The Pan American Sports Organization (PASO), which is responsible for hosting the Pan American Games, will add another athletic competition event to its calendar with the first annual Pan American Sports Festival, to take place this July, August, and September in Mexico City.
The Pan American Sports Festival will feature 23 different sports, bringing together athletes and coaches for competitions, training camps and coaching clinics. Swimming is among the featured sports, with swimming competition taking place the last weekend of September.
Canada will be in attendance, and recently announced the selection procedures for its official team. Canada will bring up to 8 swimmers (4 men and 4 women) based off of the results of Canadian Nationals, which were already the country’s selection meet for Pan Pacs and the Commonwealth Games. The team for this meet will also be youth swimmers, as Canada’s selection criteria calls for athletes born between 1995 and 1998.
The host country of Mexico would also appear to be competing for swimming, and Brazil has the meet listed on its swimming federation’s website, though selection procedures weren’t included.
USA Swimming told SwimSwam this week that it would not be sending a team to the competition. According to Around the Rings, Brazil and the U.S. are expected to bring the biggest overall squads of athletes between all sports. You can read the Around the Rings piece here.
Canada’s selection procedures are here.
The Pan American Sports Festival (originally called the Pan American Olympic Festival before the name was changed) gives PASO a major event in an off-year, with the next Pan American Games not happening until July of 2015.
Pan Ams are in July not August.
You are correct – got the dates confused between Pan Pacs and Pan Ams. It’s corrected now.