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Dr. Fraga Mario Granda, director of the Institute of Sports Medicine.

When Cuban sprinter Ana Fidel Quirot won the silver medal in the 800-meter race during the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, a sport newscaster said, “This is not a race for a medal; it’s a race for life.”

That’s how the journalist summed up the struggle this well-known Cuban racer had gone through after enduring a quasi-fatal accident in early 1993. As a result of that mishap, nearly 40 percent of Quirot’s body was covered by burns.

The amazing deed achieved by this larger-than-life runner (a.k.a. the Caribbean Storm) that sprinted dramatically half a lap away from the wire, would have never been possible without the scientific level acquired by Cuba’s sport medicine for the past four decades.

After being operated on more than two dozen times, Ana Fidelia Quirot never snapped and carried on with her iron will, the help of her trainer, a team of physicians, psychologists, physiotherapists and many other experts in sport medicine.

The work of these unsung heroes, a group of professionals who have graduated during the past four decades, lays bare the scientific and technical dedication of these men and women who are part of the wind beneath the wings of many medalists from the largest Caribbean island.

According to Dr. Mario Granda Fraga, director of the Institute of Sport Medicine, the history of athletic activities in Cuba is closely linked to the combination of opportunities and possibilities created on the island nation since the 1959 Revolution.

“Sports,” he says, “is a tool to express our social conditions. That’s why it’s such a top priority for the people and for the Cuban State.”

In Mr. Granda’s opinion, one of the many highlights in the development of Cuba’s sport medicine was the foundation of the Sport Traumatology Division in 1980 led by boldface Cuban scientist Rodrigo Alvarez Cambra.

Mr. Cambra and his team of well-known professionals have been behind countless feats achieved by Cuban athletes who had suffered lesions in the past and were forced to undergo a long rehabilitation process.

For Cuban sports, the Institute of Sport Medicine is a piece of this huge puzzle that no one can’t do without anymore. Made up of a mesh of experts stationed at the Cerro Pelado High Performance Center, the main task of these professionals is to watch out for top athletes’ health conditions and help them score major sport achievements in national and international competitions. These experts also devote a considerable part of their time to do research on how to prevent traumas and severe lesions

The Institute’s clinical specialty is based on the physiological analysis of exercises, workouts and physical education in an effort to make timely diagnoses of athletes’ health problems and the population in general, as well as to lengthen sportsmen’s active life.

With that purpose in mind, the Institute’s staff works on two fundamental issues: on the one hand, the conduction of medical, biological and psychological research to be applied on high-performance athletes, and the implementation of the Health For Everyone Program that targets the entire Cuban population. In many cases –as explained above in this article- most of the attention is riveted on the prevention of lesions and the application of curative methods.

The possibilities offered by the National Network of Sport Medicine and the Institute are: advisory programs in medical and biological research studies, medical services during marathon races and the medical organization of sport centers, technical aide in sport medicine and physical education, functional prognosis and physical training programs, assessment of physical development and capabilities for high-performance athletes and the general population, physical checkups and laboratory tests for cardiovascular evaluations of high-performance athletes and the general population, biomedical control sport training sessions through field tests in a number of sports, psychological evaluation and preparation of athletes, stress control for athletes and the general population, nutrition assessment, biochemical and neuromuscular evaluations, advisory programs for the mounting of anti-doping systems, master courses on medical control of training sessions, control of physical activities, sport psychology, physical medicine and rehabilitation programs.

The Institute of Sport Medicine, however, is not fully satisfied with the upshots of its scientific activity and is putting all of its eggs in the basket of the future, Dr. Granda goes on to say.

In that respect, the institutions is bent on working for a better and more rational use of morphofunctional profiles in different sport categories within the high-performance pyramid set up in Cuba. That would provide ways to refocus medical and biological research studies on the finding of new recommendations for a much better and more efficient control of sport training.

In the same breath, the Institute is moving aggressively toward new guidelines for better selection and promotion of sport talents within the country, the application of physical exercises in the general population from a prophylactic standpoint, and to prevent the spread of non-infectious chronicle diseases and ailments.

Anti-doping Control The latest contribution of the Institute of Sport Medicine is the installation of Havana’s Central Anti-Doping Control Laboratory aimed at getting fairer competitions and tournaments among local and foreign athletes on the island nation.

The laboratory’s staff is highly trained and professional and relies on cutting-edge technology for good research works, analyses, checkups and anti-doping control (over fifty samples are checked out every day). The lab also deals with research studies on medical control of training sessions, excretions and pharmaceutical products.

Later last year, Frenchman Patrick Schamash, medical director of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), presented the lab’s front office with the documents that certify this Cuban facility to conduct anti-doping control tests and find out what athletes are using banned substances.

Mr. Schmash said that day that no country other than Cuban deserves to have a lab like this one. The IOC’s Medical Commission okayed the opening of the new facility on September 23, 2003. Two months later, the final certification was already in the hands of the Cuban sport authorities.

But the road to the certification was long and windy. The lab personnel had to carry out more than 4,000 sample tests, including the ones conducted during the Second Olympiad of Cuban Sport, the World Baseball Cup, the World Fencing Championship and the World Squash Tournament, all of them held in Cuba, as well as to the Cuban ballplayers that attended the Pre-Olympic Baseball Trials in Panama. The lab was equally bound to endure four strict inspections performed by IOC officials. Up to now, the new laboratory has done over 5,000 tests and has provided services to athletes from Venezuela and the Dominican Republic.

Cuba’s anti-doping lab is the third of its kind in Latin America and the Caribbean, the fifth in the Americas and the 31st overall in the world. The lab will have to renew its certification every year under the scrutiny of the IOC’s Medical Commission.

Incredible Stories Many top Cuban athletes can say that part of their positive outcomes is owed to the toilsome endeavor of the Institute of Sport Medicine. The plight of star racer Ana Fidelia Quirot is a good case in point, yet it’s not the only one.

Another example that verges on fantasy is the case of Greco-Latin wrestler Filiberto Azcuy, winner of back-to-back gold medals in the Atlanta and Sydney Olympic Games. As a matter of fact, only a handful of world-class athletes have been capable of such a deed in Olympic Games.

Azcuy grabbed the gold in Atlanta in the 74 Kg division. However, four years later in Sydney he competed in the 69 Kg division, a feat that no other wrestler has ever done in the history of the Olympic Games.

In order to make a cat’s paw of time, Azcuy was put under a rigorous training plan as the Institute of Sport Medicine was keeping a watchful eye on him.

Nevertheless, it’s worth noting that the treatment Mr. Azcuy went through didn’t cause him any kind of physical or metabolic disorder. Indeed, the two-time Olympic champion is headed for Athens with pretty good chances of nabbing a third gold medal.

Doctor Mario Granda told Excellencies magazine that he and his workmates had never been forced to cope with a similar situation. “The commonest thing to see is that a wrestler, a boxer, a judoka or a weightlifter jumps a notch to the next upper division from one Olympic cycle to the next. But the idea of slimming down and keeping in competitive shape is wild, something no one had ever done before.”

That was a test, a challenge that still remains in progress. However, Dr. Granda didn’t reveal in the course of this interview in which division Azcuy will vie for the gold this time around in Athens.

In the case of Azcuy, it’s not only about the challenge of defying nature, but also the need to keep up the good work within the parameters of an Olympic champion. That implies the work of a multidisciplinary team that has been working –and it’s still working- for the health safety of the Cuban wrestler and to help him get the best results in the oncoming Olympic Games in the Greek capital.