World Games

International World Games Association

IWGA logo
First event	1981 - Santa Clara, California,  United States
Occur every	four years
Last event	2013 - Cali,  Colombia
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 acrobatic gymnastics, ultimate, orienteering, body building, powerlifting, finswimming, squash, netball, water skiing, and casting. 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.

Editions

Year	Location	Hosts	Athletes* / Countries	Sports (Off./Inv.)
1981	Santa Clara, California	United States	1265/34	18/0
1985	London	United Kingdom	1550/34	19/4
1989	Karlsruhe	West Germany	1965/44	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	3870/109	31/2
2017	Wrocław	Poland
2021	TBD	TBD

Note:

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

Sports

These are the sports of the World Games program.^[2][3]

Notes:

¹ Invitational sports

² Non competitive sports

All-time medal table

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

See also

References

External links

• IWGA Official Website
• World Games all results at Hickoksports.com
• The World Games 2017 Wrocław
• The World Games 2013 Cali
• The World Games 2009 Kaohsiung
• The World Games 2005 Duisburg
• Results of TWG2009