Mexican athletes surprised everyone and finished in third place in the medal table at the Pan American Games, which concluded in Lima, Peru, last weekend after three weeks of competition.
The achievements of the athletes didn’t go unnoticed at the highest echelons of Mexican political life. Throwing his often criticized austerity program to the wind, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced financial bonuses for the medal winners and annual stipends for all the participating athletes (and some trainees), to continue their development.
Mexico’s total of 136 medals – 37 golds, 36 silvers and 63 bronzes – was the nation’s highest ever in games held outside this country. (Mexico won 42 gold medals at its home games in Guadalajara 2011.)
The gold medal haul in Lima was a vast improvement on Toronto 2015, when Mexico picked up only 22 gold medals.
Athletes from the state of Jalisco won 13 of Mexico’s 37 gold medals in the 2019 games.
Before the games, National Sports Commission Director Ana Guevara said a minimum of 19 medals in Lima would be a respectable total. She said the success of the Mexican athletes was not an “isolated” occurrence and that their achievements were a result of their “commitment to their sports.”
Guevara thanked Lopez Obrador after the president announced what he referred to as a “historic” subsidy for the 544 athletes who participated in Lima.
Over the next year, each will receive 20,000 pesos a month to continue their sporting development.
In addition, the gold medal winners will get a bonus of 40,000 pesos, while the silver and bronze medal winners will receive 35,000 and 25,000 each.
Even some trainers of the athletes will be given grants for the first time.
The subsides will help the athletes prepare for the tough task of qualifying for the Olympic Games in Tokyo next year, Guevara said.
Guevara reckons that Mexico has a chance of winning ten medals at the 2020 Olympics, although she didn’t speculate on the number of gold medals.
The United States headed the gold medal table for the 16th time in Lima. (Only twice has the U.S. team failed to top the table: at the inaugural games in Buenos Aires in 1951 and in Havana in 1991). Brazil finished second in the table for the second time in its history, while Canada was fourth with 35 gold medals.