The ship is sinking, and many believe it can’t find a port.

At the recent World Championships, only three bronze medals were collected, the worst performance since 1974.

Since I was a child, I’ve heard about the many achievements of Cuban sports. Countless are the joys that the Morenas del Caribe gave us; how many of us experienced round after round of each Savôn or Stevenson fight; how many of us didn’t run alongside Juantorena, play with Mireya Luis, or rise alongside Soto.

Today, results like those in sports seem far away. In the most recent events, our athletes have not lived up to expectations. In the recent World Championships, they only managed to win three bronze medals, the worst performance since 1974.

In the words of Rolando Acebal, head of our country’s boxing squad, the poor results are due to the lack of international competitions and the limited exposure our boxers have had with foreign fighters. The volleyball squads seem like a mirage of what they once were, and every day they are further and further from the world’s elite.

The potential is there because we have several athletes signed to the world’s top leagues, but we haven’t achieved the leap in quality that would return us to where we once were. Sports are no strangers to the ups and downs that plague Cuban life. Our athletes face shortages and a lack of international exposure.

In an increasingly digital world where technology is used for development, we cannot live out of touch with reality, nor with the training methods of several decades ago, because sport, like life, is dialectical and constantly advancing.

Some problems our sports system faces are the inability to purchase the sports equipment necessary for proper performance; nutritional requirements fail to meet needs.

The application of science to sports with tools such as artificial intelligence suites, performance analysis programs, and the constant persecution to which our professionals are exposed hinder results.