Beijing 110m hurdles champ Dayron Robles of Cuba has been left off his country’s world championship team Friday due to unresolved issues with the Cuban Athletics Federation, according to the Trabajadores newspaper.
“Cuba has not authorized Dayron to compete due to problems with discipline and his sporting ethics,” CAF President Alberto Juantorena said.
To explain: Robles left the Cuban squad back in January, and now won’t be able to run in Moscow because he’s not affiliated with a team. He can actually change nationalities if he wants, so long as he’s willing to wait the two years before he can compete in major events again. But the CAF doesn’t really like that idea, either:
“We will maintain the initial position to the IAAF Council,” Juantorena concluded, “because we are against theft [of] athletes [from] underdeveloped countries by the great powers.”
Robles ran 12.87 seconds to break the world record in Ostrava a month ahead of the 2008 Games, but the gold medalist has had a difficult career since Beijing: He was disqualified after winning worlds in 2011 because he impeded rival Liu Xiang of China, failed to make the event finals in London last summer, and lost his world record to Aries Merrit in September. And the hits just keep on coming.
