Cuba rushes to build first female boxing team, one of last nations to do so

HAVANA: Boxing powerhouse Cuba on Saturday staged a series of official female boxing matches for the first time since Fidel Castro’s 1959 Revolution, just a few weeks after lifting a taboo on the sport. While women have been boxing for decades, in community and basement gyms, they were banned from the state-dominated sports system and competitions. The 14 competitors in the seven fights were among 26 women already selected to receive special attention due to their promise to compete internationally for the Communist-run country.

“I feel super proud. Winning an official competition is a dream come true for me. We women have been waiting for this possibility for a long time,” Eliani de la Caridad Garcia, 27 and mother of a 2-year-old girl, told Reuters.

Garcia, who became the first woman to win a state-sponsored match in the country, was speaking in a gym and training area where many athletes, including male boxers, were cheering the women on. The women now are competing for a ticket in the six Olympic divisions en route to the Central American and Caribbean Games in San Salvador, in June 2023. The Caribbean island — long hailed for its top-ranked male boxers — has won 41 gold medals in the Olympic games since Munich in 1972, topping global charts.

But until now, it was one of a handful of countries that did not practice women’s boxing among the 202 nations affiliated with the International Boxing Association. Female boxers had no choice but to migrate to reach the highest levels of their sport. Coach Julio Cesar Morales, who for decades trained male boxers and has now begun to work with the women, was eager to get started.