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“We have not decided how to integrate them. To be honest, I think we need to study them very carefully.”
That’s Panam Sports President Neven Ilic (CHI), in a year-end interview posted on the Panam Sports Web site, explaining that the added sports for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles – baseball and softball, cricket, flag football, lacrosse, squash – present some challenges for inclusion in the 2027 Pan American Games in Lima, Peru:
“There are sports that have been included in Los Angeles that are not deeply developed in our region. Some do not even have a Pan American Confederation. And we, while we follow the [International Olympic Committee] guidelines, also have our own rules. And to be part of the Pan American Games, there must be a presence and development of sports in more than 50% of the countries in our region. But all of that is on the table of the Executive Committee as part of the decisions that must be made in the short term.”
There is also the issue of boxing’s inclusion, with the removal of the International Boxing Association as the governing body for Olympic boxing in 2023. Ilic is hopeful of a solution in 2025:
“In the IOC there is a vision that it is necessary to resume boxing within our Olympic activities, because it is very relevant for many countries, and especially for America.
“A few days ago I met with World Boxing to see how we can collaborate to speed up the process, both of IOC recognition and the integration of Boxing in our Pan American Games in Lima. Today, of the 41 countries in our organization, 17 of them are integrated into World Boxing, but as Panam Sports we need more countries to join.
“We hope that in March, the IOC will provisionally accept World Boxing. Progress has been made and we are very close to consolidating the return of boxing to the Olympic world, and that would allow for a reconsideration on our part, in order to be able to include it in Lima 2027 and we also hope in the future in Los Angeles 2028 or Brisbane 2032.”
It was reported last week that Panam Sports informed its 41 National Olympic Committees that it must have a national federation affiliated with World Boxing in order to participate in the sport at the 2027 Pan American Games, with a final decision on boxing’s inclusion for Lima expected to be made by the end of June, 2025.
Ilic was re-elected as the President of Panam Sports in October, and considered the possibility of running to be the IOC President. He explained:
“Indeed, I considered, internally, the possibility of standing as a candidate for the presidency of the IOC. But I quickly came to the conclusion that for me it would have many family costs.
“I do not live in Europe, I do not live an hour from the IOC like many other candidates. When one analyzes this, one thinks about completing the project, which in truth takes eight plus four, 12 years.
“I am sixty-two, I have my children and in February I will have my first granddaughter. I felt that it was a matter of moving away from my family for a personal desire. But that desire was going to have consequences for all my surroundings and also at work. In Chile, I am a real estate developer, so it was also going to affect me. In the end it was a decision discussed with my wife. We evaluated the pros and cons and decided not to.”
Ilic, however, will stand as a candidate for the IOC Executive Board at the 144th IOC Session in Greece.
He will have plenty to do in 2025, with the second edition of the Junior Pan American Games to be held in Paraguay next August, and then the preparations for the 2027 Pan Ams in Lima.
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