Havana, August 31 (JIT) - Cuba has 341 qualified athletes in 29 disciplines for the XIX Pan American Games of Santiago 2023, said José Antonio Miranda, general director of high performance of Inder, during a press conference. 

The executive confirmed that last week the pre-registration of the delegation was carried out before the organizing committee of the event, a process in which the so-called long list of more than 1,000 athletes was reduced to about 600 athletes. 

To date, only the athletics, tennis (wild card) and artistic swimming classifications have yet to be confirmed, the latter in view of the possibility that the team will be granted space after Aruba's declination.

That places the Cuban delegation at an estimated 350 to 360 athletes, lower than the Lima 2019 edition, when 420 slots were obtained.

Miranda considered that Santiago 2023 is already ready to host the sports family of the continent from October 20 to November 5, after his most recent visit to the main venues.

Regarding Cuba's objectives, he emphasized the fulfillment of the purposes and forecasts, the evaluation of the sports reserve and the achievement of classifications for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Regarding the competitive purposes, he explained that at this moment the analysis at the level of technical collectives in each sport is being completed. Then will come the evaluations in the technical-methodological direction and finally in the advisory group for high performance. Only then will it be possible to know the horizon of possibilities of the delegation, undoubtedly at the gates of a great challenge.

Miranda also explained that 18 sports will serve as a direct bridge to Paris 2024 and 11 others will offer the possibility of making marks and adding up scores for the classification rankings. He highlighted boxing and shooting as the main options for Cuba.  

In the Pan American Games of Santiago 2023, 425 events will be disputed, 23 of them open, six mixed and 198 in each gender.