When Nicaragua's boxing great Roman 'Chocolatito' Gonzalez struts into a glitzy U.S. ring bidding to become six-time world champion on Saturday, he will also represent a vast sporting project of another man: authoritarian President Daniel Ortega.
Boxer Roman "El Chocolatito" Gonzalez speaks with local media after his arrival at Augusto C. Sandino international Airport in Managua, Nicaragua March 20, 2017 after losing his match to Srisaket Sor Rungvisai of Thailand. REUTERS/Oswaldo Rivas
"Ortega's public image has been severely compromised by the ongoing crackdown on dissent since the eruption of mass protests in 2018," said Tiziano Breda, a Crisis Group analyst for Central America.The boxer's support for Ortega's efforts to hold onto power and for Nicaragua's National Police, which were sanctioned by the United States for "serious human rights abuses" during the 2018 protests, have left Gonzalez a deeply divisive figure.
"Sport in Nicaragua is used as a public policy," said Nicaraguan sports journalist Camilo Velasquez Mejia, comparing Ortega's project to the "bread and circuses" of ancient Rome, when emperors used entertainment to soothe public discontent. "Roman is part of this structure," Mejia said. "He is key." Former boxing world champions Rosendo Alvarez and Ricardo Mayorga have backed Ortega. New York Yankees pitcher Jonathan Loaisiga flew to Nicaragua last month to vote in municipal elections boycotted by the opposition. Sandinistas now control all 153 municipalities.
"Chocolatito is an accomplice of the government," said Gabriela Hernández, 23, a Nicaraguan student exiled in Costa Rica. She hopes Gonzalez is thrashed by Estrada, a Mexican.Raised in a poor neighbourhood of Managua, Gonzalez trudged through childhood on an empty stomach. He would later recall being sustained only by mango or sugary water during punishing training sessions.
Soon after Gonzalez turned professional in 2005, Ortega returned to power and began to court sports stars. He created a national amateur baseball league funded by municipal governments. Many soccer teams, meanwhile, are effectively financed by regional authorities. In 2014, a judge threw out drug trafficking charges after Gonzalez's brother Milton was arrested with a backpack containing bullets, a weighing scale and 1.5 grams of white powder that a police field test determined was cocaine.
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