In 1959, Fidel Castro came to power and greatly changed Cuban society. One of the changes Castro established was to put the sports program under the government's control. Mostly throughout the Caribbean, especially in Cuba, baseball was and still is the most important sport. The Cuban government started to pay more attention to other sports that were included in the Olympics such as boxing, basketball, and track and field. Sports became a way of showing the world how successful Fidel Castro's revolution was in Cuba. The Olympic victories were also a source of national pride for the Cuban people. All the attention to the Olympics paid off. In the 1964 Summer Olympics, Cuba won only one gold medal. In the 1968 Summer Olympics they won 10 gold medals. They won 22 in 1972, 13 in 1976, and 20 in 1980.
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