Dr. José Joaquín Puello, the president of the Dominican Olympic Committee, insists that the DR should seek the site of the 2003 Pan American Games. He told the Listín Diario that a hurricane is not sufficient cause for the country to desist of its aspirations to host the most important regional sports games. "Imagine if we desist from organizing the games because a hurricane hits when there are still five years before the Games? What would the other countries say about us?" He said he will travel Friday to Mexico to participate in a meeting on the Games. "Life has to go on, we are not to blame for the homeless, it is the society that has not permitted that these poor people develop, aside from the hurricane," he said. Puello believes that the same conditions that existed before are present today. "Here there have always been very poor people and nobody can use this phenomenon as an excuse for us to abstain from requesting the seat of the games," he said. The hurricane affected several of the sports installations of the country, and detractors of the 2003 Pan Am Games project say that the moneys that would have been used to build the sports installations that are needed now need to be used for the reconstruction of the nation.
