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The Para Athletics Pan American Open will take place this weekend at the Athletics Stadium in VIDENA, built specially for the Pan American and Parapan American Games. This will mark a new milestone in the path to Lima 2019, as it will be the first time in the recent history of the Para sports movement in Peru that an international competition will take place.
This will be the last test event for the Lima 2019 Organizing Committee, after having held judo, Para powerlifting, volleyball, athletics and baseball. The rugby and fencing test events will take place this week, the latter is already underway.
Fourteen countries, including the best Peruvian Para athletes and competitors from Argentina, Aruba, Barbados, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Dominican Republic and Venezuela, will take part in this open tournament.
Leinier Savón and Leonardo Díaz Aldana stand out among the rest. Both Cubans’ track record is impressive: each athlete won two gold medals and one silver at the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games. Savón (T12/T13 qualified) will compete in the 100- and 400-meter events and in long jump. Díaz Aldana (F56) will compete in the javelin, discus and hammer throw events.
OPENING SESSION
The event will start at 15:00 with the first finals of the day: discus throw (F54/55/56 categories), shot put (F11), long jump and 100-meter events.
This Para athletics competition will take place on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, from 15:00 to 18:00.
Admission will be free, as it was two weeks ago at the South American Athletics Championship.
PERUVIANS IN COMPETITION
Yeny Vargas, Carlos Felipa, José Luis Casa, Luis Sandoval and Efraín Sotacuro, five out of the six Peruvians that participated in the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games (the sixth was cyclist Israel Hilario), will seek to prove their progress and confirm the growth of the Para Sports movement in Peru.
Joining them are a group of young talented athletes like Raúl La Serna or Carlos Sangama, who want to confirm their qualifying times for Lima 2019.
THE SPORT
Para athletics is the sport with the largest number of Para athletes, both in track and in field events. There are athletes that will compete in wheelchairs, with a prosthesis, or accompanied by a guide, in the case of Para athletes with visual impairment.
Category divisions makes it easier to identify those who compete in track events (this category starts with a “T” for “Track”) or in field events (this category starts with an “F” for “Field”).
Classes 11, 12 and 13 are reserved for athletes with visual impairment, class 20 for athletes with intellectual impairments, and from class 31 to 64 for athletes with physical impairments.
The Parapan American Games will be held between August 23 and September 1, at which 1890 Para athletes are expected to compete in 33 sports. They will compete in 17 different sports and 18 disciplines, 13 of which will be qualifiers for Tokyo 2020.
