Day 1 Santiago 2023: First medals and some reflections

The Pan American Games, whose 19th edition has just begun in Santiago, the capital of Chile, explicitly explain the differences that exist between the main economic powers in the region and a large part of the 41 delegations participating in this event.

The United States -with already 20 medals won on this first day- Canada or Brazil usually accumulate many medals, in some sports, without even the need to designate their main athletes. So much is the distance, for example, from funding that there are cases in which the budget of a single sport in one of these powers far exceeds that of the entire Olympic sport in another nation.

It occurs even between neighboring nations that tend to face sports, sometimes with much more parity than would be expected from these differences mentioned. This is the case, for example, of Brazil, which invests only in its swimming more than Argentina in all its Olympic sports.

Speaking of Argentina, Santiago 2023 will say that the Argentinian Fernanda Russo won the silver medal in the 10-meter air rifle competition, when she accompanied the North American Sagen Maddalena. These are the data that will remain in the statistics.

But there is much more to say about this girl born in Córdoba and raised in La Rioja. Because beyond Fer Russo’s sports conditions, it should also be noted that she has a different head, that she is finishing her career in Sports Management, that she has concerns and that she has worked to prevent bullying on social networks. Their efforts to value sports management and to change the logic of what is happening with sports in Argentina are very meritorious.

Fernanda has also been very exposed to questioning the athlete who travels abroad because people believe that they are spending fortunes there and that is not what happens. Most of the time our athletes travel in precarious conditions. In addition, the sport chosen by Fer is very expensive. Today she has her third Pan American Championship, she is on her way to her third Olympic Game and she won a medal in a situation of great pressure and tension, which is the point to consider. She passed the fourth qualifying phase very comfortably. In the final of eight, the North Americans were the first three up and she was one shot away from being left out, she dropped for a moment to a level of 9.3, which seems good for a maximum of 10.9.

At the end of this first day of medals, Argentina had a total of five. In addition to shooting, Lucas Guzmán won the silver medal in taekwondo. The sport also won two bronze medals by Giulia Sendra and José Luis Acuña. For her part, Macarena Ceballos, already qualifying for Paris under her arm, won the bronze medal in her 100 meters chest.

The great performances were spread across several sports. In the case of gymnastics, one of the most outstanding events in the Olympic universe, the United States won the gold medal in the men’s team final with a score of 249,860. They were followed by Canada and Brazil.

The North Americans also won gold and bronze medals in women’s sports shooting and silver medals in men’s sports shooting, bronze medals in women’s street board, gold in women’s 400 meters freestyle, gold and silver medals in the men’s 100 meters chest, gold and bronze in the men’s 200 meters butterfly, silver in women’s and men’s 4x100, gold in women’s poomsae in taekwondo, bronze in women’s -49 kg and gold in men’s -68 kg also in taekwondo.

Among the highlights, Canada won important medals in swimming, gold and silver in the women’s 100 meters chest, gold in the women’s 4×100 pole and bronze in the men’s pole. He also won medals in cross country, dunks and the silver medal in the men’s team final in artistic gymnastics. At the close of Day 1, it ranks fourth in the overall ranking.

Mexico was not far behind, where it captured its experience in diving, where it won gold and silver medals in the final of the women’s 10-meter platform and another gold medal in the men’s 1-meter trampoline. With 13 medals, he is in second place in the medal table, the same number as Brazil, but with three more gold medals.