Cuba's Olympic Committee is considering all its options, including not sending a boxing team to the Olympics, after two boxers fled the team in the Brazilian city of Rio and returned home in disgrace, the country's leader, Fidel Castro, said in a Wednesday newspaper column.

 

"Sporting authorities are considering all the possibilities including changing the list of boxers or not sending any delegation at all," Castro said in the column, published in Cuban state daily Granma.

 

Erislandy Lara and Guillermo Rigondeaux jumped ship from the Cuban boxing team at the Pan American Games held in Rio last month, at the urging of German boxing promoter Ahmet Oner.

 

Castro, citing Spanish news agency EFE, said the two had spent their time getting drunk with prostitutes, bankrolled by Oner. The agencies said that last week that police had arrested the boxers for overstaying their visas, and they had then shamefacedly asked to return home, claiming they had been drugged by the promoter.

 

Once back in Cuba, according to Castro, "the revolution kept its world: reuniting them with their families, giving them access to the press and giving them jobs in line with their knowledge. We have given equal attention to their state of health," Castro said.

 

Castro judged Lara, 24 and captain of the boxing team, more guilty of the two. Despite his more responsible role "he delivered himself directly into the hands of the mercenaries", Castro said.

 

Rigondeaux is a two-time Olympic bantamweight champion and Lara the amateur welterweight world champion.

 

Castro, who turns 81 on Monday, has not been seen in public for more than 12 months. In late July last year, he handed power to Raul Castro, his younger brother and the nation's defense minister, in order to undergo an operation for gastric bleeding. He writes regularly in the nation's newspapers on current affairs.

 

(Xinhua News Agency August 9, 2007)