Day 2 Santiago 2023: The charm of the Games and their mix of illustrious strangers with mega-stars

Part of what characterizes the Pan American Games is that they bring together athletes from irrelevant countries, athletes that are absolutely unknown, amateur people who almost fairly reach high performance with mega-stars that are not so many, but they are outstanding.

In Lima, for example, Jamaica brought in Elaine Thompson-Herah and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, specialists in speed racing. Michael Jordan won the Pan American Games in 1987 in Indianapolis. And in these Pan American Games in Santiago 2023, there is, for example, the case of Mariana Pajón, the Colombian who is the mega-star of speed BMX who obviously won here once again, but she is a multi-world champion, an Olympic champion, a multi-Pan-American champion and also a star in her own right in Colombia and around the world, because of the type of character who is very charismatic and very talented and competing with much more amateur girls, to put it another way. They are legends that go to the Pan American Games.

A similar thing happened to Florencia Borelli from Argentina in the marathon, who ended up losing the gold medal to the Mexican marathon runner Citlali Cristian Moscote, who started the marathon very hard, who won in the end, but who for now is the first Mexican athlete qualified for the Olympic Games in Paris, that is, a marathon runner who is about to fight among the ten best of the next Games.

Flor Borelli, mother at 31 years old, historically trained in track competitions, today has important marks: from 3000 meters on the track to the marathon, she has achieved an Argentine, South American, half marathon record. It is a much less developed sport than the Mexican one.

And the final case is that of the skeet test, the shooting test.

Vincent Hancock is a North American skeet shooter who just won the gold medal, with a Pan-American record, and who is also another stellar presence. Hancock won the first of his six world championships at age 16, winning the last three Olympic titles: London, Rio and Tokyo. And he beat an Argentinian boy, Federico Gil, who qualified for Paris and who does a family job. His dad is a great teacher and shooter, Horacio Gil. His sister was also an Olympic representative, Melisa Gil, and a totally different reality from the mega-professionalism of this North American boy, who is a great star.

While the United States brings B, C or D teams in gymnastics or in diving, or in athletics or in swimming. Suddenly, a figure of this magnitude like Hancock appears who celebrates the tournament and who appears out of nowhere. The level of the skeet test was so demanding that the second, Federico Gil, who with this performance achieved the passage to Paris, with the squads he presented in Santiago would not only have qualified for the final in Tokyo but, in addition, would have won the silver medal.

The second day of Santiago 2023 left new medals and some important marks. The hegemony of North American artistic gymnastics, even without its best athletes, was noticed and the women’s team, with Jordan Chiles -Olympic medalist in Tokyo 2020- in its ranks, snatched the Pan-American title from Brazil from Rebeca Andrade -Olympic and world medalist. Canada completed the podium.

The latter did know how to shine in swimming with the gold medals of Mary-Sophie Harvey in the women’s 200 meters freestyle and Hannah McNeil, who, in addition to the gold medal in 100 meters butterfly, set a Pan-American record with a time of 56.96 seconds. In the men’s 200-meter backstroke, won the bronze medal with Hugh Mcneill and another third place in the mixed 4×100 pole. Canada also won medals in diving and skateboarding.

This second day of competition earned Canadians beat Mexico in the medal table and placed second with 20 medals in total. The United States is starting to take off having won 24 medals on this second day, reaching a total of 44.