The Genesis of the Pan Am Junior Championships in Athletics by Cecil Smith, chair of the Panamerican Junior Committee of the Panamerican Athletic Commission.

It took from 1976 to 1980 to garner the support needed in order to evaluate the need of such a championship. Today every athlete in the 45 countries that make up this Hemisphere is aware of the value this meet affords them.

Full support for the project was given during a meeting on Feb 03 1979 present at the meeting was: Amadeo Francis, Austin Sealy, Larry Eldridge (Chair of Canadian Track) and the Admiral; Pedro Galves Peru. During the meeting in Toronto a daft Constitution was struck (amended in 1989), I was told by the committee to ‘run’ with the project and stage the first championship in 1980 in Canada.

What started this campaign was after looking around the Hemisphere, I could immediately see that a piece of a jig saw puzzle was missing. For one thing there was no program where young men and women could interact with each other in sport. Oh yes, there were pockets of activity but no full blown junior program for the entire hemisphere. After all, if the European Juniors could be staged every two years why not this hemisphere? Sport after all generates friendships long after a person retires.

All countries in the hemisphere were circulated a questionnaire asking them their thoughts on such a project. The answers that came back were overwhelmingly supportive of the proposed junior program, which was to be staged every two years between North/South/Central including the Caribbean. 

When the go-ahead was given, my initial thoughts were where to stage such a competition in Canada. As it turned out, Sudbury Ontario under the leadership of Terry McKinty made a strong pitch to stage the competition in Sudbury. I was invited to attend a council meeting in case there were questions. After about an hour, the Council passed the proposal to host the first competition and the Pan Am Junior Championship in Athletics was now on track for August 1980, venue, Sudbury.

The local people staged all sorts of cultural events around the meet, which swelled the normal attendance to 4000 each session. Seventeen countries participated in Sudbury, and while the number of countries was low, the quality was extremely eye catching. American Carl Lewis more or less kicked off his career with his first gold medal win over 100m and 200m.

A look down the list of competitors over the years clearly shows the emphasis that athletes have placed on this championship. Many  internatonal athletes who participated in the PAJ are still competing, indeed for many it was/is their first taste of international competition.

Example of PAJ and World Championships, and Olympic Games participants:

Carl Lewis, Calvin Smith, Joaquim Cruz, Javier Sotomayor, Jefferson Perez(walks), Jackie Joyner, Charmaine Crooks, Sandie Richards, Gail Devers, Suzy Favour. These are just some of the international athletes that tasted international competition for the first time. The meet has had world records, area records, national records

Since 1980, the number of countries/athletes in attendance has been steadily moving up, today the record stands at: 498 athletes in Windsor in 2005. Important changes have taken place since the meets early beginnings, the most important of which is financial. Each delegation that attends the meet is helped along by a quota system which assists countries with accommodation costs.

The meet has traversed between North America and South America a number of times, and each time there has been strong support for it amongst coaches/athletes.   

Cecil Smith is the chairman of the Panamerican Junior Committee, a position he has held since 1980.