El Salvador - Sporting Pride

 June 24-25

Hello everyone!

Ever heard of the Central American and Caribbean Games? Don’t worry, I hadn’t either. Anyway, they’re being hosted by San Salvador (mostly) this year, meaning a chance to see some top-quality regional sporting action on my last weekend before leaving for the summer break. Well, varying quality.

Women's basketball

Rugby sevens

The Juegos Centroamericanos y del Caribe, as they’re known in Spanish, are apparently the oldest continuing regional games in the world, first being held in 1926. The fact that this first event only had 3 countries present (Mexico, Cuba and Guatemala) makes this statement somewhat debatable, but the fact remains that it is now a large event which has taken place 23 times. I’m surprised I hadn’t heard of it until now.

The larger regional competition is the Pan American
Games, which is also happening in 2023 in Chile

For political IOC reasons, Guatemala have to
compete as part of the 'Caribe Sports' group

San Salvador actually hosted the third edition of these games, way back in 1935. It wasn’t supposed to be hosting this time. Panama City was due to host before backing out in 2020 due to the pandemic. El Salvador’s capital entered and saw off competition from Mayagüez in Puerto Rico to be awarded the games in May 2021.

Would the stands have been fuller in Puerto Rico?

A big opening ceremony kicked things off on Friday, 23rd June. They are very lucky that the ceremony wasn’t 24 hours earlier. Athletes and spectators may have been practising their swimming skills…

Friend's picture of the parade

 

The main attraction was Marshmello, who then
spent time hanging with El Salvador's president

They didn’t have much time to build the necessary infrastructure, meaning a mad rush in recent months to complete construction of the venues needed. Some, such as the basketball arena I went to on the Saturday, weren’t 100% ready.

I had to squeeze past this digger to enter
Gimnasio Nacional Jose Adolfo Pineda 

Tickets seemed reasonably priced to me. $5 for a whole day of basketball, for example. It was thus a shame to see the arena so empty, though this may have been due to the fact that it was the first game of the day and El Salvador were playing in the final match. Other events were also happening in the city at the time, such as San Salvador's Pride parade. I hadn't known this was happening.

The number of people looked like it was in the thousands,
though traffic was moving freely in the other direction

The ending point for Pride was a major roundabout
with the Saviour of the World monument

Mexico were playing the US Virgin Islands in the first match. Mexico has the most competitors at the games and probably will have the most fans after the host country. They were trying their best to rouse their team.

Mexico are in white, and were losing 35-13 at one point

The match was supposed to start at 12. I arrived
at 1:30 and they were in the first quarter...

Their problem was that their opponents were, simply put, better than them. Not even Mexican players with not-as-Mexican-sounding-as-others surnames such as Jeffries and Taylor were able to stop the Virgin Island juggernaut, though they did pull it back to within 5 points in the last quarter.

Shaking hands at the end of the game -
it was quite feisty with a number of fouls

Mexico ended up coming 5th in the 8 team tournament

I only stayed for one match, partly because of the fact that the food and drink kiosks weren’t open…or indeed ready. They were also running significantly behind schedule; I have no idea what time El Salvador’s match, which was supposed to start at 7:30pm, actually tipped off. At least I didn’t end up on the Kiss Cam…

The US Virgin Islands actually won gold,
beating Dominican Republic in the final

Not all venues are newly-built. The following day I went to watch rugby sevens, which took place at the stadium of the University of El Salvador. Quite a nice area. After walking through what seemed to be a garden, we found the sort of stadium you would see at US high schools in the movies.

Any day other than a Sunday and this trip would have taken hours

Number of stands: one

To get to the stand, we had to walk through the players. That’s right, we walked right by the athletes in order to take our place.

This woman was a member of Trinidad and Tobago's team

Rugby isn’t a sport I would associate with this area of the world, which is possibly reflected in the fact that there were only eight countries or territories represented across the men’s and women’s tournaments. Even so, I’m surprised El Salvador as hosts didn’t bother scrabbling together a team. Not that I would be anywhere near it! 

Whoever they found, they would have beaten Costa Rica...

Two of these were British territories. The Cayman Islands team seemed to have prepared solely in the gym and without the knowledge of how to pass and catch the ball.

Cayman Islands are in white. I mock but they did
actually beat Costa Rica 50-0 later in the day...

Sevens rugby is quick, meaning teams play multiple matches on one day. We saw almost every team play once. It seemed clear that Jamaica had delved into their deep reserves of super-fast sprinters and stuck them in their men’s team. They weren't the only team with speedsters in their midst...

Jamaica's men won the match we watched 47-14

The first game we watched, a women’s match between Colombia and Jamaica, wasn’t particularly quick because four players separately got injured. The pitch seemed very hard. 

Colombia won the gold in both competitions

Of the six games seen, one of them was close. An epic game of rugby between the men of Venezuela and Mexico. Who thought they would ever say that sentence? Mexico scored an equalising try in the final minute to tie the game at 14-14. Being a group match, there was no extra time or golden score.

Shaking hands after an intense tied game

It seemed like my friend and I were the only spectators not connected to the teams. What was nice was that athletes from other sports seemed to be watching. I asked one group of women nearby who had a team uniform about their sport, and they told us that they were the Colombian handball team.

Mexico’s fans were loud and proud in attendance. There was one moment when they scored against Trinidad and Tobago, which led their fans to run up and down the concourse with the Mexico flag. When Trinidad and Tobago responded with a try of their own, their three fans responded in kind. It was a fun atmosphere. 

All smiles at the end of the match

The games themselves seem to have gotten off to a positive start. They carry on until July 8th, by which time some students from my school will have competed for El Salvador in some events. I hope that the facilities they’ve built on short notice get used a lot once the show packs up and moves on to the Dominican Republic in 2025. Maybe El Salvador will have a rugby team to show off by then…

Love you all,

Matt