Pan American Masters Games kick off Friday in Cleveland

CLEVELAND On the floor of the Huntington Convention Center, a women's volleyball team from Brazil took advantage of the opportunity to get some practice in on Thursday after flying out to start the Pan American Masters Games on Friday. They are among 4,000 athletes from 75 countries who will converge on Cleveland for 10 days of competition in more than two dozen sports.

Marvy Schuman is here from Oregon to participate in barebow archery, an interest she has had since childhood.

“It's been on my bucket list since I was a kid, watching 'The Lone Ranger' and 'Tonto,'” she said. “All those cowboys and Indians and Indians riding horses and shooting.”

We spoke to 85-year-old Abdon Ulloa. He may have walked slowly, but you should see him run.

“I've been running for over 40 years, varying distances from 3K, 3,000 meters to marathon,” Ulloa said. He has run more than 75 marathons. He flew in from Sydney, Australia, on Tuesday. “First time in Cleveland, beautiful city. I love it.”

That's why Cleveland bid for these Games five years ago.

“It's so exciting for Cleveland to have all these people from all over the world and all over the U.S.,” said Rachel Stentz-Baugher, Executive Director of the games. “You know, it really gives us a chance to showcase our beautiful city. We know that when people come here, they fall in love and then they want to come back and tell all their friends and family to come here. So having the opportunity to really show the city firsthand is obviously really valuable to us.”

“It's really exciting because we get to showcase our city to an international audience and hopefully get some exposure to international sports federations that might want to bring events back to Cleveland,” she said.

The convention centre hosts around six events, including volleyball, table tennis and badminton. There are also other events taking place in the region that are free to the public.

“We have events in Strongsville to the west, Mayfield and Beachwood to the east, and all the way down to Cuyahoga Valley National Park and Kent State University, so we’re all over Northeast Ohio,” Stentz-Baugher said.

A complete overview of events, times and locations can be found here here.

Tyler George is hoping to try out some curling while he’s in town; after all, he’s a 2018 Olympic gold medalist in the sport. The first American team to ever win gold in curling. He’s not competing, but he’s been hired to talk to athletes about the drug testing process in international competition. Yep, performance-enhancing drugs aren’t allowed.

“It's good to have that information so you know what my experiences are in sports. The Olympics give me a good opportunity to do that,” George said.

The beauty of these games is that you don’t have to be Olympic caliber; you don’t even have to qualify to participate — just sign up. And while registration is closed for most, there’s still time to sign up for two sports.

“Triathlon, which is on Sunday the 14th, is still open for registration. You can register here at our Accreditation Center in the Convention Center and also our 10K and half marathon are open. Those are next Sunday, the 21st,” Stentz-Baugher said.

“We also have a lot of great community events this week. So on Saturday night, the 13th, is our welcome party; it's going to be at Mall C and we would love for the whole community to come out and hang out with us. We're going to have a flag parade, an athlete parade, food trucks, live music, exhibit booths, yard games. A lot of fun, cool stuff, giveaways and stuff like that, so it's going to be a really fun time,” she said.