Amid thawing U.S.-Cuba relations, Cuban team arrives for Special Olympics

Before the 1987 Special Olympics, the Cuban national team decided to visit Miami for two days. Anti-Castro exiles got wind of their plans and picketed the hotel, hoping the athletes might defect. The situation got so bad, according to the book “An Air War with Cuba: The United States Radio Campaign Against Castro,” that the Cuban players and coaches were forced to sneak out the back of their hotel at 4 a.m.

Nearly three decades later, the Cuban delegation to the Special Olympics World Games, which will open Saturday at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, arrived in L.A. under a very different set of circumstances. The Cubans, who are among 7,000 athletes from 177 countries competing in this year’s event, were welcomed with open arms. On Monday, they arrived with much fanfare, as Cuba and the United States reopened their respective embassies after 54 years.

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The 16 Cuban athletes and their coaches spent the week sightseeing and training. They attended a private screening of the animated film “Minions,” ate breakfast at McDonald’s and toured Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. The wax figures of Jennifer Lopez, Denzel Washington and Michael Jackson were among their favorites, according to their American chaperons.

The Cuban athletes will participate in badminton, beach volleyball, track, swimming and gymnastics during the games, which will be held at venues throughout the city and will run through Aug. 2. The significance of the moment wasn’t lost on them.

“He’s a good president — Obama,” Orlando Rodriguez, 20, said in Spanish. “I like him because of the relationship he’s allowing Cuba to have with America.”

Rodriguez will run the 100-, 200- and 400-meter dash. Over dinner at El Criollo restaurant in Burbank on Tuesday evening, American chaperon Fabiola Guzman listened closely to what the soft-spoken Rodriguez said. He is the only athlete from Havana proper.

Rodriguez smiled when the talk turns to his favorite athletes. Sprinter Usain Bolt tops the list, Rodriguez said, and he believes FC Barcelona star Lionel Messi is the best soccer player in the world.

The scene at the restaurant felt like a typical Hollywood red carpet event, with cameras constantly flashing. Guzman used her cellphone to dutifully photograph members of the Cuban delegation, who are mostly teenagers. A 45-year-old mother of three, she works as a middle school teacher in Loma Linda.

“About a year ago I was watching something on TV and saw an ad about the games coming to L.A.,” Guzman said. “Within 20 minutes, I signed up.”

The next day, a yellow school bus pulled into the parking lot at Harvard-Westlake High School and the young Cubans filed out. They were tired. The touring and traveling had worn them out.

The athletes fanned out across the high school’s spacious campus. The badminton and beach volleyball teams hit the gym and practiced on the basketball court. The two gymnasts found a dance studio and began rehearsing their routines. Adelida Ramos, 63, is the head of the delegation and not their coach, but she watched intently as the two girls practiced. At one point, she performed the routine alongside them, imploring one of the girls to stretch her arms out as far as possible when she executed the number’s final move.

Ramos, on her first trip out of her homeland, was impressed with the sights and sounds of Hollywood. When asked how she thinks the athletes’ experience in the U.S has been affected by the changing diplomatic relations, Ramos said they aren’t focused on politics.

“We came here for the sports,” she said. “We don’t see any changes. We have always been united with each other and other countries.”

Defections have been a long-standing problem for Cubans at international sporting events. In the last few weeks at the CONCACAF Gold Cup soccer tournament in the U.S. and the Pan-Am Games in Canada, several rowers, baseball and soccer players defected, according to media reports.

Ramos says she doesn’t fear this for any of her athletes or coaches.

“We are not thinking about that,” Ramos said. “We are all here for one reason: to compete.... I promise you that we are all going to return.”

Each team had all of their expenses paid for by their host town before moving into the Olympic Village on Friday. For the Cubans, that would be Studio City. The Chamber of Commerce, led by executive director Esther Walker, and local residents organized the accommodations and week of activities. Walker moved from Cuba when she was 4 and said that anyone who comes into contact with the delegation will learn what she’s always known.

“People will get to see how grateful these athletes are to be here and participating in the games,” Walker said, “and how wonderful Cubans really are.”

On the Harvard-Westlake track, Rodriguez and the three other runners began working out. Their pace was sluggish.

But after some warming up and a blistering 80-meter practice run, Rodriguez gave Guzman a high-five. He was wearing a Spanish soccer jersey, spandex pants and orange Puma running spikes — just like Usain Bolt.

“We have bad tracks in Cuba,” Rodriguez said in Spanish, “but this is a dream. It makes me run faster than I expect.”

In the pool, three swimmers shared the water with Harvard-Westlake’s water polo team. The Cuban coach is a special-education teacher who has been working with the athletes for two years. The two female swimmers, Guzman said, spent too much time doing their hair that morning and had forgotten their goggles and swim caps.

A woman from Harvard-Westlake noticed. “I really want to give them something,” she said, fetching them black goggles and swim caps emblazoned with the American flag.

Their coach was extremely grateful.

She showed off her own shirt: It was red and had Che Guevara’s face on the front.

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Times staff writer Veronica Rocha contributed to this report.

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