UK Sport

• You are here:
• Media Centre
• News

Super Powers

Subscribe

Alan Hubbard 06 March 2001

CUBA - THE BIG HITTERS

FIDEL CASTRO would approve of Audley Harrison, not only as Britain’s Olympic super-heavyweight champion can box a bit, but because he fights for what he wants. About 18 months before the Sydney Games, Harrison, who had always fancied himself as something of a revolutionary, led a march of the fistic brigade on Downing Street, petitioning for restoration of financial support for his stricken sport. No doubt PM Tony Blair decided he was too big to argue with, for the eventual result was the best part of half a million pounds in vital Lottery funding via Sport England.

This at least enabled the Amateur Boxing Association to provide full-time training camps for Britain’s Olympic hopefuls. But had Harrison been a Cuban there would have been no need for him to go to war. The government would have been in his corner from the first bell.

Just as Harrison’s career, at 29 is entering a new, million dollar-laden dawn on the back of his Sydney success, that of another 2000 Games boxing hero, Felix Savon fades into a Havana sunset, the 33-year-old Cuban flag bearer having decided to rest on his three Gold medals.

They are products of disparate systems. Savon is a towering legend of the ring who has the ear and the support of Castro. The Cubans called him "Ninote" (Big Boy) the defender of Fidel’s faith and his nation’s remarkable boxing legacy.

Professional boxing has been illegal in Cuba since 1961, when Castro banned it but their achievements in Olympic boxing are astonishing, with 27 Gold medals since 1972, despite missing two Games because of political boycotts. Savon’s was one of four in Sydney whereas Harrison’s was the first British Gold for 32 years.

CUBAN BOXERS usually climb into the ring around the age of 11. Harrison did not start his amateur career until he was 19. Boxing is mandatory for boys in Cuban schools and there are dedicated government-funded sports colleges in every province. In Britain it has all but disappeared at schoolboy level.

Like the old Soviet and Chinese sports factories, the Cuban boxing system is heavily-centralised, government-subsidised and such is its priority (it is second only to baseball in popularity) that funding for boxing can always be found despite Cuba’s dire economic situation.

In Sydney, the 6ft 6in heavyweight Savon became only the second boxer in history to win three Gold medals in the same weight class. The other was his compatriot Teofilo Stevenson, known as Castro’s right-hand man because of his stun-gun punch.

CUBANS LOVE Savon, just as they did his super-heavyweight predecessor, and laud him as the supreme product of their socialist sporting system, a man who fought not for personal glory but for 'Il Presidente’ and the Revolution.

His has hardly been the glamorous existence of professional counterparts elsewhere in the world but it has come as close to luxury as any Cuban is likely to get in Cuba, with the State, as they do for Olympic Gold medal winners in every sport, underwriting his living expenses, providing an apartment and a car, as much food as he and his family of five can eat and the rare opportunity to travel overseas, albeit only to compete.

The American promoter Don King and Britain’s Frank Warren are among several who have despatched cheque-book-waving emissaries to Cuba to entice him. No joy. Fearsome Felix turned down US $20m to fight Mike Tyson, win lose or draw and angrily spurned a $5m offer to defect in Atlanta, saying: "Professional boxing is dirty and exploitive. The only millions that interest me are my 11 million brothers in Cuba."

HARRISON HAS no such hang-ups, and at least support from UK Sport, Sport England and the British Olympic Association, has enabled him to be as totally dedicated to his craft as Savon over the past couple of years.

Although he was only one of two British boxers sent to Sydney (Cuba had a full complement of a dozen) his success may have rescued a sport that seemed out on its feet. The ABA has been able to capitalise on his Gold medal to secure future funding they might otherwise have lost, and can now advertise for more national and regional coaches.

Meantime for Big Audley, the professional world heavyweight championship beckons. When he won Commonwealth Gold in Kuala Lumpur in1998 Harrison declared, in the manner of his idol, Muhammad Ali, that he would be the greatest heavyweight ever to come out of Britain. "The masterplan is still in place," he said after stepping from the rostrum in Sydney. Spoken like a true revolutionary.

Alan Hubbard is sports columnist and boxing correspondent for the Independent on Sunday. He has covered nine Olympic Games and is a former Olympic Journalist of the Year.

Back to news listing

Most Viewed