MacMillan has a bad time (maybe) in battling Cubans

According to the Penn steeplechaser, Cuban and race officials gave the American team a hard time. Penn's Sean MacMillan went to the Junior Pan American Games in Havana, Cuba, with big expectations. He went to represent the United States, and he went to win. His expectations went unfulfilled. A fast start for MacMillan in the steeplechase backfired when he was unable to hold a top position for the end of the race. He finished seventh ? of which he is "pretty sure." This uncertainty plays a role in his other unfulfilled expectations. He expected to be treated with respect -- like every other country's competitors. He expected to find that, indeed, athletics are above politics. According to MacMillan, in Cuba, that was not the case. "From what I know all the other countries were treated well? It seemed like they just wanted to get us," MacMillan said. The American team was detained 6 1/2 hours in customs while officials searches through their bags with a fine-tooth comb. They were separated from other country's athletes in housing arrangements. The food was bad. And they were treated unfairly on the track and in the field. Consequently, he was not even sure of his official finish or time in the race. He was also unaware of his exact time, but reasoned that it was around what he had been running at the end of Penn's track and field season. In a brief conversation with Penn track and cross-country coach Charlie Powell, MacMillan said that Powell was fairly happy with his performance. Despite not medaling, MacMillan also felt he did not run badly considering the conditions, which he described as "not exactly anything good." It was 95 degrees and the humidity was near 95 percent, both outside his typical experience. The track was also not of the same high quality that Americans have come to expect. The stadium itself -- though just 7 years old -- was crumbling apart everywhere he looked. "It was all very Third World," he said. MacMillan admitted that he could perhaps have run better or at least run the beginning of the race more conservatively, but he had no regrets about his all-out effort to win. "I'm not going to go all the way to Cuba just to run for a time. I wanted to run to win," he said. Despite the conditions surrounding the Junior Pan Am Games, he found some enjoyable points to the experience. He discovered that the Cuban civilians were quite different from the track and field officials. Cubans loved to talk to the Americans, and frequently asked for American change in exchange for an assortment of collectibles. He was intrigued by the presence of so many 1950s Chevrolets and the amount of dilapidated buildings. "The experience was definitely worthwhile," MacMillan said. "The international competition was great for me ? I would not want to live there and I probably wouldn't want to go back, but if I had the chance to do it again I would because it's an experience that pretty much nobody in our country gets."

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