PrideHouse aims to make Pan Ams more inclusive

“Our roster for the Pan American Games features a nice mix of veterans and up-and-coming swimmers”, US Swimming national team director Frank Busch told Reuters. The USA team, with 623 athletes, is expected to stand atop the podium again in Toronto, travelling north with a squad that boasts 111 Olympians and 38 Olympic medallists.

The Americans face a high bar after claiming 92 golds and 237 medals overall, 101 more than runner-up Cuba, at the 2011 Pan Am Games in Guadalajara, Mexico.

“I’m so proud to be Canadian”, said Oldershaw, who will lead a team comprising more than 700 athletes at the opening ceremony on Friday.

A couple hundred athletes from the Canadian team celebrated the raising of the Maple Leaf at the athletes village later Wednesday.

Third in size behind the Olympics and the Asian Games, the Pan Ams may not possess the pizzazz on a top-tier event but they do come with Olympic-size organizational headaches and a C$1.4 billion ($1.10 billion) price tag.

Although Rafi isn’t looking past the first medal event yet.

Two-time Pan Am Games athlete, and seven-time Pan Am Games medalist, Whitney McClintock (Cambridge) and two-time Pan Am Games medalist, Jason McClintock (Cambridge) for water ski and wakeboard.

“I got married on Monday and my wife… Everybody’s excited to be a part of it”.

“But the game is changing and our Canadian athletes are here to fight their battles, to compete and win, to show we are able to compete with the best”. “We’ve got a very big worldwide event that’s going to be seen all over the place and we don’t want to reflect badly on our city”.

The redemption will not be full for the Canadian men’s rugby sevens team at the Pan Am Games, yet a nice consolation prize dangles in front of them.

Just a year out from the 2016 Rio Olympics, all four chef de missions agreed on the importance of the Pan Ams in final Olympic preparations.

The exciting de Grasse, just 20 years old, drew global attention last month after completing a sizzling 100 metres, 200 metres double at the USA collegiate championships where he clocked 9.75 and 19.58 seconds, respectively, in wind-assisted races.

Though McLeod won’t be in town to participate in the festivities, the self-described “Olympics-obsessed” athlete said she plans to watch the Pan Am Games from Houston and cheer for her World Cup teammates, many of whom are representing Canada in the global competition. Findlay was mired in injury problems in London and tearfully limped to a last-place finish.

“It’s my home course, it’s where we grew up racing and the way I’m going to treat it is that these other competitors are coming in and I’m gonna defend my home water”, he said.

Orange-draped security fences have gone up around the city, and at venues across the Golden Horseshoe for a Games that spans 350 kilometres between Welland and Minden.