Four members of the Cuban rowing team have defected from the Pan American Games and travelled to the United States.
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“We have received word they are in the USA”, Reyes said of the defectors, identified as Liosmel Ramos, Wilber Turro, Manuel Suarez and Orlando Sotolongo.
The rowing venue for this year’s games – which started on July 10 and end on the 26th – is located in St. Catherine’s, Ontario, a short distance from the U.S. border.
Games officials said Wednesday morning that they weren’t aware of the defections.
The U.S. Coast Guard said the “migrant flow” of Cubans to the US stands at 3,104 so far in the 2015 fiscal year, the Star reported.
Canadian immigration officials could not immediately be reached for comment. “CBP officers and agents will verify whether the individual has any criminal or existing USA immigration history”, it said.
It is likely to remain so for some time despite the future resumption of normal relations between the two countries, including the removal of American sanctions and the expected influx of American tourists to Cuba, José Azel, a senior scholar at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami, told the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest newspaper.
Dozens of athletes, many of them from Cuba, have defected during global sports events over the years – some to flee persecution, others to bolster their careers. There’s even a case dating back to 1967, at the Pan Am Games in Winnipeg, when Cuban boxer Jorge Enrico Blanco fled to the United States after he picked up a gold medal.
The year before that, two women on the Cuban soccer team defected from Vancouver after a qualifying match for the Olympics.
In the 1999 Pan-American Games in Winnipeg, eight members of the Cuban delegation defected.
The US has extended a diplomatic olive branch to Cuba, but its door remains open to defectors from the island nation. They now play for a professional league in South Carolina.
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Sotolongo won a silver medal in the men’s quadruple sculls event on Tuesday.
