Track and Field Begins Tuesday at Pan Ams

(ATR) The premier event of the Pan Am Games gets underway Tuesday in Toronto as track athletes begin competing for medals.

Athletes in eight events will aim for medals throughout Tuesday on the first day of the track and field competition. Athletics is possibly the most highly anticipated event of these games for spectators.

Overall, 711 athletes will compete in track and field throughout the duration of these games that end on July 26. However, this is a lot more athletes than the organizing committee and PASO originally intended to compete.

The original quota target for the event was 680 athletes. A problem in communications between PASO, the NOCs and the athletics confederation within PASO resulted in many more athletes being told they had qualified for the event even though there was not room for all of them in the event.

As a result, several athletes were told they would not be able to participate at these games after reaching certain qualifying standards. This sparked a lot of concern for the NOCs who believed their athletes deserved a spot in these games.

The PASO executive board decided to increase the quota by 31 athletes in order to solve some of the issues presented. This caused a change in some of the events needing more qualification heat, but more problematic for the organizing committee was finding space in the athlete village for these extra athletes.

Many continental federations offered up rooms of their athletes who finished competition earlier in the Pan Ams who would no longer need the rooms to resolve the issue.

On Tuesday, these 711 athletes will focus on earning medals for their country and earning spots in the finals of their events that take place later in the week.

Other Sports to Watch

Men’s basketball also tips-off Tuesday with the first game between Brazil and Puerto Rico at 10:30 a.m. Canada took home the gold medal over the United States on the women’s side Monday night.

Tuesday also marks the final day of competition for beach volleyball with Cuba and Argentina competing for gold on the women’s side and Mexico and Brazil competing on the men’s.

The first medals will be given out in table tennis and boxing on Tuesday. Equestrian jumping joins track and field as the only two disciplines beginning Tuesday.

As the 11th day of competition begins, the U.S. leads the medal count with 169; Canada is in second with 148 followed by Brazil in third with 102. The U.S. leads Canada by 10 in the gold medal count with 65.

Written by Kevin Nutley

20 Years at #1: Your best source of news about the Olympics is AroundTheRings.com, for subscribers only.