July 22-Cycling, Track & Field
Going into the trip, I knew there would probably be one event that left me somewhat disappointed. That turned out to be cycling. The men's and women's individual time trials were free to attend, so I thought that would make it worth the trip out to Milton, almost two hours outside of Toronto, worth it. As it turns out, that experience could've been better. I don't blame cycling, though. I think the problem was that it wasn't organized very well. Fans could position themselves anywhere along the course, but you'd only see the riders twice--once at the start and once at the finish. Meanwhile, there was no way to follow the race unless you had an app on your phone. No scoreboard. No announcements. No streaming of the video. Nothing. An American woman ended up winning, but you couldn't see the medals ceremony either. It was held underneath the finish line facing away from the crowd. At least after the men's race, which was won by a Canadian, they moved the gates and let people onto the road to watch the medals ceremony.
Fortunately, after things were done in Milton, I headed back to York for another session of track & field. And this time it was the men's and women's 100-meter finals. I was on the backstretch this time, which gave me a perfect view of the men's long jump and men's hammer. Americans went 1-2 in the long jump, with world leader Jeff Henderson getting the win and Buffalo Bills wide receiver Marquise Goodwin taking the silver. Meanwhile, in the hammer throw, Kibwe Johnson had a monster throw in the fourth round to move up from fourth place and take the gold. The real highlight of the night was the 100s, though. And the crowd went nuts when Andre DeGrasse, the Canadian who starred at the NCAA Championships for USC, won the men's race. Melissa Bishop also won the women's 800 and Sarah Wells finished second in the 400 hurdles behind NCAA and U.S. National Champion Shamier Little. The only thing that prevented it from being the perfect night of track & field was the setting sun, which was directly in my face for about an hour and a half and prevented me from seeing like three medals ceremonies.
July 23-Table Tennis, Women's Volleyball Semifinals
Another one of those sports I bought tickets for because I wanted to experience it for myself was table tennis. I'd been warned by people who attended table tennis sessions earlier in the week that seats would be hard to come by because of the large Asian community in Markham, where the event was held, but I ended up with a pretty good spot. There were four tables at once, and it wasn't as easy to watch all of them as it was at fencing, so I ended up focusing on one match at a time. And there were plenty of matches to choose from. There were five scheduled on each table. There were plenty of exciting matches, a couple Canadian wins, and a 15-year-old American. All in all, very cool.
Next up was a trip back to Pan Am Park for some volleyball. Before heading in, I partook in the Park festivities one more time. There was a concert going on, and they had a massive viewing screen that was showing the track & field night session. I even ran into a family from Bolivia that was there to check out the racquetball and checked another country off my list. Then it was time to go inside the Exhibition Centre, except I couldn't actually go in. The previous session ran long, so everyone had to wait outside while they cleaned the arena and set up for the night session. Handball and racquetball were also going on at the venue, so the volunteers in the concourse were plenty busy.
I finally made it in just as they were getting ready to start the first semifinal between Brazil and Puerto Rico. Going into the match, I knew Brazil was the better team, so I was incredibly surprised when Puerto Rico won the first set fairly easily. The Brazilians finally woke up in the middle of the second set, but not quickly enough to prevent Puerto Rico from taking a 2-0 lead. Brazil did end up winning the match in five sets after two and a half hours. Because that match was so long, a lot of people left before the match I really wanted to see--the USA vs. the Dominican Republic. The match was scheduled for 9, but didn't start until after 10. I left happy, though. The Americans won in four.
July 24-Track & Field, Softball Semifinals
My final day in Toronto started with one last trip out to the track. This time I got the good seats. There weren't many events, mainly the men's 110 hurdles and the heptathlon, as well as the opening heats of the 4x400 meter relays, but they were all right in front of me. And because I had the best seats this time, I actually had a good view of the men's triple jump and women's hammer throw, too. As an added treat, they had a couple medals ceremonies for events that ended late the previous night, including Canadian Damian Warner in the decathlon and an American 1-2 in the women's 400. The 110 hurdles final was supposed to end the session at 1:10, but they screwed up something with the timing system, so they had to re-run the race at 1:55. That led to some unexpected downtime that actually helped in my every country project, bringing my final number to 33 of the 40 teams (not including the United States). I'm not 100 percent sure they had to re-run the hurdles, though. American David Oliver, the World Champion in the event, won it the first time, then he won it again.
The extra 45 minutes I spent at track had me a little worried. I had to get out to softball by 4:30 and that was going to make me tight on time. No worries, I got there just before the Puerto Rico-Brazil semifinal started. The way they set it up, 1 plays 2 for a berth in the gold medal game, while 3 plays 4 with the winner playing the loser of the other game and the 3-4 loser out. Brazil took an early 2-0 lead in the elimination game, but Puerto Rico put up a 10-spot in the third and ended up winning 12-2 on the mercy rule.
That created an hour-long break before the start of the night's main event, USA-Canada, which ended up being needed. The food lines were crazy long. Fortunately, I put my bag down to save my seat, since the place filled up pretty well for the Border War. I was just hoping to finally see a USA win after two Canadian head-to-head victories in baseball and women's basketball. Well, Sierra Romero took care of that with a three-run homer in the first inning. Canada made it 3-2, but the USA added some insurance in the sixth and won 5-2. (The fact that they met again two days later for the gold and Canada won, which I predicted would happen, is irrelevant to me. I saw the USA win, which is all that matters.) It ended at the same time as the USA's win over Canada in women's baseball on another field in the same complex, creating a good night for me and a crowded ride back to Toronto.
So there you have it. That was my voyage up north for the Pan Am Games. I feel like I hardly did the trip justice here. Such a worthwhile experience. One for which Toronto should be proud. And a smashing success that will undoubtedly lead to a Toronto Olympic bid (which I think was the whole point in the first place). And having been there for this, I have no doubt that the Toronto Olympics, whether they be in 2024, 2028 or another point in the future, will be just as big a success.
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