Cuba now has 389 athletes who are classified in 30 sports for the next Pan-American Games in Toronto, Canada, between July 10th and 26th, said official sources in Havana.
In a conversation with local Prensa Latina news agency, Cuban Institute Sports and Physical Education (INDER) national director for High Performance School, Jose Antonio Miranda, said the number might increase in the next few days.
Mr. Miranda said that once the classification tournaments are over, a total of 86 Cuban athletes will be pendent from getting the right to compete at the Pan American Games, distributed in athletics (60 athletes), swimming (13) and triathlon (3), adding that the number of athletes for the competition would totally be among 475 or 480.
Though he did not make any comments about any predictions, the Cuban sport executive stated that Cuba will do its best to keep the 2nd place it obtained in the last edition of the Pan-American Games.
"The struggle will be hard, between Canada and Brazil. In the first place Canada will compete in all the sports and it is the host of the Games, while Brazil, will use Toronto as a way to see how its athletes are, to be able to compete at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro 2016," said Miranda.
"Our preparation goes well, the targets set for each stage are fulfilled, we are on the last details in order to reach optimal competitive basis," he said.
Miranda argued that the workouts are also depending on athletes to achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness, "primarily for when facing Canadians and Brazilians.
"We must take into account the added value of our athletes to historically grow in difficult scenarios, and Toronto will be one of them.
For the next few weeks, Inder will closely study the feasibility of some sports medalists historical and individuals performing training bases abroad before the Pan-American Games.
We will analyze this carefully, he concluded, because there are strategic sports and athletes who prefer to stay in Cuba to complete the preparation.
