PAN American Games will now have 39 sports and 22 Olympic qualifying events.
"VAN" (LIMA 2019 Sports Desk) :: The Panam Sports Executive Committee decided unanimously to exclude skateboarding from the Lima 2019 Games competition schedule.
The decision was made after certain breaches by the Pan American Confederation and the International Federation that will greatly affect the normal course of the competition.
In a letter addressed to both organizations, Panam Sports Executive Committee gave the following reasons to definitively exclude skateboarding from the Lima 2019 program:
"Although we had the commitment of World Skate that the Pan American Games would be a qualifying event for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, this was never concrete and we finally received confirmation that it would not be one of the events scoring points for the Olympic Games qualification.
The qualification process called by the Pan American Confederation excluded some of the best countries in this discipline, leaving out the best athletes of the continent.
The recent scheduling of a qualifying event for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games for the street discipline of Skateboarding in the city of Los Angeles, on exactly the same dates as the skateboarding events at the Lima 2019 Pan American Games, is something we understand as a lack of respect to the Pan American Games, to the athletes that were going to participate in these Games, and especially to the Lima 2019 Organizing Committee."
The aforementioned event is the World Skate SLS Tour 2019 competition to be held in Los Angeles for July 23 to 28 in California. The Skateboarding competition in Lima 2019 was going to be held from July 27 to 28.
The competition in Los Angeles was decided less than three months before the beginning of the Pan American Games, which ostensibly affects the normal development of the continental competition in Lima.
Panam Sports deeply regrets the decision to exclude skateboarding from Lima 2019, as it will surely affect several athletes who have been working hard to represent their countries in Lima, and also the National Olympic Committees that have committed resources to help these athletes reach the most important multi-sport event in the Americas. Conditions were not met and there are no guarantees on the part of the organization that governs this sport in the continent and the world for the delivery of an event with the required Pan American Games standards.
Panam Sports has already communicated this decision to the International Federation, the Pan American Confederation and the 41 National Olympic Committees within the Olympic Movement of the Americas.
As skateboarding has been taken out of the competition program, the Lima 2019 Pan American Games will now have 39 sports (as skating continues), 22 of which will be qualifiers for Tokyo 2020.
The Lima 2019 Pan American Games will be held between July 26 and August 11.
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