Portuguese and Spanish are so similar I thought this image was written in Portuguese, but then I noticed "Puerto Rico" and "Perú"; in Portuguese the names of the countries are written as Porto Rico and Peru, with no diacritic.
Weird to see the "USA" there instead of EUA or EEUU.
I doubt Argentina will send anyone to the swimming world championships. We only have two swimmers that could realistically make semifinals there and nothing more. Every athlete has to win medals in Lima to keep their funding for the next 4 years, so for most of these swimmers it's just not worth the travel around the globe to just get a 26th place that won't give them anything and may also contribute to finish their hopes of a career in the sport.
With the current government our athletes live in full survival mode and the pressure on many of them (at least on the ones that don't have any hope of a olympic medal or diploma next year) for this pan am games is huge.
Alright, I could get into Beach Rubgy, very interesting concept. It’s played 5v5 on a small sand court, each try is only one point and there are no points for kicks
I disagree, it's incredibly dumb... since there is so little space players are just bumping into the opponents all the time with little to no passing or running skills involved. It's only pure brute force until you reach the ingoal.
Yes, Conrado Moscoso is their best chance in men's singles, doubles and team but the pan am games are basically the world championships of this sport so it will be really tough. In theory Mexico is the main favorite to take all the golds in the sport.
Edit: also Bolivia are World champions in women doubles, I forgot that.
Canada will send a B team in rowing as well. I predict 0 gold, just like the qualifiers. With 0 gold in swimming that is a net loss of 16. No mountain bikers being sent, coupled with a weaker cycling team overall, I predict at most 2-3 gold there, which is another 8 golds being lost. Some other golds will likely also be lost. Remember in Guadalajara, Canada finished fifth ahead of Colombia by just one gold medal.
Ufff that's a lot. Yeah, back below Brazil and Cuba I guess.
The only two positions that to me are absolutely fixed are USA 1st and Argentina 7th. We haven't improved one bit, the funding got a massive cut with the current government, the talent of our generation between 22-26 year olds is little and the YOG kids are still too young. We're still rellying on the 30+ people, pretty much the same people as 2015 but 4 years older.
Canada with a decent athletics team will keep 2nd IMO.
I would say though that there is some general underappreciation of the games in the anglo countries.
I don't understand the lack of interest in athletics in particular. World championship is usually held like a month or more after the games and the level from latinamerican countries is quite high in many events unlike swimming for example.
Even Jamaica doesn't take it seriously and they could need those gold medals in their tally.
Basically everything in which they aren't too dominant at continental level or that gives qualification to olympic games. I think the only exception would be Fencing.
I think it will just be bodybuilding and men's softball. Only Canada/USA host would remove pelota.
Between squash and racquetball it's a no brainer that racquetball should stay, in pan american games it's almost a world championship while squash is a low level event. Anyway I think both stay.
The tournament has had 8 teams for a few cycles now. All team sports have 8 countries.
Uruguay (and Brazil) unfortunately lost out to Peru who basically got a free spot in a lot of team sports. Only rugby had the sense to not give them a free pass in the men's event. At least Peru avoided Argentina in both events, or else we could have gotten another 30-0 loss (for some reason I remember DR's loss in 2003 really well, I was young at the time and thought to myself why are they hosting an event they are so bad in?) lol.
The Brazilian crowd was terrible and they didn't support anyone who was not Brazilian. Argentinian crowd at least showed support for not-so-known countries like Zambia in field hockey.
But the thing is: prices for the tickets in Rio were way higher than most people could pay, so only Brazilians from the upper middle class (or higher) could pay for the most expensive tickets. Most of these people are mostly ignorant, uneducated and morally reprehensible -- they believe money can buy anything, so they don't really care about the consequences of their actions. I am deeply ashamed of them. But when Argentina had the chance to host the Olympics with free tickets, which means everybody could enjoy all sports a bit, this old and senseless feud between Brazil and Argentina could still be seen, while we should support each other instead. A very minor complaint, as I said, but a complaint, nevertheless.
Fair. I think futsal (or anything similar to football really) sublimates passions.
I don't know about every venue, but with the only brazilian I saw in competition live (the boxer with dreadlocks that won a medal) received mostly indifferent support (not much rooting for or against, though there were a bunch of brazilians very loudly supporting him).
But then, as you said, the public here was different. Many kids from schools, families from humble neighbourhoods, etc.
So, earns the last gold medal of the Games. lost the chance to reach the top 10 in the medal table, unfortunately.
From the "outside", the Games seemed to have really good organization! I'm impressed! Argentina sometimes let the old rivalry against Brazil get the best ot them (especially in futsal final, when many people wore ARG jerseys and cheered against Brazil) but this is a very very minor complaint. Congratulations to Argentina for an awesome event!
That's only one sport, tame compared to rio 2016 with the crowds shouting "E-LI-MI-NA-DO" to every argentinian athlete that lost, even the random tennis player ranked 60
qualified two!
declined a few qutoas and will send a B/C team 
earns the last gold medal of the Games. 
lost the chance to reach the top 10 in the medal table, unfortunately.
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All the absent brazilians are due to injury or retirement I think.
What's the reason given by Canada?
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