PAN AMERICAN GAMES : Notes : Anti-Castro Protesters Having a Difficult Time Being Seen and Heard

Two days into the Pan American Games, the veterans from Brigade 2506 of the Bay of Pigs Invasion are 0-for-2.

The anti-Castro protesters, Cuban emigres who were jailed for two years in Cuba after the unsuccessful Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, planned a demonstration for Saturday’s opening ceremony at the Indianapolis Speedway.

They bought 11 tickets, which they believed were strategically located for the best possible television exposure, and waited for the Cuban team to march past in the parade of nations. At the moment the cameras focused on the team, the protesters were supposed to raise signs that said, “Cuba Si, Castro No.”

The moment never came. While the protesters thought the Cubans would march to the right when they entered the track from out of the tower, they marched to the left.

Brigade 2506 never made it on television.

The protesters tried again Sunday, when 13 of the 30 veterans who are in town for the Pan American Games took their placards to Bush Stadium to meet the Cuban baseball team when it arrived for a game against the Netherlands-Antilles.

But the protesters were late, getting to the parking lot after the Cubans already were in the stadium.

Raul Granda, a spokesman for the group, said the veterans were calling it a day. He said they didn’t want to create a scene inside the stadium because they thought it would attract more security, which might prevent them from reaching their true goal.

“We want defectors,” he said.

Another anti-Castro organization in town for the Pan American Games is the Washington D.C.-based Cuban-American National Foundation.

Two of that group’s members, an elderly woman and a small girl, were at the Cuban baseball game Sunday, wearing T-shirts with a telephone number on them that athletes can call if they want to defect.

Waving tiny American flags, the woman and the child just smiled when asked questions by reporters. They said they couldn’t speak English.

Even though the anti-Cuban sentiment has been evident only to those who have looked for it, the Cuban delegation here is angry enough about it to threaten retaliation.

Cubans officials were particularly disturbed when they learned that airplanes trailing anti-Castro banners were flying over Indianapolis during the opening ceremony. The airplanes were not allowed over the Speedway.

In a letter Sunday to Mark Miles, president of the Pan American Games organizing committee, and Mario Vazquez Rana, president of the Pan American Sports Organization, the president of the Cuban Olympic Committee, Manuel Gonzalez Guerra, and the president of the Cuban sports organization, Conrado Martinez Corona wrote:

“The Cuban delegation expresses its utmost protest and total disgust for the provocations which occurred during the opening ceremony.

“The presence of planes with provocative texts toward our delegation with an act that included an air show, as well as the distribution of propaganda inciting defections and giving the telephone numbers of police and immigration in restricted areas makes us believe that there exists complicity between officials and those elements which would try to convert the Games into a political act.

“From now on, we hold the organizing committee and the authorities responsible for any acts which would result from our answers to these actions.”

Robert Helmick, United States Olympic Committee president, asked for the cooperation of all citizens in not turning the Games into a political event.

Another protest to the organizing committee concerned CBS’ coverage of the opening ceremony.

In noting the arrival on the track of the Colombian team, announcer Brent Musburger said: “Colombia, unfortunately, in recent years, has become the central country in the cocaine trade, and most Colombians who are law-abiding citizens certainly have suffered from the image that the country has developed because of that illicit trade.”

In his letter, Fidel Mendoza Carrasqilla, responded: “It was Americans who put in the money (for the cocaine). Americans are the biggest consumers of drugs in the world.”

A CBS spokesperson said the network will not apologize because, “there is nothing to apologize for.”

The U.S. men’s basketball team plays today against Argentina, the only team to beat the United States in the world championships last summer in Spain.

But this is a much different Argentine team because of a labor dispute.

After Argentina won the South American championships this year, its basketball federation paid each of the players $850. But because the players claimed they had been promised $1,000, six of them walked off the team.

When they tried to return before the Pan American Games, the federation told them their places on the roster had been filled.

Mark Witherspoon, who beat Carl Lewis in the 100 meters at the national championships two months ago, pulled his right hamstring after crossing the finish line in the semifinals Sunday and will not run in tonight’s final.

Witherspoon had just run a very fast 9.91 to finish second in the semifinals to Jamaican Raymond Stewart’s even faster 9.89, but the times were aided by an over-the-allowable wind of 4.2 meters per second.

Witherspoon’s coach, the University of Houston’s Tom Tellez, said he will recommend the runner not compete in the world championships, Aug. 29-Sept. 6, in Rome.

“The world championships are important but that’s not as important as going healthy to the Olympics next year,” said Tellez, who also coaches Lewis.

If Witherspoon, who runs for the Santa Monica Track Club, can’t compete in Rome, his place on the U.S. team in the 100 meters will be taken by Harvey Glance, 30, who finished fourth in the national championships.

The 16-year-old girl who won the first Pan American gold medal ever for the country of Costa Rica is a 6-2 blonde whose parents are from West Germany and who was born in Nicaragua.

Strange but true. And this promises to be an ongoing story. After winning the 100-meter freestyle Sunday afternoon in 56.39 seconds, Silvia Poll announced that that was her fastest time ever and that the 100 freestyle is her third-best event.

She ranks the 100-meter backstroke and the 200-meter freestyle as her long suits. And she also plans to compete in the 200-meter backstroke and three relays.

This is her first major international meet, although she did manage a sixth-place finish in the 200-meter freestyle in the World Championships last year.

“There is a lot of pressure on my in my country,” Poll said. “They’re all watching me, and I know people are going crazy there.”

Costa Rica won a bronze medal in football (soccer) in 1951 and had not had another medal until Sunday morning, when Costa Rica won a silver in the marathon.

Poll anchored the 800-meter relay, hitting the water nine seconds behind the U.S. team and three seconds behind then-second-place Canada. But in her 200 meters she picked it up enough to bring the relay team a silver medal.

At the Central America games last month in Puerto Rico, Poll won nine gold medals--eight individual and one relay--and set eight records.

The rest of the slate of swimming events went off much as expected, with Americans sweeping the gold and silver in every other event except the men’s 200-meter freestyle, in which John Witchell took the gold and Brian Jones the bronze for the United States, with Carlos Scanavino of Uruguay taking the silver.

Sara Linke of Walnut Creek won the silver behind Poll and Jenny Thompson, a 14-year-old and the youngest American on the Pan Am team, won the bronze.

Linke, 23, is making a comeback in swimming after burning out and turning to the triathlon. She said she had worked out only a couple of weeks before the national long course meet at Clovis that served as the qualifying meet for the Pan Am Games and the Pan Pacific Games in Australia.

The American team in Brisbane includes Dara Torres, who swam a 56.14 in Clovis, and Jenna Johnson, who swam a 56.34. Both times would have beaten Polls’ final time. But Poll swam a 56.10 in the morning preliminary heat.

The subject was how much attention Greg Louganis brings to the sport of diving, and Megan Neyer, silver medalist on the three-meter springboard, was asked if she thought interest would fall off after he retires. She said, “I’ve never thought of it that way. . . . God knows when the guy is ever going to retire.”

There were folks in the stands waiting for the swimming finals to begin at the natatorium Sunday afternoon who were quite pleased to get, as a bonus, the opportunity to watch Louganis practicing at the diving end before competition began. But one lady watching him through binoculars was shocked to see that he’s getting gray.

Louganis, who is 27, will compete tonight on the three-meter board.