At the daily IWGA press conference the Mayor of Birmingham, Alabama, William A. Bell and DJ Mackovets, CEO of the Birmingham Organising Committee gave an insight into what can be expected when The World Games, which had its inaugural edition in 1981 in Santa Clara, comes back to the USA in 2021. William A. Bell said on Saturday:
“We want to make sure that we are ready to roll out the red carpet to welcome the world to Birmingham.” DJ Mackovets estimated a budget of around 50 Million US Dollars to roll out the carpet in a perfect way. Mayor Bell described on Saturday the quality that Birmingham wants to add to the Games: “Birmingham has a worldwide reputation as the human rights city. The Games should be the Games of mankind.”
As one of the highlights of the closing ceremony on Sunday at 21 on The World Games Plaza, Mayor Bell will receive the IWGA flag and carry it home as a token of being the upcoming host. This is the first step on the road to Birmingham 2021. But lots of things have to be done before coming home from TWG 2017 in Wroclaw. CEO DJ Mackovets said during the press conference, hosted by IWGA Communications Officer Anna Jacobson: “Here in Wroclaw we have about 40 people representing various aspects of our planning process in Birmingham, such as Police and Fire staff, emergency and medical experts, facilities people and staff people. We see this is a very successful event in Wroclaw. We are learning a lot. It really helps to understand the large scale of the event and what challenges we have to face.”
There is one thing the new host does not have to think about. “When we launched our bid in 2014 we were clear that we don’t have to build new venues,” the CEO said. The organisers can make use of various existing sports facilities in the city with about 749,500 citizens living in the urban area. They can choose and are prepared for the variety of the sports which will be on the program for 2021, and they will have to set up temporarily facilities for sports such as Beach Handball and Sport Climbing.
And of course there are competitions such as Archery, displayed outdoors and using nice places in a city, like the Arcades at the Centennial Hall in Wroclaw to frame the performance of athletes. Tom Dielen, IWGA Board Member and Secretary General of World Archery, is looking forward to the presentation of his sport in 2021.
What Archery does not need is a lot of explanation as to how the sport works. Tom Dielen can rely on the fact that archery is well known in this part of the USA:
“It’s huge in the USA. In 2015 more than 20 million adults in the state touched the bow and arrow. 1996 at the Atlanta Olympics the selling out tickets and tickets per day is still a record for our sport. There is no need of promotion for our sport. It’s already well known.”
And there is another issue that no one has to worry about when Birmingham hosts The World Games 2021: there will be no rain. Mayor Bell said with a smiling face: “It will be warm. Bring a fan with you.”
