Riley Pickrell of Victoria said there’s a whole different vibe to a multi-sport Games than a cycling-only championship, something he experienced last year in the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games.
Pickrell was among the 44 Island or Island-based athletes officially named Thursday to the 473-athlete Canadian team for the 2023 Pan American Games from Oct. 20 to Nov. 5 in Santiago, Chile.
“Major Games are much different. After my competition, I’m looking forward to just being a spectator at things like volleyball, field hockey and track and field,” said Pickrell.
Pickrell is coming off recent stage wins in the U-23 Giro d’Italia, nicknamed the Baby Giro, and Tour de l’Avenir, considered the U-23 Tour de France. But that was for his pro club team.
“Putting on the national team jersey at a Games is always super special,” he said.
The Island age bookends for the Santiago Pan Am Games are 18-year-old surfer Sanoa Dempfle-Olin from Tofino and 33-year-old boxer Bryan Colwell of Victoria. They are among the 112 sa国际传媒 athletes named, second behind Ontario’s 162. Quebec has produced 103 of the Canadian team athletes, Alberta 45, Nova Scotia 13, Saskatchewan 11, Manitoba seven, P.E.I. three, New Brunswick two and 15 reside outside sa国际传媒.
There are 100 Olympians on the Canadian team, including Victoria Boardworks diver Celina Toth, and 15 Olympic medallists, including Victoria softball player Emma Entzminger.
Of the 39 sports and 61 disciplines in Santiago, 21 are direct qualifiers for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. So that makes the Pan Am Games a definite mixed bag. They are of paramount importance to Island athletes in sports in which Paris berths are on the line, such as field-hockey players James Kirkpatrick, Kathleen Leahy, Anna Mollenhauer of Victoria and Sara Goodman of Duncan and Boulders Gym wall speed-climbers Ethan Flynn-Pitcher and Michael Finn-Henry.
But Island-based Rowing sa国际传媒 is sending a developmental team because the Pan Am Games are not an Olympic qualifier in that sport.
There will be 423 medal events in Santiago. Island athletes won 17 medals at the last Pan Am Games in 2019 at Lima, Peru.
