{"id":323364,"date":"2025-05-26T17:03:13","date_gmt":"2025-05-26T21:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=323364"},"modified":"2025-05-26T17:03:13","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T21:03:13","slug":"leonor-borrell-a-menace-on-the-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/sports\/leonor-borrell-a-menace-on-the-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Leonor Borrell, a menace on the court"},"content":{"rendered":"

At 108 Mujica Street in Santa Clara, Luis Rodr\u00edguez Crespo built a shrine to Cuban sports. \u201cThe Collector,\u201d as he is known, created more than fifty albums dedicated to Cuban and international athletes after collecting countless newspaper and magazine clippings over the years. I discovered those treasures sometime in 2014 or 2015, and one of the books that most caught my eye was the one about Leonor Borrell, considered by many to be the best Cuban basketball player in history.<\/span><\/p>\n

The images of that six-foot-tall \u201ctower\u201d rising above all the courts were imposing, as were the stories told about her, from her debut on the national team at just 16 to her MVP awards in four Pan American Games and her top scorer crown at the 1986 World Cup.<\/span><\/p>\n

Likewise, the headlines in the publications took me on a journey back in time to a period of absolute splendor for Cuban basketball, part of its most profound past. \u201cCuba, world bronze in Malaysia,\u201d read one of the headlines, referring to the only world medal won by a women\u2019s team in 1990. That line seemed straight out of a fiction film, because the sport of basketball on the island was no longer enjoying the same health.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the name \u201cThe Menace of the Baskets\u201d \u2014 as she was known \u2014 only vaguely resonated with me, perhaps because she wrote her story in a time I hadn\u2019t experienced. I remembered more her brother, L\u00e1zaro Borrell, a true phenomenon who shone in the Higher League with Centrales and later emigrated to the United States to become one of only two Cubans with a contract in the NBA.<\/span><\/p>\n

Regarding Leonor, on the other hand, I didn\u2019t have many references. Her career and achievements were rarely discussed compared to the great stars of boxing, baseball, and track and field who shone for Cuba in the fruitful decades of the 1980s and 1990s.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Luisito \u201cThe Collector\u2019s\u201d album immediately caught my attention, as did the book \u201c<\/span>Medallas al Coraz\u00f3n<\/span><\/i>\u201d by my colleague Joel Garc\u00eda, which features an <\/span>interview<\/b><\/a>\u00a0with Borrell. In those pages, I found more details about her career and was surprised to find that her beginnings in the sport were \u201con the spur of the moment.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEvery day on my way to school, I would pass by a basketball court next to my home. Since I was very tall for my age \u2014 I was 1.62 meters tall at 9 years old \u2014 coach Rafael Garc\u00eda Ca\u00f1izares, better known as Abdala, would tease me with an inviting phrase: \u2018Goodbye, basketball player.\u2019 If I said I liked sports, I\u2019d be lying. I was a girl who preferred skating, playing jacks, riding a bike, climbing trees, and swimming in rivers,\u201d she recounted in the aforementioned book.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Leonor Borrell wearing the Cuban national team jersey. Photo: FIBA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There, she also recounted the bitter moments she experienced after her brother L\u00e1zaro decided to emigrate, an event that changed her life, to the point that she wasn\u2019t even included among the 100 best athletes of the century on the island, despite having all the merits.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a story I\u2019ve never been able to tell. He never stopped being my brother, and he was a basketball player because of me, because he wanted to be a baseball player. I didn\u2019t cover up or share his actions in staying in another country, but the dimension that was given to it meant stripping my career of any validity, as if nothing had happened in my 20 years of basketball, and as if I were to blame for such behavior.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBeing left off that list isn\u2019t the most important thing; it\u2019s that Cuban basketball in the 20th century apparently didn\u2019t exist, because not even Pedro Chapp\u00e9, Ruperto Herrera, and Margarita Skeet were on the national team, with Olympic and world medals included. It was an injustice, not to me, but to that sport,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The immortality award<\/b><\/h3>\n

Almost 30 years after her retirement, <\/span>Leonor Borrell is a member of the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) Hall of Fame<\/b><\/a>. Last January, she received notification of her induction, and this Sunday, May 18, in Bahrain, she received the award that certifies her as one of the immortals of the world\u2019s basketball courts.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI still can\u2019t believe it, but it\u2019s a reality and I\u2019m really enjoying it,\u201d said Borrell, visibly moved after officially becoming the second Cuban in this hall of fame. Before her, Ruperto Herrera, the 1972 Olympic bronze medalist, was inducted in 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n