(MENAFN- Arab Times) The heat and the United States charge up the Pan American Games medal table both continued on Sunday, as officials celebrated a victory by surpassing the one million tickets sold mark. The united States, who passed Canada on the medal table on Saturday, padded their lead by adding eight gold medals to push their total to 59 and 160 overall as the hosts settled into second on 54 gold and 142 overall medals. Brazil are third followed by Colombia, who surged past Cuba and Mexico into fourth courtesy of three gold medals on the golf course.
Having spent the first week of the July 10-26 multi-sport fest leading the medal standings, Canada gave locals plenty of reason to open their wallets and come out and cheer. The Americans, however, cashed in on Sunday striking triple gold at the canoeing venue and double gold in rhythmic gymnastics and equestrian eventing. With temperatures again nudging into the mid-30s Celsius (95 Fahrenheit), Canada got the day off to a sizzling start with Evan Dunfee winning the men's 20km race walk ahead of compatriot Inaki Gomez while Mexico's Maria Gonzalez took the women's title. No athlete was hotter, however, than American Laura Zeng who added hoop and ball apparatus gold to her all-around rhythmic gymnastics crown.
The 15-year-old could add two more titles to her haul on Monday with the club and ribbon finals. The high point of the day for Canada came on the trampoline where 2012 Olympic champion Rosie MacLennan successfully defended her Pan Am gold and Keegan Soehn won the men's. Canada ended the day with a dramatic 10th inning 7-6 decision over the United States to defend their Pan Am baseball title. Colombia ruled at the golf course sweeping all three gold medals, Marcelo Rozo winning the men's title, Mariajo Uribe the women's and the team gold. Argentina cruised to two golds on the final day of the sailing competition, while Guatemala, Ecuador and Puerto Rico also clinched titles.
Tyson Gillies could barely hear any of the exuberant pandemonium that erupted as Canada successfully defended their Pan Am Games baseball title with a 7-6 victory over the United States on Sunday. He's deaf. "It's pretty difficult to hear the crack of the bat, you know with the noise in the crowd and wind against my ears," Gillies, who wears hearing aids, told Reuters at the final that was held in suburban Toronto. "But to be honest, baseball is a lot of hand signals and a lot of communication and signs so it never really affects me too bad on the field." Gillies has 30 percent hearing in one ear and 50 percent in the other. No one knew he was deaf until he was four because he had learned to read lips.
Thomas Bayer and Dustin Perry qualified the United States for the skeet shooting competition at the Rio Olympics after winning gold and silver, respectively, in the men's event at the Pan American Games on Sunday. Bayer, who competed in the shooting world championships in 2010, and Perry, who finished first in skeet at the 2014 USA Shooting national championships, claimed the two available Rio berths at stake while Cuba's Juan Rodriguez took bronze. The event is among a handful of disciplines in 10 sports at the July 10-26 Pan Am Games offering the winning country a berth in the Rio Olympics, which are scheduled for Aug. 5-21 next year. Meanwhile, the manager of Cuba's baseball team at the Pan Am Games wanted nothing to do with questions about defections to the United States.
Cuba has acknowledged that two players defected during warm-up games two weeks ago in the United States, and last week four rowers at the Pan Am Games in Canada left the team and crossed the American border. Cuban athletes have a history of defecting, and that hasn't changed even as the United States and Cuba open embassies on Monday in the other's country, ending more than 50 years of separation. "I'm not interested in talking about this," said Roger Machado, manager of Cuba's baseball team. "Talk to me about baseball." Roberto Ramirez, Cuba's media representative at the games, declined comment about the rowers. "We're not speaking in regard to this," he told The Associated Press on Sunday. "This is a right that we have."
Many Cuban athletes at the games declined to talk on the record, and those who did defended the government and criticized those leaving. In related story, for sailors, the water they raced on at the Pan American Games this week will seem like Perrier compared to the notoriously fetid Guanabara Bay Olympic sailing venue that awaits them at next year's Rio Summer Games. While yachtsmen battled for Pan Am medals in the clear waters around Toronto's Centre Island, hundreds of sunbathers splashed about in Lake Ontario on a sizzling weekend, a sight unlikely to be repeated in Rio de Janeiro with Olympic sailors who have visited the venue for test events complaining of floating sofas and animal carcasses
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