Canada, Brazil, U.S. take different approaches at Pan Am Games
TORONTO – Canada feels the power of the home-field advantage at the Pan Am Games, and Brazil – the host of the Olympics next year in Rio de Janeiro – is watching.
Canada has topped the medal table through the first days of the event and, although it’s sure to relinquish its lead to the powerful Americans, the frenzied home crowds in Toronto are driving the medal count.
“Knowing that most of those people in the stands are there for you is a tremendous confidence builder,” Curt Harnett, head of the Canadian delegation, told the AP on Wednesday. “It gives you a significant sense of – I’ll use the word: swagger.”
Canada’s got it. Brazil will need it a year from now. And the Americans always seem to have it at the big events.
Host countries always get a boost at the Olympics, or in large regional events like the Pan Am Games. China did in 2008 in Beijing, and Britain caught Olympic fever three years ago in London.
Canada’s going all out to justify spending $2 billion on the most expensive Pan Am Games in history. It’s treating the games like the Olympics and some see it as a prelude to an eventual Olympic bid.
The hemisphere’s three powers are taking different approaches to the event.
Harnett said Canada is fielding its “A Team” and its 719-member delegation is the largest of the games, and almost twice as big as its Pan Am team four years ago in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Canada is building on its success at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, where it topped the gold-medal count.
Brazilian officials describe their Pan Am team as a “mix” with perhaps 70 percent from the “A Team.” The goal is to be in the top three in Toronto, and then to start thinking about Rio.
The Americans, who mixed world and Olympic champs with B and C team athletes, have won twice as many medals as any other country at the Pan Ams since the games started 64 years ago.