<i> Gigante</i> Name Left Off Cuban Boxing Team for Pan Am Games

The Cubans released a roster of the boxing team they’re sending to Indianapolis for the Pan American Games, and a very big name was missing Tuesday.

Teofilo Stevenson, 36, the dominant figure in the history of amateur boxing, the three-time Olympic champion Cubans call El Gigante, didn’t make the traveling squad.

Recent reports from Cuba have it that Stevenson has problems on both the legal and sports fronts. U.S. journalists who have visited Cuba in recent months have been told that Stevenson was involved in an auto-motorcycle accident that caused a fatality some months ago, and that “alcohol was involved.”

Chris Jenkins of the San Diego Union, in Cuba last May for an international volleyball event, said that Cuban premier Fidel Castro told a U.S. volleyball official, when asked about the rumors: “There’s nothing even I can do--it’s up to the courts.”

The alleged auto accident, however, may not be related to Stevenson’s absence from the team.

A Cuban reporter told The Times’ Randy Harvey in April--before the alleged auto accident--that Stevenson had decided to pass up the Pan Am Games but that it is possible Stevenson would try for a fourth gold medal at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

Many U.S. amateur boxing officials wrote Stevenson off in 1983, after he was beaten by lightly regarded American Craig Payne, and then after Eastern Bloc nations boycotted the 1984 Olympics.

Surprisingly, however, Stevenson showed up in Reno for the World Championships in May of 1986, weighing a trim 211 pounds. Even more surprisingly, he won the gold medal, his third world championship.

But speculation is sure to grow, now that the 6-foot 6-inch Cuban super-heavyweight might have finally faded, willingly or otherwise, from the amateur sports scene.

Cubans have also confided to visiting U.S. journalists that Stevenson has been less than a smash as a boxing coach, at which he has dabbled in recent years.

The roster Pan Am Games officials were given Tuesday showed another 6-6 boxer, Jorge Gonzales, in Stevenson’s customary spot. Gonzales won the 1983 Pan Am gold medal in Caracas, Venezuela.

With or without Stevenson, the Cubans figure to be the dominant force during the tournament at the Indianapolis Convention Center Aug. 13-23.

The Cubans have won every World tournament since 1974, and took a record seven gold medals in the ’86 gathering at Reno. At the 1983 Pan Am Games, Cuba won eight gold medals, the United States two.

The United States won nine gold medals at the 1984 Olympics but most observers of amateur boxing believe it would have been three or four, had Cuba participated.

Of the seven Cubans who won gold medals in Reno, four will box in Indianapolis: Juan Torres at 106 pounds, Angel Espinosa at 165, Pablo Romero at 178 and Felix Savon at 201.

Several others are proven world-class boxers, such as Candelario Duvergel, a former World champion welterweight who is dropping down to the light-welterweights (139) for the Pan Am Games. Duvergel won the gold medal at 139 in the ’83 Pan Am Games. The team’s middleweight, Orestes Solano, is the defending Pan Am champion.

Cuba’s welterweight, Juan Lemus, will be up against the United States’ Ken Gould, who won the World welterweight crown in Reno by beating Duvergel. Gould, however, was knocked out by Lemus in Havana in the 1985 USA-Cuba series.

The United States has three World champions from Reno, all on the Pan Am team: Kelcie Banks at 125, Gould at 147, and Darin Allen at 165.