Costa Rica is gearing up to send a delegation of 264 people, including 188 teenage athletes, to the XXI Juegos Deportivos Estudiantiles Centroamericanos a Nivel Secundaria, according to reporting from La República. The regional high school games are scheduled to take place in El Salvador from October 2 to October 11, 2024, bringing together student-athletes from seven participating countries.
Delegation Makeup and Selection Process
The Costa Rican contingent features competitors between the ages of 15 and 17 who earned their spots by winning category D in the national student games, an initiative organized jointly by the Ministerio de Educación Pública (MEP) and the Instituto Costarricense del Deporte y la Recreación (Icoder), as reported by La República. These 188 athletes will represent 90 educational institutions across the country.
Before traveling, the delegation received an official send-off during a swearing-in ceremony on September 23 at the Estadio Nacional in San José, led by national sports authorities. The traveling party of 264 total personnel includes competitors spanning multiple sports disciplines.
Sports and Event Venues
Competitions will take place across several sporting venues in El Salvador that were recently modernized for the 2023 Central American and Caribbean Games, as noted by La República. Delegations will be housed in the Villa Deportiva located at the Universidad de El Salvador.
The schedule features events distributed across key venues in the host country:
- Estadio Nacional Jorge “Mágico” González: Hosting athletics, judo, taekwondo, and karate.
- Gimnasio Nacional José Adolfo Pineda: Hosting basketball.
Complejo Deportivo El Polvorín: Hosting chess, swimming, and table tennis.
- Estadio Las Delicias: Hosting football (soccer).
- Palacio de los Deportes Carlos “El Famoso” Hernández: Hosting volleyball.
Costa Rican Delegation Breakdown by Sport
Official registration figures provided by La República detail the size of the Costa Rican squad across its competing disciplines:
- Athletics: 24 athletes
- Taekwondo: 20 athletes
- Swimming: 19 athletes
- Women’s Football: 18 athletes
- Men’s Football: 18 athletes
- Judo: 14 athletes
- Women’s Basketball: 12 athletes
- Men’s Basketball: 12 athletes
- Women’s Volleyball: 12 athletes
- Men’s Volleyball: 12 athletes
- Chess: 10 athletes
- Table Tennis: 8 athletes
Timeline and Opening Ceremony
The opening ceremony for the XXI Central American Student Games is set for Wednesday, October 2, 2024, at 7:00 p.m. local time, opening nearly ten days of competition that run through October 11.
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