- Sheldon Longley
- 5 hrs ago
- 0
Just one member of The Bahamas’ 20-member team at the 19th Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile, was in action over the weekend, competing in the sporting discipline of sailing.
Over on the waters of the Cofradía Náutica del Pacífico in Algarrobo, Chile, Bahamian Joshua Higgins was in action in the Dinghy – ILCA 7 event. He is the only Bahamian competing in sailing, representing the country in the International Laser Class Association (ILCA) Dinghy class.
In the first race of the series on Saturday, Higgins ended up 17th out of 22 sailors. He was 15th in the second race, and now sits in the 16th position overall with 32 points.
Pedro Luis Fernandez Gamboa, of Puerto Rico, leads the competition with a first and third place finish for four total points in the two races on Saturday. Bruno Fontes Ferreira da Silva, of Brazil, sits in second with a fifth and a first place finish and six total points. Juan Ignacio Maegli Agüero, competing for the Independent Athletes Team, sits in third with nine total points from a fourth and a fifth in the two races.
The Independent Athletes Team is a group of athletes from Guatemala, whose national Olympic committee was suspended by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and therefore not allowed to compete under the Guatemalan flag.
Apart from Higgins, decathletes Ken Mullings and Kendrick Thompson will get their Pan Am Games experience underway with competition in athletics.
Mullings and Thompson are scheduled to compete in the 100 meters (m), long jump, shot put, high jump and 400m today. They will compete in the other five events of the men’s decathlon on Tuesday.
Also in action today will be Samson Colebrooke in the semifinals of the men’s 100m. Just the top two finishers in each semifinal heat and the next two fastest times will advance to the final which is set for 7 p.m. on Tuesday at the Coliseo del Estadio Nacional Julio Martínez in Santiago.
The other two Bahamians competing in athletics at the games are Donald Thomas in the men’s high jump and Rhema Otabor in the women’s javelin. They will both compete on Friday.https://1ab54991cf7f40fa52eead59cee5b88c.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html
The Bahamas is currently in a four-way tie for 24th with Bermuda, El Salvador and Jamaica in the medal standings with one bronze medal. The Bahamas’ only medal so far came from Lamar Taylor in the men’s 50m free in swimming.
The Bahamas has 20 athletes who are competing at the games. The country is represented in six disciplines – tennis, sailing, swimming, athletics, golf and wrestling. There are nine swimmers, five athletes in athletics, three tennis players, one sailor, one golfer and one wrestler.
The Pan American Games are a continental multi-sport event in the Americas featuring summer sports and is the oldest continental games in the world. Competition is held among athletes from nations of the Americas every four years in the summer before each Summer Olympic Games. The 2023 Pan American Games are being held in Santiago, Chile, making Chile a first-time host of the event.