More than 25 thousand people attended the opening ceremony in Santiago de Chile last Friday, March 7th. The event took place at Chile’s National Stadium, and 14 delegations honored the night.
It was an enormous party, never experienced before in South America, in which the history of the host country and its historic Olympic athletes were the focal point. The Chilean Olympic medalist, the tennis player Nicolás Massú, was asked to light the torch in these Games.
Field hockey was also present in this big opening ceremony. Seven hockey delegations are taking part in these ODESUR Games: namely: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela. These are the teams that will try to obtain the first two places to classify directly for the Pan-American Games to be held in Toronto, Canada, in July 2015.
Neven Ilic, President of the COCH (Olympic Committee of Chile), Carlos Arthur, President of the ODESUR (South American Games Organization), and Sebastian Piñera, as President of the Republic of Chile, were responsible to ensure compliance with the opening protocol.
Finally, both athletes and judges took an oath and the South American Games 2014 were officially declared opened.
