World Games

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International World Games Association
IWGAlogo.jpg
IWGA logo
First event 1981 - Santa Clara, California,  United States
Occur every four years
Last event 2009 - Kaohsiung,  Republic of China (Taiwan)
IWGA Designation:  Chinese Taipei
Purpose Multi-sport event for sports and disciplines that are not contested in the Olympic Games
Website IWGA Official Website

The World Games, first held in 1981, are an international multi-sport event, meant for sports, or disciplines or events within a sport, that are not contested in the Olympic Games. The World Games are organised and governed by the International World Games Association (IWGA), under the patronage of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Some of the sports that were on the program of the World Games eventually made it as Olympic sports (such as triathlon) or have been Olympic sports in the past (like tug of war). Participation in past World Games is included in the evaluation criteria used to select new Olympic sports adopted by the IOC on August 12, 2004. However, with the current position of the IOC to limit the Olympic Games to 10,500 participants, it is unlikely that many of the World Games sports will be elevated to Olympic sports.

Some of the sports that are currently held at the World Games are ultimate, orienteering, body building, powerlifting, finswimming, squash, netball, water skiing, casting, etc. The sports that are included in the World Games are limited by the facilities available in the host city; no new facilities may be constructed for the games. Typically, between 25 and 35 sports are contested at any particular World Games. Sports that have been classified as "invitational" are still played, but no medals are awarded. Even if some sports are official sports of the IWGA, they can be classified as invitational by the hosting city.

Contents

Editions [edit]

Year Location Hosts Athletes* / Countries Sports (Off./Inv.)
1981 Santa Clara, California  United States 1265 18/0
1985 London  United Kingdom 1550 19/4
1989 Karlsruhe  West Germany 1965 19/0
1993 The Hague  Netherlands 2275/69 22/3
1997 Lahti  Finland 2600/78 25/5
2001 Akita  Japan 3200/93 26/5
2005 Duisburg  Germany 3200/93 34/6
2009 Kaohsiung  Republic of China (Taiwan) 3235/90 26/5
2013 Cali  Colombia
2017 Wrocław  Poland
2021

( *without including the numbers of athletes and officials participating in the invitational sports (limited to 800 athletes and officials) )

Sports [edit]

These are the sports of the World Games program.[1][2]

Note 1 = Invitational sports; Note 2 = Non competitive sports.

Precision Sports
Strength Sports
Trend Sports
Past Sports

All-time medal table[3] [edit]

Rank Nation Gold Silver Bronze Total
1  Italy 120 120 111 351
2  United States 114 106 91 311
3  Germany 107 95 121 323
4  Russia 81 58 44 183
5  France 70 70 71 211
6  Great Britain 47 49 66 162
7  China 41 37 20 98
8  Japan 37 29 43 109
9  South Korea 37 13 17 67
10  Australia 35 50 36 121

References [edit]

  1. ^ "IWGA - Members". theworldgames.org. Retrieved 6 June 2012. 
  2. ^ "IWGA - The Sports". theworldgames.org. Retrieved 6 June 2012. 
  3. ^ "World Games". sports123.com. Retrieved 6 June 2012. 

External links [edit]