Pan American Games

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

1 History
2 Locations of Pan American Games
3 Medals table
4 Participating Nations
5 Sports
6 External links

[edit] 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 1943, but World War II caused them to be postponed until 1951. Since then, the Games have been held every four years, with participation at the most recent event at over 5,000 athletes from 42 countries.

However, the Pan American 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.

[edit] Locations of Pan American Games

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

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

[edit] Medals table

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

All-Time Pan American Games Medal Count
Pos	Nation				Total
1	United States	1651	1207	821	3679
2	Cuba	722	496	440	1658
3	Canada	309	503	627	1439
4	Argentina	247	263	330	840
5	Brazil	187	243	335	765
6	Mexico	139	193	378	710
7	Venezuela	61	133	189	383
8	Colombia	43	89	149	281
9	Chile	31	65	99	195
10	Puerto Rico	18	66	101	185
11	Jamaica	18	28	58	104
12	Dominican Republic	13	37	68	118
13	Uruguay	11	21	40	72
14	Ecuador	9	9	26	44
15	Trinidad & Tobago	8	16	22	46
16	Peru	5	24	50	79
17	Guatemala	5	9	27	41
18	Bahamas	4	9	6	19
19	Costa Rica	4	6	10	20
20	Suriname	4	2	5	11
21	Netherlands Antilles	3	9	15	27
22	Panama	2	19	24	45
23	Guyana	2	4	10	16
24	Bermuda	1	4	3	8
25	US Virgin Islands	0	4	5	9
26	Barbados	0	3	6	9
26	El Salvador	0	3	6	9
28	Nicaragua	0	3	5	8
29	Haiti	0	2	4	6
30	Cayman Islands	0	2	0	2
31	Paraguay	0	1	5	6
32	Honduras	0	1	3	4
33	Bolivia	0	1	2	3
34	Grenada	0	1	1	2
35	Dominica	0	1	0	1
36	Belize	0	0	2	2
37	Antigua & Barbuda	0	0	1	1
	Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	0	0	1	1
	Saint Lucia	0	0	1	1
40	Aruba	0	0	0	0
	British Virgin Islands	0	0	0	0
	Saint Kitts & Nevis	0	0	0	0
		3497	3477	3875	10849

[edit] Participating Nations

As early as the 2007 Pan American Games, Curaçao and Saint 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.