HAVANA TIMES — The video went viral within hours. Multiple-time boxing champion Felix Savon, considered one of the ten greatest athletes in Cuba’s history, was walking the streets looking for food.
He was not seen rummaging through garbage, but he said it himself: he was looking for food to eat, not, for example, to feed a pig.
The image is painful, regardless of the fact that we are talking about a figure who tarnished all the glory he could have achieved inside the squared circle—a considerable amount of glory, to say the least. He was a three-time Olympic champion, a six-time world champion, and won three more titles at the Pan American Games, among other accomplishments. He brought all of that into disrepute through his behavior outside the ring.
We are talking about a person who served time in prison for committing a sexual offense against a minor. Because he was a public figure aligned with the regime, there was not much public outcry, nor was the law applied to him with its full force. But that is another subject.
It is well known that in this country, an ordinary citizen and someone protected by the dictatorship are not equally situated and do not enjoy the same rights. This was the case here: while others convicted of similar offenses spend at least a decade behind bars, Savon served only six years and was released on parole in 2024.
When he got out of prison, he found himself without a job. His limited knowledge and lack of teaching skills left him with little choice but to coach children—and no parent would entrust their child to him. The country is in ruins, with prices soaring higher every day, and he cannot keep up with them on the meager stipend he receives.
Let us pause here for a moment, because this is not just about the boxer. It is about everyone who, at the height of their careers, irresponsibly gave their youth and talent to Fidel Castro, turning down millions of dollars, as Savon did. I would extend this message to the scientists who developed important products; the doctors and teachers who went abroad on internationalist missions so the dictatorship could improve its image before the world; and even the young men who donned green uniforms and went off to fight in other countries, at least fortunate enough to return alive.
Once their moment of glory had passed, all of them were forgotten, condemned to survive on a laughably small pension that is not enough to cover even their basic needs for a week, let alone a month.
Savon could have earned millions of dollars if he had agreed to fight the professional boxers of his era, but he remained loyal to the government that now treats him with contempt.
Things were different when he retired. Starting in 2013, he received 300 CUC (remember that currency?) for being an Olympic champion. The payment was 300 CUC for each Olympic title, but those with more than one title were given credit for only one. He received another 150 CUC for being a world champion, another 100 for being a Pan American champion, and additional amounts for other sporting achievements.
But the CUC disappeared with the much-publicized Tarea Ordenamiento (Economic Reordering Task of 2021), and the Cuban Institute of Sport (INDER) converted that invented currency into today’s Cuban pesos at an exchange rate of 1 to 24. That left his stipend at around 15,000 pesos —or let us say 20,000 (25 USD) ). Ladies and gentlemen, in Cuba today, that amount is not enough to survive for 15 days, even if you severely restrict your spending.
However, even that amount was not unconditional. It depended on the athletes’ future conduct. Several lost the benefit after attempting to flee the country while still active in their sporting careers, while others, like Savon, lost it because they committed crimes.
This is the reality facing this fallen sports hero. His income has been reduced to an amount commensurate with his university degree—which, incidentally, was handed to him. He can barely write his own name without spelling mistakes, but that is another story.
He never imagined he would be forgotten in this way. But he is neither the first nor the only one, although he may be the most internationally recognized.
There are the accounts of other Cuban sporting legends, such as Ariel Hernandez, a two-time Olympic boxing champion; Silvio Leonard, who still holds the national 100-meter sprint record (a mark Roberto Skyers only managed to equal in 2019) and won the silver medal at the 1980 Moscow Olympics; the late Abel Sarmientos and Margarita Skeet, who were part of some of the finest moments in men’s volleyball and women’s basketball, respectively; Felix Isasi, captain of Cuba’s national baseball teams in the 1960s; and many others.
For years, all of them confused affection with usefulness, and perhaps no one was to blame for that confusion. Or perhaps everyone was, to some extent.
When they were no longer useful, they were no longer valued. They became decorative figures at the regime’s political events. For many, their requests were simple: they wanted to feel that someone cared about them, that someone remembered them—not when they were needed to “make up the numbers” at an event, but to ask how they were doing and how they were managing to survive.
Some people only know how to love what is useful to them. And when you have given the prime of your youth to a cause, whatever that cause may be, that hurts terribly. It also leaves you feeling powerless, because you cannot convince such people that you are more than a tool.
The cordiality that once seemed sincere disappears when you become inconvenient, when you can no longer contribute what you once did and are now the one who needs help. Then you realize that you have been filed away in an invisible corner of other people’s memories.
To be clear, I am not including here the members of the public who genuinely care about their athletes. There are some beautiful stories of that kind, too, but this is not about them. The responsibility lies with those who exploited these athletes for political purposes and to boast about the “best and fairest sports movement in the world.”
The problem arises when usefulness replaces appreciation. Someone who truly values us asks how we are doing even when they need nothing from us. They remember our problems without turning them into a heavy burden on their own shoulders, and they celebrate our existence even when we are no longer producing immediate benefits.
In the end, these people have been victims of a social model that, despite preaching the opposite, rewards unlimited availability and despises vulnerability. It values people for what they do, not for who they are; for their ability to deliver, not for their right to rest.
In the harshest possible way, they discover that they should have thought about their futures, because the Revolution’s leaders only take care of their own. Those who do not have a permanent seat in this inner circle, where blood ties and loyalty prevail, know that they remain on the list only as long as they are useful.