Cuban Official Makes No Beef About Flights

Cuba’s highest-ranking sports official said Friday that he was not angered by the decision of two U.S. sports federations, USA Basketball and U.S. Cycling, to remove athletes from the Pan American Games village here on days off and send them to Miami.

“Maybe they missed McDonald’s,” said Manuel Gonzalez Guerra, president of the Cuban Olympic Committee. “It is an American tradition to eat at McDonald’s at lunchtime. It was not an insult.”

Gonzalez Guerra said he will travel to Los Angeles with two Cuban baseball players later this month for an international amateur all-star game at Dodger Stadium.

“I’m going to see my friend Peter O’Malley and to eat at McDonald’s,” he said.