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(ATR) The President of the Central American and Caribbean Sports Organization (CACSO), Héctor Cardona, died in the early hours of June 16 at 81 years old, a victim of liver cancer.
The former president of the Puerto Rican Olympic Committee (COPUR) died in the city of San Juan. The day before, his successor Sara Rosario Vélez told Around The Rings that Cardona had "a very lamentable liver condition". Rosario visited Cardona at his home after several hospitalizations and despite his deteriorated state of health she says he was aware of the organization of the Barranquilla 2018 Central American and Caribbean Games in Colombia.
Cardona was an amateur baseball player in the Double-A league as well as an amateur and professional boxing referee. In the 1970's and 1980's, he was president of the Puerto Rico Boxing Federation and in the 1980's he became a first vice president of the International Boxing Association.
In the Olympic Movement, Cardona served as secretary general of COPUR and from 1991 to 2008 he served as its president. From 2003 until his death he also presided over CACSO.
Other international sport governance positions he held include a member of the Executive Committee of the Pan American Sports Organization and the Association of National Olympic Committees.
In 2016, the United States Sports Academy in Mobile, Alabama awarded Cardona an International Honorary Doctorate.
Several personalities and international sports organizations have expressed their condolences to Cardona’s family, among them PanamSports president Neven Ilic who highlighted in a statement the sporting trajectory of the Puerto Rican leader.
"It is a great loss for the sport the departure of our dear friend Hector, a great sports leader," said Ilic.
"Today Pan American sport is in mourning. He has died a great sports leader - a passionate, hardworking man who did much for Puerto Rico and for sport in the Central America and Caribbean.
"My heartfelt condolences and the whole Pan American Sports Organization, his whole family, friends and close friends of this great man and friend who dedicated his life to the sport," Ilic concluded. The PanamSports chief even expressed his condolences via Twitter.
"Hoy el deporte Panamericano está de luto. Ha fallecido un gran dirigente que hizo mucho por Puerto Rico y por ODECABE" Neven Ilic PdteODEPA pic.twitter.com/k6OECyAuL8
— PanamSports (@PanamSports) June 16, 2017PanamSports has already endorsed the posthumous awarding of the "Pan American Olympic Collar" to Cardona in recognition of all of his service to the Olympic Movement in the Americas.
Written by Miguel Hernandez and translated by Kevin Nutley
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