Fidel Castro Prevents Cuban boxers from participating in 2007 AIBA worlds

Here's a little trivia for everyone! Little known to many, the highly regarded Cuban boxers will not be showing their wares for today's 2007 AIBA World Boxing championships in Chicago. It's old news but little buzz has been created of it since being announced end of August 2007. Cuban dictator Fidel Castro has intervened and disallowed his compatriot boxers to take part fearing more defections will arise especially since there has been a number of similar incidences that happened already. Most recently, 2 Cuban pugilists by the name of Erislandy Lara current amateur welterweight champion and Guillermo Rogindeaux an Olympic Bantamweight champion deserted during the 2007 Pan-American Games in Brazil. Both have fled to Germany only to be apprehended and repatriated to Cuba after. Both have been banned from ever representing Cuba in the international sports scene.

A more prominent incident of defection from Cuba are 2 professional baseball players Orlando Hernandez and Jose Contreras, now playing for their respective pro baseball teams in the U.S.