Cuba’s Olympic champion defects

HAVANNA – Wrestling star Ismael Borrero has become the latest Cuban athlete to defect.

Borrero, who won gold in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, abandoned the Cuban delegation while they were in Mexico for the Pan-American Wrestling Championships, a Cuban official said. Cuban athletes have a long history of defecting while competing abroad. The Cuban Institute of Sport said his defection was “a serious indiscipline within the Cuban sports system.”

His current whereabouts are not known.

The Iraqi health ministry said most of those affected had chronic diseases like asthma or were elderly.