After the fifth day of competitions, the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games leave eloquent – ​​brutal – examples of the disparity of forces between the main sporting powers and the delegations whose presence is little more than a testimony. What’s more, the disproportion is still expressed in the comparison between the United States and its main escorts in the medal table.

Let’s look at the statistical detail on which the first of the references is based.

Of the 41 participating countries, only 25 won at least one bronze medal. Among them, only 15 obtained at least one gold medal. And regarding the gold medals, adding those obtained so far by the first three, The United States, Canada and Mexico have a total of 98 titles out of 115 titles distributed.

Regarding the other concept, once again the medal table speaks for itself. The North American delegation accumulated around 60 gold medals, almost as many as its three prestigious escorts: Canada, Mexico and Brazil.

Moreover, in swimming and artistic gymnastics, the two sports that have distributed the most medals so far, it has not even been necessary to send its main references to Chile.

This is not a complaint. I don’t even see how to liquefy such a disparity. But it is important to highlight a logic that is both inevitable and paradoxical: in the logic of FIFA sports desks, no matter the difference in results, no matter how much one country wins 100 podiums and others send only a few modest athletes, when it comes to deciding important things, each flag equals one vote.