In a mat­ter of days, Pan Amer­i­can (Pan Am) Sports will un­der­take an im­por­tant process, the elec­tion of its pres­i­dent for the 2024/2028 term as well as oth­er of­fi­cers.

From to­mor­row and Thurs­day, the 62nd gen­er­al as­sem­bly of the or­gan­i­sa­tion will be held at the CON­MEBOL Con­ven­tion Cen­tre in Asun­cion, Paraguay.

The fol­low­ing in­for­ma­tion in re­spect of Pan Am Sports can be found on the Pan Am sports web­site. It says as fol­lows: The Pan Amer­i­can Sports Or­gan­i­sa­tion (Pan Am Sports) is the leader of sport and the Olympic Move­ment in the Amer­i­c­as.

We pro­pel the de­vel­op­ment of sport and sup­port our 41-mem­ber Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees (NOCs) to in­spire more par­tic­i­pa­tion in in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tions as well as par­tic­i­pa­tion of the youth to pre­pare the gen­er­a­tion to come in our re­gion.

Pan Am Sports works close­ly with ath­letes, NOCs, or­gan­is­ing com­mit­tees of all re­gion­al games, Pan Amer­i­can Sport Con­fed­er­a­tions, In­ter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tions (IF) and the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) to se­cure the suc­cess and cel­e­bra­tion of our main event, the Pan Amer­i­can Games. That, in essence in sum­ma­ry, is what Pan Am sports is about.

The con­ti­nen­tal Olympic body for the Amer­i­c­as, the Elec­tive Gen­er­al As­sem­bly in Asun­cion, holds par­tic­u­lar sig­nif­i­cance for the Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion of Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees (CANOC).

It will be the first time that a sit­ting CANOC pres­i­dent will con­test for the pres­i­den­cy of Pan Am Sports. Kei­th Joseph was elect­ed CANOC pres­i­dent in No­vem­ber 2022.

How­ev­er, this isn’t the first time CANOC has aimed for the high­est of­fice with­in Pan Am Sports. In 2017, three rep­re­sen­ta­tives from CANOC mem­ber NOCs—Jose Joaquin Puel­lo of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Richard Pe­terkin of St Lu­cia, and Kei­th Joseph of St Vin­cent and the Grenadines—were can­di­dates.

In a dis­play of Caribbean uni­ty, the re­gion’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives ral­lied be­hind Dr Puel­lo as the sole can­di­date. De­spite this uni­fied sup­port, Dr Puel­lo nar­row­ly lost to Chile’s Neven Il­ic by just one vote. There is a lot that can be said but this is not the time for di­vi­sive lan­guage and hard truths.

Pan Am Sports, pre­vi­ous­ly known as PA­SO, was formed in Au­gust 1948; 76 years ago. Pan Am Sports has had ten pres­i­dents—USA has held the pres­i­den­cy twice, Mex­i­co four times, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela and Uruguay once each. The in­cum­bent, Neven Il­lic (Chile), was first elect­ed in 2017.

In 76 years and giv­en the im­mense con­tri­bu­tion the Caribbean has made to Pan Am sports in all as­pects, in­clud­ing the suc­cess of Caribbean ath­letes. The 41 NOCs in mem­ber­ship of Pan Am sports have nev­er en­trust­ed a Caribbean sports leader with the lead­er­ship of Pan Am sports.

Why is there this lack of di­ver­si­ty? What pre­vents the elec­tion of a Caribbean leader? This isn’t a ques­tion about per­son­al­i­ties and who likes who or who doesn’t like who.

In­stead, Pan Am Sports is be­ing af­ford­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty to show that the or­gan­i­sa­tion has come of age enough to pro­pose and sup­port a Caribbean leader. One who has served the or­gan­i­sa­tion with dis­tinc­tion since 2012 when he be­came one of its vice pres­i­dents.

Caribbean peo­ple have risen to the lead­er­ship of sev­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions and have a proven record of hav­ing been builders of bridges of uni­ty and hope, com­mit­ted to the greater good.

The an­swer will be pro­vid­ed in a few days. Sure­ly, this time around, the Caribbean peo­ple will an­tic­i­pate re­sound­ing sup­port for the Caribbean can­di­date, giv­en his de­clared vi­sion for a more in­clu­sive Amer­i­c­as sports or­gan­i­sa­tion and one that is re­flec­tive of the rain­bow and di­ver­si­ty that Pan Am Sports is in re­al­i­ty.

Let all ideas con­tend!