Dominican Republic could host some sports of the San Salvador 2023 Games

Sports authorities from El Salvador revealed the Dominican Republic could host some events of the Central American and Caribbean Games program in San Salvador in 2023.

In exclusive statements to Around The Rings, the president of the National Sports Institute of El Salvador (INDES) and the Organizing Committee for next year’s regional games, Yamil Bukele, confirmed the possibility of cross-border co-sponsorship of several events.

Bukele said he had talked with Centro Caribe Sports, and with some international federations, about this “alternative” to preserve the development of sports planned to qualify for the Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile in November 2023.

“I am critical of hosting disciplines that have not been developed in our country, and do not have a sports infrastructure,” Bukele explained, also taking into account the current circumstances.

“We add the continuity of the Games is being preserved without enough time, that inflation is coming, to start from scratch.

“It would be necessary to make a montage for those sports, with what that means. Even as a country we would have to improvise teams to participate, because perhaps there have never been national teams in certain sports.

“It would be irresponsible of us. But thinking about the Games, about the classifications, and it is important for youth to have their space, it has been requested to move those sports to another venue outside of San Salvador,” said Bukele.

Sailing, canoeing, skateboarding and shotgun shooting would be among those disciplines.

But to date there has been no official confirmation from Centro Caribe Sports about a venue change.

A source familiar with this proposal assured ATR the highest Dominican sports authorities will have the last word.

It would not be the first time the Dominican Republic has accepted the unforeseen assignment. In 2006, Santo Domingo was the venue for some events of the Central American and Caribbean Games program organized by the Colombian city of Barranquilla.

In real time, San Salvador assumed the commitment to host the Games originally scheduled for 2022, in a record time of 18 months after the sudden resignation of Panama in the summer of 2020, and when Mayaguez, Puerto Rico declined to host.

“El Salvador was left alone, it won by ‘technical default’, let’s put it that way. And practically without this option, the oldest regional games would either not have taken place, or the venue would have had to be divided into pieces”, recalls the former basketball player.

The sports leader, brother of the President of the Republic, Nayib Bukele, recognized the importance of holding the Games in June instead of May due to the challenge of remodeling and rebuilding nine major sports venues in just 18 months.

The Games will now be held from June 23 to July 8, 2023.

“Five more weeks were requested from the scheduled date to inaugurate the Games in order to have a little slack in the delivery of the facilities,” argued Bukele.

The nine facilities are already in the bidding process and must be completed between March and May of next year. The most complex work will be the Jorge ‘Mágico’ González stadium, venue for the opening ceremony and the athletics tournament.

“Hopefully the weather will help us,” he said.

Within the sports infrastructure there will be two new complexes, one dedicated to beach soccer and beach volleyball, and the other to combat sports.

To a question, Bukele ruled out that due to the consequences of the war in Ukraine due to Russian military action, the organization of the Games in San Salvador was at risk.

“But many think that this war is far from America but no, this situation drags the whole world, especially with inflation and the devaluation of currencies and the rise in the cost of living,” he specified.

“From there to say that our Games are threatened, no. Even the Congress of Deputies of El Salvador approved an extraordinary budget for the event last week.

“Not only the government, but also Congress and the country in general, we are geared towards organizing excellent Games in a short time,” stated the president of INDES.

Bukele declared a cooperation program with Russian sports, which included the arrival in San Salvador of several Russian high-performance experts “is on hold” at this time.

The Caribbean Sports Center Monitoring Commission for the Games is in San Salvador this week to examine the progress of the preparations, and also analyze possible readjustments in the sports program originally with 37 sports and 53 disciplines.