A fairy-tale ending?
After Cuba severed his Oly dreams in 2000, Arturo Miranda is back, diving for Canada and hoping to meet with success
By TERRY JONES -- Edmonton Sun
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic -- Forget it, Fidel.
Don't even consider it, Castro.
Cuba can't keep Arturo Miranda out of the Olympic Games this time.
They did in Barcelona, when he was a Cuban. And they managed to do it again in Sydney when he was a Canadian.
But Miranda is back at the Pan-Am Games where his story first started when he was the diving flag-bearer for the host country at the Havana Pan-Am Games in 1991.
He's back to give it one more go.
"It's still my life-time dream,'' said the diver who immigrated to Canada after marrying an Edmonton girl, and made the Canadian Olympic team, only to have Cuba use a veto to keep him out of Sydney 2000 in one of the dirtiest tricks ever played on an athlete in Olympic history.
"It's still the one thing in my life I want to do - not just get to the Olympics like I did in Sydney, but to compete in the Olympics.
"That would be like a fairy tale after everything which has happened to me.
"Obviously this is my last chance at it.'' Miranda first gave up on his Olympic dream back in 1992, when he was left on the tarmac by the Cuban Olympic team who didn't like his chances for a medal and had to leave some athletes at home because of bucks.
CAUGHT THE PLANE
At least he caught the plane to the Sydney Olympics but ended up as a soap opera as Canada battled until the last minute to allow him to compete.
Miranda married a Canadian who was a consultant to the Cuban industry, and moved to Toronto when his wife's contract expired in 1995. Last year he dared to dream the Olympic dream again.
"I sacrificed a lot of things for Sydney because I thought it was possible,'' he said.
The Canadians believed the Olympic charter was vague in not allowing an athlete, who has competed in a major Games, to compete for another country unless they had been a Canadian citizen for three years.
The IOC required a release from the regional federations and the Cubans refused to give that release.
Born Jan. 1, 1971, in Havana, Miranda said he was most looking forward to the Sydney Olympics "to compete against the Cubans.''
Now he gets to compete against them here, one island away from where he grew up.
"I'm very excited,'' said Miranda, now divorced and living in Toronto.
BACK ON THE TEAM
Not totally serious about his sport for a couple of years after the Sydney disappointment, he failed to make last year's Canadian team to the Commonwealth Games.
Back on the team, but something of a spare part now, he still thinks he can get back and compete in Athens.
"I had no intention of quitting. It never crossed my mind of quitting. But I'm older now and you can't go hard for four years.
''Four years is a long time when you're older.
"It's a lot of work and I've really gone back to work to be able to do what I've always wanted to do.
"I think I have a pretty good chance of making the Olympic team again.''
Miranda looks back on it all.
"I know why they do it. I wasn't the first.
''They want to punish anybody who left Cuba and prevent them from coming back and competing against Cuba.
"It's a political thing. It has nothing to do with sport.
"The thing with me is that I didn't leave Cuba for freedom, I didn't do it illegally.
"They want to punish anybody who leaves Cuba - hangs them out to dry. But I didn't leave Cuba high and dry.
"I'll never understand why.''
He probably won't win a medal here. But he might beat a Cuban.
