Thursday, December 17, 2020

Racquetball will be at Santiago 2023

As we come to the end of 2020, we have some good news! Santiago 2023 announced the list of sports to be played at the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile, and racquetball … is … IN!

We understand that a new racquetball / squash facility will be built for the games. We’re not sure if that will be a temporary (as it was in Toronto in 2015) or permanent facility (as it was in Santo Dominigo 2003).

Nevertheless, it’s great news for racquetball. The rise of racquetball in the Americas has been helped by inclusion in multi-sport games, such as the Pan Am Games, as that puts racquetball on the radar for a nation’s sport governing body. Nations want to win medals at these games, so they want to support athletes in the respective sports.

The Pan Am Games is the largest multisport event outside of the Olympics, so being a part of them is great. And it’s especially great from an athlete’s perspective, because the athletes are part of a greater team. They are not just on a national racquetball team, but on a national team with athletes from all sports. It’s a big deal.

Happily, racquetball will part of that deal, and that’s good news.

Follow the bouncing ball….

1 comment:

Todd Boss said...

To the question as to whether they will be temp or perm courts...

The Letter that I was privy to authorizing the construction of the courts at the National Stadium in Santiago said the following:

"we will leave a permanent headquarters for these two disciplines that will serve to promote their practice in the country."

So that's a good sign as well. Carla Munoz told me they would be the first public courts in the entire country.