Pan American Games

The Pan American Games are a multi-sport event, held every four years between competitors from all nations of the Americas.

History

The idea of holding a Pan American Games grew from the Central American Games first organised in the 1920s. In 1932, a first proposal was made for Pan American Games, and the Pan American Sports Organization was established. The first Games were scheduled to be staged in Buenos Aires in 1942, but World War II caused them to be postponed until 1951. Since then, the Games have been held every four years, with partipication at the most recent event at over 5000 athletes from 42 countries.

However, the Pan Am games have lost status and have not received much attention in the sporting press as of late in the United States and Canada. The 1999 games in Winnipeg were attended mainly by second-string American athletes and were not covered by any news anchors or television from the major U.S. broadcast networks, although a one-hour highlights package aired on ESPN after the games. In Canada, there was plenty of coverage, including a nightly two-hour program on CBC, with an additional hour on local affiliate CBWT, French-language coverage on Radio-Canada, plus daytime coverage on TSN. By 2003, the Pan American Games were once again neglected by the media.

Generally, the Pan American Games receive plenty of attention in most Latin American countries. The 2007 edition, to be held in Brazil, has prompted the Organizing Committee to restore important venues such as the Estádio do Maracanã and build a new Olympic Village. It is expected that the games will improve infrastructure in the city and lay the foundations for a possible bid for the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

There have been attempts to hold Pan American Winter Games as well, but these have been without much success. The planned 1989 edition had to be postponed until a year later due to bad weather conditions, and even then only the alpine events could be held. The edition for 1993 was cancelled completely, and the Pan American Winter Games have not been held since.

Locations of Pan American Games

For a more detailed table, see Overview of the Pan American Games.

Argentina Mexico United States Brazil Canada Colombia Mexico Puerto Rico Venezuela United States Cuba Argentina Canada Dominican Republic Brazil Mexico

Pan American Games
Year	Games	Host City	Country
1951	I	Buenos Aires
1955	II	Mexico City
1959	III	Chicago
1963	IV	São Paulo
1967	V	Winnipeg
1971	VI	Cali
1975	VII	Mexico City
1979	VIII	San Juan
1983	IX	Caracas
1987	X	Indianapolis
1991	XI	Havana
1995	XII	Mar del Plata
1999	XIII	Winnipeg
2003	XIV	Santo Domingo
2007	XV	Rio de Janeiro
2011	XVI	Guadalajara

Medals table

The table below gives an overview of the all-time medal count of the Pan American Games.

United States Cuba Canada Argentina Brazil Mexico Venezuela Colombia Chile Puerto Rico Jamaica Dominican Republic Uruguay Ecuador Trinidad & Tobago Peru Guatemala Bahamas Costa Rica Suriname Netherlands Antilles Panama Guyana Bermuda US Virgin Islands Barbados El Salvador Nicaragua Haiti Cayman Islands Paraguay Honduras Bolivia Grenada Dominica Belize Antigua & Barbuda Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Saint Lucia Aruba British Virgin Islands Saint Kitts & Nevis

All-Time Pan American Games Medal Count
Pos	Nation	Total
1651	1207	821	3679
722	496	440	1658
309	503	627	1439
247	263	330	840
187	243	335	765
139	193	378	710
61	133	189	383
43	89	149	281
31	65	99	195
18	66	101	185
18	28	58	104
13	37	68	118
11	21	40	72
9	9	26	44
8	16	22	46
5	24	50	79
5	9	27	41
4	9	6	19
4	6	10	20
4	2	5	11
3	9	15	27
2	19	24	45
2	4	10	16
1	4	3	8
0	4	5	9
0	3	6	9
0	3	6	9
0	3	5	8
0	2	4	6
0	2		2
0	1	5	6
0	1	3	4
0	1	2	3
0	1	1	2
0	1		1
0		2	2
0		1	1
0		1	1
0		1	1
0			0
0			0
0			0
		3497	3477	3875	10849

Participating Nations

Antigua & Barbuda Argentina Aruba Bahamas Barbados Belize Bermuda Bolivia Brazil British Virgin Islands

Canada Cayman Islands Chile Colombia Costa Rica Cuba Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador El Salvador

Grenada Guatemala Guyana Haiti Honduras Jamaica Mexico Netherlands Antilles Nicaragua Panama

Paraguay Puerto Rico Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Suriname Trinidad and Tobago United States US Virgin Islands Uruguay Venezuela
As early as the 2007 Pan American Games, Curaçao and Sint Maarten of the Netherlands Antilles could be participating in the games. Both will become new countries inside the Kingdom of the Netherlands much like Aruba. They get national status the month of the 2007 Games.

Sports

External links