For the second straight Pan American Video games, Mexico completed in third place behind america and Brazil — however this yr the Mexicans did it with a workforce document of 52 gold medals.
The nineteenth version of the video games, an enormous, quadrennial competitors for nations within the Americas the yr earlier than the Summer time Olympics, concluded on Sunday in Santiago, Chile.
Over 18 days, Mexico stood out like by no means earlier than, counting on a mixture of veteran and younger athletes to get the job completed, with eight gold medals in diving and 6 in taekwondo.
Its contingent of 475 athletes in 35 sports activities tied Mexico’s greatest total exhibiting ever, matching third-place finishes in Mexico Metropolis in 1955 and on the earlier video games in Lima, Peru in 2019.
And with its 52 gold medals, Mexico simply broke its earlier excessive of 42 within the 2011 video games in Guadalajara.
With the workforce standings based mostly on the variety of gold medals, Mexico was behind solely 17-time winner United States (124) and Brazil (66), and forward of some nations it has typically completed behind: Canada (46), Cuba (30) and Argentina (17). In all, practically 7,000 athletes from 41 nations competed.
In complete, Mexico ended up with 142 medals –52 gold, 38 silver and 52 bronze. America had 286 complete and Brazil 205.
Earlier than the competitors, officers with Mexico’s Nationwide Fee of Bodily Tradition and Sports activities (Conade) and the Mexican Olympic Committee (COM) had predicted round 33 gold medals for Mexico’s comparatively younger and untested delegation.
“It’s very good to be a part of this historic efficiency,” stated Alejandra Valencia, who gained three gold medals in archery. “It’s nice preparation for a lot of, and it helps us get to the Olympic Video games in nice form.”
The Summer time Olympics are scheduled for July 26 to Aug. 11, 2024 in Paris.
Highlights for Mexico in Chile included a gold medal in girls’s soccer, with Rebeca Bernal scoring the successful objective in a 1-0 victory over the host workforce within the last. Bernal, 26, performs for CF Monterrey within the Liga MX Femenil.
Mexico additionally pulled off an upset within the semifinals, beating Argentina 2-0 on a pair of targets by Lizbeth Ovalle, a 24-year-old midfielder from Aguascalientes who performs for Tigres UANL within the Mexican girls’s professional league.
One other spotlight for Mexico was its gold medal in creative swimming (previously synchronized swimming), gained by a mere 0.6638 factors over america. Mexico additionally certified for the Paris Video games, which one participant known as “a dream that we have now pursued for years.”
Additionally for Mexico, Texas-born professional golfer Abraham Ancer, 32, gained the gold, 34-year-old racquetball participant Paola Longoria gained the eleventh PanAm gold of her profession, and Beatriz Briones and Karina Alanís gained the five hundred meters in tandem canoeing. Within the bronze medal match in males’s soccer, Mexico beat america 4-1.
The subsequent Pan American Video games are scheduled for July 2-18, 2027 in Barranquilla, Colombia.
With studies from Infobae and Related Press
