The World Games have been celebrated every four years since 1981, when the first event was hosted by the Californian city of Santa Clara. While not as well known as the Olympics or the FIFA World Cup, the World Games do have a longer history than some other major quadrennial sports events: The Rugby World Cup, for instance, was inaugurated in 1987; the East Asian Games were first held in 1993; and the World Baseball Classic began in 2006.
World Games host cities are selected by the International World Games Association, a federation of 32 global bodies, each of which supervises a particular sport. Among them are the International Gymnastics Federation, the Ju-Jitsu International Federation and the International Surfing Association.
Kaohsiung's right to hold the eighth World Games was confirmed June 14, 2004, when Frank Hsieh, the city's mayor at the time, signed the hosting contract with the IWGA. "The support that Kaohsiung had from the national government, the national sports and education authorities, the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee, and [Taiwan's International Olympic Committee] member Mr. C.K. Wu was certainly a very important factor in taking the decision to award the event to Kaohsiung," IWGA President Ron Froehlich said June 2.
The IWGA operates under the patronage of the IOC, but the World Games differ from the Olympics in a number of respects. For sports fans, the most important distinction is that the 28 sports regularly included in the Olympics--such as track-and-field athletics, swimming and weightlifting--are specifically excluded from the World Games.
For competitors in the sports of bodybuilding, handball, karate, orienteering and powerlifting, the World Games are an opportunity to show they are the best in the world, and a chance to present their sport to a wider audience.
Many Taiwanese are familiar with sumo wrestling and squash, but few people know anything about korfball or fistball. These last two sports are, respectively, somewhat similar to basketball and volleyball.
Dance competitions attract large audiences in Taiwan, and three forms will be contested at the 2009 World Games: Latin, rock 'n' roll, and standard.
Among regular World Games disciplines are some in which Taiwanese athletes excel. In the 2005 Games, which were held in the German city of Duisburg, competitors from Chinese Taipei (the name under which Taiwan participates in international sports events) won two gold medals, two silvers and two bronzes.
Chang Pei-wei won the men's pool competition, while the women's tug-of-war team defeated Japan to take gold. Taiwanese did even better in the 2001 World Games in Akita, Japan, bringing home three gold medals, three silvers and five bronzes.
Between 5,300 and 5,500 athletes and officials from 90-plus countries are expected to take part in the Kaohsiung World Games. However, the city is not building an Olympic-style "village" to house them. Instead, competitors will be accommodated in hotels.
This is another important difference between Olympiads and World Games. Whereas the former often require the building of expensive infrastructure, the latter should, according to the IWGA Web site, "be staged at existing venues, in appropriately sized facilities, which have been planned or built regardless of the candidate host bidding for the World Games."
"In the case of Kaohsiung, they had already planned a new stadium and a dome, besides the renovation of many facilities," Froehlich said.
As of early June, neither the US$170-million stadium nor the dome--a build-operate-transfer project led by Kaohsiung Arena Development Corp.--had been completed, but both are expected to be ready in time.
According to Emily Cho-chuan Hsu, chief executive officer of the World Games 2009 Kaohsiung Organizing Committee, the main tasks for the KOC between now and the opening of the World Games are scouting for sponsors, finalizing details of the opening and closing ceremonies, getting ready for the one-year countdown event, establishing a ticketing system, and hosting warm-up events that are designed to test the readiness of World Games venues and personnel.
"Shortages of sports experts in certain professional fields is one of the most difficult challenges we face," Hsu said June 4.
Warm-up events include the 2008 Kaohsiung International Air Sports Event, planned for July 19-21 at the city's vast Metropolitan Park. Local and overseas parachutists will take part in canopy formation, accuracy landing and formation skydiving competitions.
Metropolitan Park is far from downtown Kaohsiung, but getting there is easy, thanks to the Kaohsiung Mass Rapid Transit System, the city's new public transport system.
According to Victor Wang, the KOC's sports director, organizing air-sports events is proving to be difficult. There has been almost no recreational parachuting in Taiwan, he explained June 6. "Taiwan's airspace is restricted for national defense. It's never been open for private sports. But the Army Aviation and Special Forces Command has agreed to provide the pilots, the fuel and the aircraft."
Water skiing is another logistical and technical challenge for the KOC, Wang said. He explained that a homologator has to inspect and certify the venue and the course. As there are none in Taiwan, one has to be flown in from overseas.
Water skiing and canoe polo, official medal events in the 2009 World Games, will be held at Lotus Lake, a scenic body of water surrounded by temples and pagodas in the northern part of Kaohsiung City.
The lake will also see Dragon Boat racing, one of five invitational sports offered at the event. "Each city that successfully bids to host a World Games is given the opportunity to include events popular in the country or region that are not in the Olympics or the current World Games," explained Froehlich. He noted that the martial art of wushu, made famous by mainland Chinese movie star Jet Li, has also been chosen as an invitational event.
Preparing the lake for the World Games has been a major undertaking. First, the lake was drained. Thousands of fish and turtles were extracted and sorted; native species were saved and released into nearby rivers and creeks. Then tens of thousands of tons of soil were dredged to deepen the lake from an average of 2 meters to at least 3 meters, to make it safe for water skiers when they fall at high speed. Finally, in time for a water-skiing warm-up event that begins Nov. 1, the lake will be refilled with potable water.
"The quality of the water is very important for the health of the athletes," said Chi Cheng, Hsu's predecessor as CEO, on April 24. Chi--who held several athletics world records in the early 1970s and who remains an iconic figure in Taiwanese sport--is now in charge of international publicity for the World Games.
The water-skiing meet will be a small demonstration event with no more than 20 skiers and officials. Other warm-up events are much more significant, both in terms of participant numbers and kudos to the winners.
Between Nov. 3 and 6, the 12th Asian Petanque Championships will bring more than 250 athletes and officials to Kaohsiung's 228 Memorial Park. Petanque is one of four boules (outdoor bowling) sports that will feature in the 2009 Games.
On Nov. 8, the KOC, the Chinese Taipei Roller Sports Federation and the International Roller Sports Federation will open the 2008 World Roller Figure Skating Championships in Kaohsiung. According to the KOC's Web site, more than 30 countries and 1,200 athletes are expected to take part in the competition, which will be hosted by I-Shou University in Kaohsiung County's Dashu Township.
The 2009 World Games will feature four kinds of roller sports: roller hockey, roller inline hockey, speed skating and roller figure skating.
The new stadium will host two sports: flying disc (including the popular "ultimate" format) and rugby sevens (rugby with seven players per team instead of the usual 15).
Designed by Japanese architect Toyo Ito, the stadium will house Taiwan's first world-class 400-meter track-and-field ground, and is expected to host international soccer matches. The roof includes one of the world's largest arrays of electricity-producing photovoltaic cells; surplus electricity will be sold to Taiwan Power Co.
Chinese-language newspapers have quoted Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu as calling the stadium "an outstanding piece of art," and saying it "will shine on the world stage."
The stadium is a crucial part of the World Games' "hardware." The KOC has also been developing the necessary "software" for the event, including volunteers and a team of interpreters proficient in more than 20 languages.
"We expect that the World Games will bring the city and the people together for a better future, and that the tourism and sports industries will get a significant long-term boost," said Hsu. "The event will certainly promote Kaohsiung's international image and make it a more diverse city."
According to the Web site of the 2005 World Games, TV coverage of the seventh event attracted a domestic audience of 116 million viewers, and footage of the event was shown in 137 countries. Duisburg and venues outside the city received more than 500,000 visitors during the 11-day period of the event.
"We hope that the World Games 2009, with the help of the international federations, the top athletes, and the friendly participation of the citizens of Kaohsiung and the rest of the country will create many new friendships and cultural exchanges for the thousands that will visit Kaohsiung," said Froehlich. "I believe that the athletes, officials and public will be able to witness fantastic sports events, and the event will be an opportunity to bring new sports to [Taiwan]."
Copyright 2008 by Steven Crook
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