On February 27, 1974, some 30,000 people filled a stadium that hadn't existed four years earlier. The XII Central American and Caribbean Games transformed the city and the country's self-image
SANTO DOMINGO. – In 1970 Juan Ulises García Saleta, known to all as Wiche, took to the podium at the ordinary assembly of the Central American and Caribbean Sports Organization, held in Panama, and announced that Santo Domingo wanted to host the next Games.
It is said that there were discreet glances exchanged and smirks among those present, not out of discourtesy, but because the country lacked the necessary infrastructure at that time, not only in sports: the country was not prepared in any sense.
The Dominican Republic lacked facilities that even came close to the technical requirements that ODECABE demanded to host an event of that scale. But Wiche's proposal wasn't to organize the games in the existing city, but rather to build, in four years, the sports complex the country had never had.
The most surprising fact of this chronicle is that, against all odds, Mr. Wiche obtained the venue for the XII Central American and Caribbean Games of Santo Domingo 1974 even though it did not yet exist.
The city that was built for sport
Having achieved the goal, it was necessary to work and the government at the time offered full support: a plot of land of more than 722,000 square meters, right in the center of the city and 20 million pesos, which was 20 million dollars with the exchange rate at par.
And there, in the block between 27 de Febrero, John F. Kennedy, Máximo Gómez and Ortega y Gasset, stood the most ambitious sports complex that the country had ever built, with its own name: Juan Pablo Duarte Olympic Center, and intellectual father: the engineer Wiche García Saleta, who conceived it as a city within the city.
By February 1974, the complex included the Juan Pablo Duarte Olympic Stadium, with a capacity for 22,000 people, the Sports Palace, which over the years would be named Virgilio Travieso Soto and popularly known as "La Media Naranja" (The Half Orange) because of the color of the dome that roofs it, an Olympic swimming pool, velodrome, volleyball and gymnastics pavilions, baseball and softball stadiums, as well as open tennis and basketball courts.
It was the first time the country had built sports facilities of that caliber, and nothing that existed up to that point was on that scale. Nothing that came after can be understood without those foundations.
February 27th at 4:15 PM
The Government decreed a day off, according to the newspaper archives that keep all the records.
Public and private employees were released from their obligations, and 30,000 souls filled the Olympic Stadium that afternoon of February 27, the chosen date, with all its symbolic weight for the anniversary of Independence.
As the sun set over the capital and the largest event the country had ever hosted was about to begin, Balaguer presided over the ceremony alongside Mayor Rafael Estrella Rojas, Lord Killanin, then president of the International Olympic Committee, and José Beracasa, head of ODECABE.
The 23 participating countries paraded in alphabetical order, with the exception of Panama, host of the previous games, which opened the parade, and the Dominican Republic, which, as host, closed it.
The national flag was carried by Donato Vásquez, a recent graduate with honors in agronomic engineering from the Catholic University Madre y Maestra and Athlete of the Year in 1973.
The most emotional moment came with the arrival of the torch. As athlete Alberto Torres de la Mota, nicknamed "Gringo," ran along the chevron track, a silence fell that none of the 30,000 people present wanted to, or could, break.
When he lit the Olympic cauldron, the tension broke and the stadium erupted. There was applause, tears, hugs, and joy. The XII Games had begun, and that feat is still talked about today.
Fourteen days, 23 countries, 18 sports
For fourteen days, from February 27 to March 13, 1974, Santo Domingo was the regional sports capital, hosting nearly 2,000 athletes from 23 delegations competing in 18 disciplines: athletics, basketball, baseball, boxing, cycling, diving, soccer, artistic gymnastics, judo, weightlifting, wrestling, swimming, water polo, softball, tennis, shooting, sailing, and volleyball. 203 athletes from the Dominican Republic participated.
Cuba dominated the competition , winning 191 medals, 101 of them gold, nearly doubling the total of its closest competitor. Mexico won 82, Puerto Rico 69, Venezuela 55, and Colombia 44.
For the host country, the tally was modest in number, 16 medals in total, and the single gold medal was worth all the others.
The weightlifter
His name was Jorge Amaury Cordero Rivera, he was born in San Pedro de Macorís, and he was a weightlifter. In the 145-kilogram category, Cordero didn't just win: he lifted the entire country with him.
It was the only gold medal the Dominican Republic won at the XII Games, and the jubilation it generated was both disproportionate and understandable. The country had never before had such a stage to celebrate its athletes, and Cordero was immortalized in the Dominican Sports Hall of Fame in 1987.
The rest of the Dominican medal count was completed by boxer Alejandro Pérez (silver), Olympic wrestler Justino de los Santos (silver), the 4×100 meter relay quartet made up of Porfirio Veras Mercedes "Popo", Javier Amarante, José L. Oficial and Gil Fortuna (silver); the baseball team (silver), and a list of bronze medals that included judoka Juan Chalas and the women's basketball and men's and women's volleyball teams.
What remained
When the athletes returned to their countries and the facilities fell silent, Santo Domingo had something it hadn't had before: a permanent, modern sports complex that met international standards.
The Juan Pablo Duarte Olympic Center was not a temporary project built for a specific occasion. Since 1974, it has been the infrastructure upon which Dominican sport has built its growth.
Those XII Games also left something more difficult to measure, although perceptible: the certainty that the country was capable of organizing itself on that scale, and the motto that Max Reynoso gave to the XII Games, "Commitment of All", was not a filler phrase, it was the exact description of what happened.
Today the Olympic Stadium bears the name of Félix Sánchez, the athlete who was born on August 30, 1977, three years after that inaugural ceremony, and who would become the greatest athlete in Dominican history.
World champion in the 400-meter hurdles in 2001 and 2003, he won the first Olympic gold medal in the history of the Dominican Republic in Athens 2004, and returned in London 2012, at the age of 34, to win gold again with the exact same time as in Athens, 47.63 seconds, becoming the oldest athlete to win that Olympic title.
The centenary
This July and August, Santo Domingo, with its 30-story towers, two metro lines, and direct flights to four continents, will once again host the XXV Central American and Caribbean Games, from July 24 to August 8, 2026.
Not only is this the third time the country has hosted the event, but these are the centennial games: exactly one hundred years after the first edition was held in Mexico City in 1926.
That's why the scale is different, and the emotions are replayed with different protagonists. In 1974, 23 countries and nearly 2,000 athletes participated in 18 sports. This year there will be 37 delegations, more than 6,000 athletes, and 57 disciplines.
The Dominican Republic is one of the five countries in the world, along with Mexico, Cuba, Colombia and Venezuela, that has hosted the contest three times.
Wiche García Saleta, the man who, in Panama in 1970, convinced ODECABE that Santo Domingo could do it, now has his name on one of the Metro stations that passes right under the Olympic Center that he conceived.
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