The Pan American Games Santiago 2023 They were inaugurated this Friday night by the president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, in a ceremony full of national dances and several musical guests, including the popular Colombian Sebastián Yatra.
“I declare, with great pride and joy, the 19th edition of the Pan American Games to be solemnly inaugurated,” said President Boric from one of the stands of the National Stadium, the main venue of the Pan American event. Chile brought out dozens of dancers on stage with the typical costumes of the country’s cultures: pants, shirts and dresses for the “cueca”, the national dance; white feathers of the “pascuense”, a dance originating from the Rapa Nui island and the “küpam” for women, a rectangular black wool cloth used by the Mapuche people, the main indigenous Chilean ethnic group.
This sporting event, which will last until November 5, is the most important that Chile has hosted since the 1962 World Cup and the 2015 Copa América. “We are a nation as extensive as it is diverse. Inhabitants of the sea and the mountains, made of water, salt and copper. Chile is where the world begins,” said Chilean actress Amparo Noguera on stage.
The monologue gave way to the flag bearers of the 41 participating countries and the song “A la Cima”, the official anthem of Santiago 2023, performed by Chileans Anita Tijoux and Movimiento Original. The Pan American cauldron was lit by 93-year-old former athlete Lucy López, who gave Chile the silver medal at the first Pan American Games in Buenos Aires 1951.
The ritual was accompanied by the Chilean swimmer Kristel Kobrich, the former soccer player Iván Zamorano and the Olympic tennis champions Nicolás Massú and Fernando González. The lighting of the flame was accompanied by a colorful drone show, which simulated the American continent and the official figures of Santiago 2023.
Show sold out
The 40,000 tickets for the opening of the 2023 Pan American Games were sold out in just three hours, attracted by a show that had as its main star Sebastian Yatrain addition to the Chilean bands The Three and The Bunkers.
“I think it is one of the most important spectacles that have been held in Chile in the history of sports and we must come to support it,” said Bartolomeo Abramovich, a 30-year-old political scientist who attended the event.
The audience chanted with the rock of Los Tres and Los Bunkers and even President Boric, a renowned rocker, stood up from his seat to applaud and sing. But it was “Treasonable”, Sebastian Yatra, the song that the public screamed the most.
Yatra, one of the best-known singers in Latin America, walked around the entire field next to a Chilean flag surrounding the hundreds of dancers who accompanied him.
“We are about to start the 2023 Pan American Games,” the Colombian shouted to the audience, before giving way to the last fireworks. “Chile offers her house as a meeting point of the Americas, as a place to look at each other again.
The magical party begins,” said Jaime Pizarro, Minister of Sports of Chile. The organizers expect that some 100,000 tourists will arrive in the country and generate income of 120 million dollars. Nearly 7,000 athletes are expected to compete in fifty sports, of which 21 give direct passage to the Olympic Games in Paris 2024.
AFP
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