribbean Games in San Salvador, in the Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile, and the World Athletic Congress (the former IAAF) in Budapest, prior to the World Championship, where He was made an honorary member of its World Council and was conferred with the Golden Order of Merit.
This distinction was sent to Juantorena last May through Colón by the president of WC, the British Sebastián Coe, while he was in the Bahamas for the World Relay Championships. It is unknown if the legendary Cuban athlete received the award at his home in a private ceremony or if it will wait for a future event after his restoration.
For the first time in 40 years, Juantorena was absent from some Olympics in his capacity as an official, by not attending Paris. Even despite the Cuban absence, he had been in the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games as part of the IAAF racket. Recently retired as a runner, the Santiago idol was not at the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1984, where Cuba did not register as it joined the USSR boycott.
