Rio Report: Stadium-Shaking Pan Ams Close

The cauldron is out in Rio de Janeiro, but the celebration goes on. (Getty)

(ATR) The 2007 Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro ended under the full moon Sunday, while fireworks shook giant Maracana Stadium as if an earthquake rumbled below.

The Sunday night ceremony showcased Brazilian and Latin American music, from indigenous to contemporary, with an interlude promoting 2011 host city Guadalajara, Mexico.

The Pan American Sports Organization flag was passed to the mayor of Guadalajara, while the Olympic flag was handed folded leaders of the state of Jalisco.

The final medal presentation was made for the men’s marathon, won earlier Sunday by Franck Caldeira of Brazil.

Ana Costa and Arnaldo Antues reprised the Rio 2007 “Viva Essa Energia” theme song while Alice Caymmi sang the duet “O vento” with father Danilo Caymmi. She then “blew out” the cauldron which burned around the clock since it was lit July 13 with the Pan American flame.

Producers had asked attendees to wear white. Several sections were empty as temperatures dipped to 12 Celsius with drizzle. Well below half the athletes who competed in the Games participated in the ceremony. Thousands of boisterous volunteers in their blue and grey CO-RIO uniforms occupied several sections on the upper seating level.

CO-RIO PASO President Mario Vazquez Rana (r), hands over the Olympic flag to Guadalajara, host of the 2011 Pan Ams. (Getty)and Brazilian Olympic Committee president Carlos Arthur Nuzman said the “Games ran smoothly and in perfect order and showed Brazil’s ability of organizing and hosting big events.”

PASO president Mario Vazquez Rana called Rio 2007 “great and wonderful” and “excellent” before finally declaring “Rio de Janeiro has celebrated the best Pan American Games ever.”

When Rana acknowledged Brazil’s president, The marathon medal ceremony in Maracana Stadium Sunday night. (Getty)Rio de Janeiro’s state governor and city mayor, the politicians were loudly booed by the crowd.

Rana said 120 Pan American records were broken during the Games. He said it was “one of the cleanest editions, due to the fact that out of 1,300 doping tests, until today, all have resulted negative.”

Musicians reassembled for the closing number, “Cidade Maravahilhosa” led by Elza Soares as fireworks exploded above and athletes danced below. The two-hour show went 10 minutes overtime.

First Parapans Are Next

The Pan American Games are over, but the Parapanamerican Games are less than a month away.

The Aug. 12-19 event is a first for athletes with a disability from the Americas. They’ll in the same venues as the Rio Pan Ams, the event sanctioned by the International Paralympic Committee. The sport program includes athletics, five-aside and seven-aside soccer, judo, powerlifting, sitting volleyball, swimming, wheelchair basketball, table tennis, and wheelchair tennis.

For team sports, the Parapans serve as qualifiers for the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing.

With reporting from Rio de Janeiro by Bob Mackin.