Opinion – Edgard Alves: Cartolas trust the support of the new Chilean government to the Pan de Santiago-2023

Having overcome the stage of the presidential election in Chile, won by the opposition candidate Gabriel Boric, the planning and preparations for holding the 2023 Pan American Games are maintained.

Both Panam Sports (formerly Odepa, Pan American Sports Organization) and Coch (Chilean Olympic Committee), responsible for organizing the event, have already expressed their confidence in the new government to honor the assumed proposal of hosting the multi-sport competition, held every four years with head office turnover.

As a single candidacy, Santiago, the Chilean capital, was officially appointed to host the Pan in November 2017, at a Panam Sports meeting held in Prague, Czech Republic. The organization has representations from 41 countries in the Americas and the Caribbean.

The competition is scheduled for the period from October 20th to November 5th, 2023, with around 7,000 athletes. The Parapan American Games will take place next, from November 17th to 25th.

Santiago also competed to host the 2019 Games, but the bid was surpassed by the proposal from Lima, capital of Peru. On two other occasions – 1975 and 1987 Pans – the Chilean capital had been chosen as the headquarters, but ended up resigning for political and economic reasons.

Initially, Chile’s presidential elections had seven contestants. Former student leader Gabriel Boric, a leftist candidate who overcame his right-wing opponent José Antonio Kast in the second round, will assume the country’s presidency in March. He won in 11 of the 16 regions in the country.

At just 35 years old, Boric will become Chile’s youngest president. He is considered a politician of dialogue and said that he will seek understanding with different sectors in the search for growth with fair distribution, space for women, attention to the environment and surveillance against corruption and impunity.

Journalist Sylvia Colombo, specialist in Latin America, in text in this leaf, he pointed out, that in the face of the worst recession in decades, the economy appears as the most latent issue in Chile. GDP shrank by 6 percentage points in 2020 due to the impact of Covid-19, which also caused the loss of 1 million jobs. The poverty level went from 8.1% in 2019 to 12.2% in 2021.

​Neven Ilic Álvarez, current president of Panam Sports, is Chilean. He assumed the post after winning the elections in April 2017, which included the participation of the Brazilian Carlos Arthur Nuzman, former president of the COB (Olympic Committee of Brazil) and later removed from sports activities after being convicted of irregularities in the campaign from Rio to host the 2016 Olympics.

Nuzman did not make it to the second round. In the final dispute, Ilic got the better of José Joaquín Puello, from the Dominican Republic, by 26 to 25. He replaced the Uruguayan Julio Cesar Maglione, who had occupied the Panam presidency on an interim basis since the death of Mexican Mario Vázquez Raña, in 2015 .

Miguel Ángel Mujica, commander of Chile’s Olympic committee, according to Insidethegames, said the presidential candidates had promised to honor the host city’s contract with Panam Sports.

First held in 1951, in Buenos Aires, the Pan American Games were created under the guidance of Odepa, an entity founded in 1948. The multi-sport competition has always served as a form of interaction between the countries of the Americas.

The Pan represented a special moment in the coming together of countries on the continent, with sporting emotions as an attraction. At first, it had the encouragement of the United States, involved in the turbulent period of the Cold War, the clash with the then Soviet Union and its allies.

In recent decades, the event no longer has the same relevance, but it remains an important testing stage for the Olympic Games, normally held the following year. It’s just another time.