2023-10-21 05:08:08
Dressed in white and dark blue, and without Guatemalan insignia, Lucero Mejía from swimming and Emilio Flores from sport climbing led the delegation of 142 athletes who will participate in the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games that paraded through the National Stadium of Chile, at the opening ceremony of the nineteenth edition of these sporting events.
This is the second time that Guatemala participates in an event in the Olympic cycle without a national uniform, as happened in the 2023 Central American and Caribbean Games in San Salvador.
Guatemalans will not have the opportunity to wear their national colors or listen to the national anthem when winning a medal, due to the suspension that the International Olympic Committee maintains on the Guatemalan Olympic Committee. Despite this, the national athletes were happy and proud to be present at one of the most important sporting events in the world.
The Santiago 2023 activity will last until November 5, and there will be approximately seven thousand athletes who will compete over 16 days, in 421 events, corresponding to 39 sports.
Lucero Mejía from swimming and Emilio Flores from sport climbing as the standard bearers of Atletas Independientes (Guatemala). Free Press Photo (AFP)
The president of Panam Sports, Neven Ilic, highlighted at the ceremony that Chile is the “meeting point of the Americas”, by inaugurating, together with the Chilean president, Gabriel Boric, the XIX Pan American Games.
“Santiago de Chile, Chile, is the meeting point of the Americas, the meeting point and great union, where the athletes of America, the greatest athletes, are here in our country,” said Ilic.
The president of Panam Sports highlighted the “pride” he feels in being Chilean and in inaugurating the “largest games in America” in his homeland, which was possible thanks to the work of “many professionals from different areas.”
Addressing the athletes, Ilic stated: This is their party and it is “a tribute to the courage, to the work that they leave us every day.”
????️???????? Finally the time has come to officially open our Pan American Games #Santiago2023.
Are you prepared for what is coming? pic.twitter.com/ZUdI3MSYr0
— Santiago 2023 (@santiago2023) October 20, 2023
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