Sydney Gregory: Olympic Silver Medalist

Elvis Gregory Dept: I'm very happy, the 10-year-old girl said, smiling in her school uniform with a headband holding back her jet-black hair. My father called me on the phone and told me he's going to come. I'm going to meet him! , according to CTV. But a change taking effect in January will make it simpler for Cubans to visit the homeland they abandoned. It essentially establishes a single set of rules governing the right of return that will apply to everyone who left illegally, no matter what the circumstances of their departure and hAVANA AP -- Sydney Gregory has never met her father, an Olympic silver medalist in fencing who defected from the Cuban team at a tournament in Lisbon in 2002 when she was 15 days old. But he recently rang from Italy with good news: Papa's coming home to visit. Under Cuban law, those who abandoned their homeland have had to apply for permission to return, even for the kind of brief family visit Elvis Gregory hopes to make. Many high-profile people considered deserters have had their requests to return rejected by a communist-run government that complained about the large financial investment it made in their careers. Some didn't even bother to ask, knowing their petitions would be turned down. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.