The Games Changer
The 7th edition of The World Games took place from 14 to 24 July 2005 in Duisburg, Germany. This industrial city in the west of Germany with 500,000 inhabitants organised the Games together with its partner cities Bottrop, Mülheim an der Ruhr and Oberhausen.
The World Games 2005 set new standards in many aspects. These standards are still benchmarks and signposts for the Host Cities of TWG today. A total of 26 sports were part of the official programme, and in addition there were five invitational sports or disciplines. For the first time more than 3,000 athletes participated in The World Games. In total there were 3,149 (2,456 in the official programme plus 693 in the invitational sports). There was also a record number of participating nations. Within the 178 medal events (169 official programme + 9 invitational sports), athletes from 93 nations strived for Gold at TWG.