Reuters on Fidel Castro: He's a Sports Nut!

July 18th, 2007 12:11 PM

Cuba's president-for-life Fidel Castro is a huge sports fan. Betcha didn't know that! But thanks to Reuters, we know that Castro has been unable to tear himself away from the television set, watching the Pan-American Games in Rio de Janeiro:

Fidel Castro has become so glued to the television set watching the Pan-American Games unfolding in Brazil that he is forgetting to take his pills.

In a column published on Wednesday by Cuba's Communist Party newspaper Granma, the convalescing Cuban leader said he was so engrossed with the sports that he was even forgetting to eat.

"I don't miss a single event on television: weights, taekwondo, rowing, cycling, beach volleyball," he wrote.

"I hardly take my eyes off the television set. Sometimes I forget when it is time to eat or take a pill," Castro said in the column he has written since March, called "Reflections of the Comandante."

The rest of the Reuter's article touches lightly on Castro's illness that caused him to allow his brother, Raul, to take over the day-to-day running of the Communist paradise, widely known for its stellar education opportunities and gold-standard health care. Ahem.

Castro has been writing such columns for Granma for some time now, and apparently they are read over and over on state-sponsored media outlets. Of course, it must be noted that:

Many of his columns are virulent attacks on his longtime ideological nemesis, the U.S. government.

I wonder what he thinks of the fact that our athletes are outperforming the Cubans in Rio?