A Canadian timeline of the 2019 Pan Am Games
Relive the Lima Games through images
The 2019 Pan American Games in Lima, Peru, officially opened on July 26 and closed 16 days later. Scroll through a Canadian timeline of athletic achievement, illustrated by images captured by photographer Carlos Osorio.
Day -2: Canadian flag raised at the Athletes' Village:
The ceremony's timing was interesting — it marked exactly one year until the Tokyo Olympics. With that in mind, the 477 Canadian athletes competing in Peru had two objectives: use the Pan Am Games as both a proving ground and a launching pad toward Tokyo 2020.
Day -1: Gliding into Lima
The Pan American Games welcomed more than 6,700 athletes to Lima, and invited them to explore their beautiful neighbourhoods — including Miraflores, where you could get a bird's eye view by paragliding over its majestic coastline.
Day 0: The Opening Ceremony
Flag bearer Scott Tupper led the Canadian delegation into Estadio Nacional, marking the start of the biggest sporting event ever held in Peru.
The ceremony included a performance by Luis Fonsi and the lighting of the cauldron.
Day 1: Artistic gymnastics
Ellie Black and her Canadian teammates Shallon Olsen, Victoria Woo, Isabela Onyshko and Brooklyn Moors won silver in the team event. While this medal win is special, Black says she's more concerned about how Lima can help her and her team prepare for the upcoming world championships in Germany — where they can forge their path to the Olympics.
Day 2: Rugby sevens
Canada's rugby sevens teams both took home medals — the women won gold and the men scored silver — but the real takeaway is that the next generation of players are ready for big international events.
And that's good news with the Tokyo Olympics looming.
Day 3: Taekwondo
Canadian Ashley Kraayeveld lost her bronze-medal match to American Paige McPherson in the women's under-67kg semifinals of taekwondo.
Day 4: Boxing
Tammara Thibeault lost her semifinal against Colombia's Jessica Caicedo, picking up a bronze medal in the process.
The 22-year-old middleweight from Montreal has proven before that she's on the rise, becoming the 2017 Canadian champion in her 75 kg weight class, and has won gold at the Continental Championships. But she says she wasn't in Lima to prove anything to anyone but herself and that she's determined to improve.
Day 5: Artistic gymnastics
Canada's Brooklyn Moors, at her first Pan Am Games, won her first individual medal by taking gold in the women's floor exercise.
Ellie Black took silver in the beam for her fifth medal of the Lima Games.
Day 6: Diving
There were no Olympic-sized rewards awaiting Caeli McKay and Meaghan Benfeito at the Pan Am Games.
That didn't mean the competition in Peru wasn't any less special for both divers, who celebrated polar-opposite milestones by winning synchro gold together in McKay's first and Benfeito's last Pan Ams.
Day 7: Badminton
The Canadian badminton team romped in Lima, winning four gold medals and three silver medals on Day 7.
That day featured all-Canadian finals in the women's individual and mixed doubles disciplines.
Day 8: Field hockey
Three wins down, three to go. That was the message after the Canadian men's field hockey team wrapped up their final preliminary match in the most crucial tournament of their Olympic cycle with a 14-1 win against the host Peruvians.
The team got a scare after losing Gordon Johnston to an injury after he was struck in the face by a redirected shot. Johnson ended up returning to action later in the tournament, as the Canadians captured a silver medal.
Day 9: Water polo
Axelle Crevier and Shae Fournier each had four goals, and goalkeeper Jessica Gaudreault stopped two penalty attempts to lift the Canadian women's water polo team to a 20-5 win over Cuba in their Pan Am tourney opener.
The first match in Lima also helped the team get acclimatized to the style of play at the Pan Am Games, which Gaudreault says is known to be quite aggressive.
The Canadian team won silver, and by doing so they booked the team's first appearance at an Olympic Games since 2004.
Day 10: Softball
Canadian women's softball pitcher Sara Groenewegen threw a perfect game against Venezuela, in a mercy-shortened, 8-0 win in five innings. Groenewegen threw 10 strikeouts and didn't allow a single base-runner.
The team left Lima with silver medals but are focused on getting back to the Olympic Games for the first time since 2008 through a tournament at the end of the month in Surrey, B.C.
Day 11: Decathlon & 10,000m
Damian Warner, the 2015 Pan Am champion in decathlon had some Canadian company at this year's edition. Pierce LePage joined him at the top of the standings after Day 1, which had Warner excited.
"For the longest time, over the last however many years, I've been going to a lot of these competitions by myself as the only Canadian," he said. "Now, not only do we have another Canadian, we have a great Canadian decathlete and now we're one and two. I could see this happening at world championships and Olympics."
Warner went on to defend his title, with LePage joining him on the podium in the bronze-medal position.
In the women's 10,000-metre final, Natasha Wodak set a new Pan Am record and teammate Rachel Cliff took the bronze.
Day 12: Team equestrian jumping
Canada's equestrian jumping team may not have left with a medal, but they still accomplished their mission in Lima.
The squad of Mario Deslauriers, Erynn Ballard, Lisa Carlsen, and Nicole Walker finished fourth in the team event, sealing a berth for Canada in that event at the 2020 Olympic Games.
Day 13: Fencing
The Canadian women's foil team took home a silver medal after falling to their American counterparts in the gold medal final.
Day 14: Shotput
Canadian shotput star Brittany Crew said she felt a bump in distance coming, calling it "a ticking time bomb." That blast finally went off in Lima, when she registered a new Canadian record of 19.07 metres and earned a silver medal.
Day 15: Wrestling
Canada finished the wrestling tournament with six medals.
Korey Jarvis and Jevon Balfour both won bronze medals in their respective weight classes.
Day 16: The Closing Ceremony
Ellie Black was selected as Canada's flag-bearer after winning five medals in Lima. The Canadian delegation had the third-most overall medals (152), including 35 gold.
