Insight Cuba Promotes US Participation in Marabana

Havana, Nov 17 (Prensa Latina) Tom Popper, president of Insight Cuba, said he was pleased with the participation for the first time of US runners in the marathon of Havana. We are very happy. It is an honor and a pleasure to be here after so many years of sacrifice and struggle. It’s a dream come true because US athletes competed in the Marabana, said Popper to Prensa Latina.

Insight Cuba is the company that promotes people-to-people exchanges and allows citizens of that nation to travel to the island and, now, thanks to a special sports license for amateurs granted by the Treasury Department the presence of US runners became a reality in the Cuban capital.

This was a fight for over 10 years that we won with Carlos Gattorno, director of Marabana project, in order to make closer the contact between the two peoples, he added.

To attract the attention of US people interested in participating in Marabana-Maracuba-2014, Popper through Insight Cuba launched a promotion called ‘Win a free trip to Marabana’, which was inserted into the Havana Tour of four days, one of the tour packages offered for the competition.

So far we have brought to Cuba more than 10 thousand US citizens through the people-to-people program, but the ability to run the marathon in Havana remained unknown, so from now there will be much more than 80 competitors from my country, he said.