Castro wrote in a column in official newspapers that two Cuban boxers who disappeared during the Pan American Games in Brazil last month, only to be arrested and sent back to the island, "had reached the point of no return" with the national boxing team.

"The athlete who abandons his delegation is not unlike the soldier who abandons his fellow men in the midst of combat," he said.

Guillermo Rigondeaux, a two-time Olympic bantamweight champion, and Erislandy Lara, a welterweight world champion, arrived Sunday in Cuba. They were sent to state guest houses for more than two days, then released while the communist government decides what to do with them.

Rigondeaux returned to the Havana apartment he shares with his family Wednesday, saying he never intended to defect. Lara's family lives in the easternmost province of Guantanamo and could not be immediately located.

"I was always ready to return to the fatherland," Rigondeaux told The Associated Press at his apartment. "People didn't believe I would stay."

He called his disappearance in Brazil a moment of great "indiscipline" and said he supports Castro's Cuban revolution wholeheartedly: "I am very revolutionary."

Rigondeaux said he met with top Communist Party members since his return and was waiting for "reorientation," so he can do "what the superiors say." But he said he also hoped to fight again someday.

"I want to reclaim my titles," he said. "Retake what I've lost."

Castro said Cuban officials were compiling the list of fighters for the 2008 Olympics, a squad that was scheduled to compete in Chicago and in two other qualifying events before the Beijing Games.

"Just picture the mafia sharks lurking about in search of fresh meat," Castro wrote of would-be promoters who could try to persuade Cuban fighters to desert.

He said Cuban sports officials hoping to prevent defections are "analyzing all possible alternatives, including the option of changing the list of boxers or of not sending any delegation whatsoever, in spite of the penalties that may be in store for us."

"Cuba will not sacrifice one bit of honor, nor any of its ideas, for Olympic gold medals," Castro wrote. "The morale and patriotism of its athletes shall prevail above all else."

Cuba is a boxing power. At the 2004 Athens Games, Cuba had five golds among its nine medals in the sport.

Arena, a German boxing promotion company, announced in July it signed Lara and Rigondeaux to five-year contracts. But the fighters were arrested in the coastal resort city of Cabo Frio for overstaying their visas. The fighters told police they wanted to return to Cuba and hinted they were tricked into deserting, maybe even drugged by promoters.

Castro wrote Wednesday that Cuba's government "kept its word," treating the deported boxers humanely. He said Cuban state media interviewed them, but the stories have not appeared in government-controlled newspapers or on television _ apparently because reporters were not convinced Rigondeaux and Lara sincerely wanted to return to Cuba before their arrests.