2027 Pan Am Games Withdrawn from Colombia

A host for the 2027 Pan Am Games will need to be found after Panam Sports’ announcement that Barranquilla, Colombia, has been withdrawn by the sports organization’s executive committee.

Panam Sports went public on Wednesday saying the decision was made “following several breaches of the Host City Contract.” Barranquilla was the only city to make a formal proposal to the Panam Sports continental body when it was awarded the event in August 2021.

The statement said in October, “Barranquilla requested an extension of the deadline to comply with the contract. The proposal was accepted by Panam Sports which provided new deadlines of December 30, 2023 and January 30, 2024,” before taking immediate action on Wednesday.

“Panam Sports profoundly regrets this situation but has made this decision with the future of the greatest multisport event of the Americas and the athletes of the continent in mind,” the statement concluded.

The 2023 Pan American Games featured 6,800 athletes from 41 countries, including 631 athletes from the United States. The Games are one of the biggest non-Olympic events for the national governing body movement, giving some NGBs the chance to have a dress rehearsal for the 2024 Olympic Summer Games in Paris and for others, including USA Water Ski and Wake Sports, the chance to compete at a multi-sport international competition given it is not part of the Olympic program.

The Pan Am Games is held among athletes from nations of the Americas every four years in the year before the Olympic Summer Games. The United States last hosted in 1987 in Indianapolis; the U.S. has won the medal count at every Pan Am Games except the inaugural event in 1951 in Argentina and the 1991 event in Havana.

The international multi-sport scene has undergone massive disruption over the recent years. Most of them, including the Pan Am Games, had to be rescheduled after the Olympic and Paralympic Summer Games in Tokyo were postponed to 2021 from 2020 because of the pandemic. The United States has become a home to several of those events in the past, including the 2022 World Games in Birmingham, Alabama. The FISU Winter World University Games was held last year in Lake Placid, New York, with the 2029 FISU Summer Games heading to North Carolina.
Another major international multi-sport competition in the future is also unclear because of not currently having a host. Australia’s Victoria state in July withdrew as host of the 2026 Commonwealth Games because of a massive increase in the projected cost of staging the event. The news came a year after Birmingham, England, stepped in to host the 2022 Games in England to replace Durban, South Africa.