Two more Cuban athletes have chosen to be free instead of competing as slaves of the communist Castro dictatorship.
Young members of the Cuban sailing team arrive in the United States
Iris Laura Manso and Carlos Miguel Exposito, young athletes with the Cuban sailing team, arrived in the U.S. and will not be representing the island in the next Star Sailors League World Cup in Switzerland. The news was confirmed by the national team on Monday in a post on Facebook.
According to the post, the young sailors, who hail from the town of Caibarien in the Villa Clara province, “decided to leave to the U.S. and after several weeks achieved that objective and will start new lives in the nation to the north.”
The National Sailing Commission, Nelido Manso, the team’s captain and father of Iris Laura, “will begin the process to select substitutes for the international SSL,” where the national team will compete under the name The Pirates of the Caribbean.
Over approximately the past two months, the young athletes “began a treacherous journey to reach the border of the U.S. and reunited with family members in that country,” reported sailing publication Play Off Magazine. The report does not offer any information on how the young athletes got to the U.S.
Veteran and 1999 world champion in the snipe category Nelido Manso had returned to competition in order to compete as a teammate of his daughter, having success in the past five years. Carlos Miguel Exposito is also a champion sailor.
Continue reading (in Spanish) HERE.