The jumper and world record holder since 1988 Javier Sotomayor denied that Cuba was “poor” and blamed the embargo and the US president, Donald Trump, for the “setback” of the island’s economy, in an interview published this Saturday by the newspaper Spanish La Vanguardia.

“Don’t tell me that Cuba is poor,” he replied in Barcelona to the journalist Sergio Heredia. “We are not poor. In Cuba there are no illiterates, no children without medical coverage. No children, no adults. And there are no malnourished people. In sports, science and education we are among the best in the world,” he added.

After the insistence of his interviewer, the former Cuban athlete also expressed: “We suffer financial limitations. Our leaders have changed, but politics remains the same. With Obama, progress had been made. With Trump we have regressed twice.

According to Sotomayor, the embargo imposed by the US on Cuba not only affects the island but also “whoever wants to do business” with the government. “There are banks that cannot enter. Hotels that withdraw. Others that close. Because of the blockade, some of our athletes have not yet collected the international prizes that were won,” he said.

In addition, during the interview, the Cuban jumper recalled “the Obama years”, in which “great improvement in tourism was noted.”

“Many Americans came. We became fashionable. The hotels were not enough and the private houses, either,” he said before confessing to the journalist that he himself took advantage of that moment to open a business, Sports Bar 245, which later ended up closing. .

In 1993, Javier Sotomayor reached 2.45 meters and set the world high jump record that no other athlete has managed to break to date. However, the former athlete had become world record holder five years earlier, in 1988, when he jumped 2.43 meters.

The Cuban was also crowned Olympic champion in Barcelona 1992 and was six times monarch of the world.

Source: Cuban Diary