Boxers return

last updated 8 January 2015

Havana

Two top Cuban boxers who vanished during the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro last month were back in Cuba this week, after Brazil deported them. The boxers, Guillermo Rigondeaux and Erislandy Lara, had abandoned their delegation in Rio, sparking rumors that they wanted to defect. But police in Brazil last week said the boxers turned up at a resort, where they’d run up an exorbitant tab and had decided they wanted to return home. When it appeared the men were defecting, Fidel Castro issued a statement saying that they had been “knocked down with a blow straight to the chin, paid up with U.S. bills.” He sounded more conciliatory this week, saying the boxers would be detained temporarily but would be “offered decent tasks in sports.”