Day 5 Santiago 2023: Closing of gymnastics, swimming and rowing

After the fifth day of competition, the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games leave some eloquent -brutal- signs of the disparity of forces between the main sports powers and those delegations whose presence is little more than testimonial. What’s more, the disproportion is still expressed in the comparison between the United States and its main bodyguards in the medal table.

Let’s look at the statistical detail on which the first of the references is based.

Of the 41 participating countries, so far, only 25 have won at least one bronze medal. Of these, only 15 achieved at least one golden one. And speaking of gold, adding up those achieved so far by the first three, the United States, Canada and Mexico accumulate a total of 98 titles out of 115 titles distributed.

Regarding the other concept, once again the medal table speaks for itself.

The North American delegation accumulates something like 60 gold, almost as many as its three prestigious escorts: Canada, Mexico and Brazil.

What’s more, in swimming and artistic gymnastics, the two sports that have distributed the most medals so far, didn’t even need to send their main stars to Chile.

It’s not a complaint. I can’t even think of a way to liquefy such a disparity. But it’s worth putting on the surface a logic that is both inevitable and paradoxical: in the FIFA logic of sports desks, no matter how much difference there is in the results, no matter how much a country gets 100 podiums and others just send a couple of modest athletes, when it comes to deciding important things, each flag equals one vote.

Rebeca Andrade celebrates 1-2 Brazil in beam with Saraiva. REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian

The farewell to artistic gymnastics represented the highlight of the day. In the women’s category, Rebeca Andrade and Flavia Saraiva gave Brazil 1-2 in the final match, while bronze went to Ava Stewart, the only individual medal for the Canadian women’s team.

In the men’s category, the all-around champion Felix Dolci won bronze in jump while Arthur Mariano won gold in bar and silver in jump.

The Dominican Audrys Nin Reyes was not satisfied with winning the Olympic place in the final all around on Monday (he was fifth, but the four who surpassed him were already qualified for Paris 2024) but he added gold in the final jump, thanks to an impressive Dragulescu who accompanied him with a Tsukahara double pirouette and a half.

Another sport that said goodbye this Wednesday was rowing, with a historic performance for host Chile: five Pan American titles and 10 medals in total. Uruguay was also very outstanding in Laguna Grande San Pedro La Paz, where it had five podiums, the only ones in the entire eastern delegation in Santiago 2023 so far.

Swimming said goodbye with a lot of emotion in the long tests. On the one hand, with an enormous victory that meant the two-time Pan American championship for Guilherme Costa in the men’s 1500. With a very quick close, he scored 15:09.29 to repeat the Lima 2019 gold medal.

Kristel Köbrich won the swimming pool’s standing ovation, who was runner-up in the women’s 1500. The legendary 38-year-old Chilean athlete was moved to tears by the public’s recognition of her medal, but above all her career.

Argentina thrashed Mexico 10-1 in their debut

The collective sport that began this Wednesday was field hockey, which, as it has been historically, will give places to Paris 2024 for the two champions. There were victories for Canada, Argentina, the United States and Chile in the men’s draw.

The medal table continues to be led by the United States, Canada and Mexico. As is often the case with the host countries, the Chilean delegation recorded historic numbers at the Pan American Games, mainly supported by the great performance of rowing.