On a cold Chilean nightthe Pan-American flame entered the National Stadium through the northern sector of the town of Ñuñoa. Former tennis players Fernando González and Nicolás Massú, Chile’s first Olympic gold medalists, received the torch from Alfonso de Iruarrizaga, medalist under the five shooting rings.
González and Massú advanced towards the cauldron. Lucy López, 93, was waiting for them, runner-up in the high jump at the first Pan American Games, in Buenos Aires 1951. Together they lit the flame. The continental event has already begun.
A sensational ceremony of color, music and mysticism inaugurated the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games in which – as the organizers had promised – the elements that characterize Chile were not lacking: a country of diverse contrasts and cultures that for the first time hosts a continental competition.
The show, never seen before in the history of Chile, with folk dances and fireworks, began at half past eight at night at the National Stadium and lasted more than three hours.
Nearly 5,000 participants, including acrobats, dancers and Chilean volunteers, enlivened the show, an expression of a nation of unique geography, volcanic nature, inhabitants of the sea and mountains, men of the countryside and the city and many other contrasts.
A special moment was when the voices of the Chilean Nobel Prize winners in Literature Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral were heard.
Minutes later, the parade began for the installation of the 41 delegations that will attend the fight. Cuba did it with red sports clothing and its standard bearers Julio César La Cruz and Idalis Ortiz.
The performance by Los Jaivas, a group recognized worldwide for their interpretation of poems by Pablo Neruda, was impressive to the audience.
Movimiento Original, Ana Tijoux, Los Bunkers and Los Tres also took the stage. As had been announced, the closing was led by the Colombian singer Sebastián Yatra.
Chile where the world begins
In the run-up to the inauguration, the mascot Fiu, the seven-colored bird, was present, and five perfectly synchronized planes flew over the National Stadium in reference to the Chilean area tradition.
Suddenly, the star of the flag of the South American country was drawn in the air, with the Andes mountain range to the north and the protagonist of the acrobatics.
The ceremony was attended by the country’s president, Gabriel Boric, and Neven Ilic and Thomas Bach, heads of Panam Sports and the IOC, respectively.
“In Chile whenever we fall, we get up. That is the spirit that we want to transmit to each of the competitors”said Jaime Pizarro, Minister of Sports.
He added that the Pan-American cauldron had completed a long journey to reach the south, leaving from Teotihuacán, Mexico.
The president of Panama SportsNeven Ilic, said he was proud to be Chilean and to inaugurate the largest Games in America tonight, “because “Chile is a meeting point.”
He also thanked the more than 12,000 volunteers who “a few months ago stopped going about their lives to help organize the event.”
Chile, a country of natural disasters and dreams, ancient forests, minerals, stars and poetry, is becoming the epicenter of Latin American sports these days and is home to 4,194 athletes from across the continent.
The event invites Latin athletes to unite and broaden their gaze, because ““Chile is no longer the end of the world, it is where it begins.”
