Has Cuba ever won the World Baseball Classic? Team record in the event

Cuba are an international baseball powerhouse and have won a medal in the five Olympics where they qualified (gold in 92, 96 and 04 and Silver in 00 and 04), however Cuba has have never won the World Baseball Classic in the four previous editions.

Cuba’s best performance at the WBC came in the inaugural edition, where they finished second, losing to Japan 10-6 in the final.

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Cuba at the World Baseball Classic

2006: runners up, losing to Japan 10-6 in the final.

2009: Cuba qualified for the second round, but lost to Japan twice in the second round and were knocked out.

2013: Cuba qualified for the second round winning all their games in Pool A, but were knocked out in Pool 1 of the second round after losing to the Netherlands, beating Chinese Taipei but then losing again to the Netherlands in what was called the Lower Final.

2017: Cuba once again made the second round, finishing in second place in Pool B to go into Pool E, where everything went wrong and the Cubans lost all three games to crash out.

2023: Cuba are back into the top four, having qualified for the semi-final, where they play the U.S.

Cuba’s World Cup baseball success

Before it was disbanded in 2011 the other internationally recognised baseball tournament was the Baseball World Cup.

Cuba utterly dominated this tournament, winning 25 gold medals of the 39 available. The US won just four. Cuba also won silver four times and bronze twice.

Note however that until 1998 the Baseball World Cup was limited to amateur players only, and Major League Baseball never allowed players to compete.