The World Games opening ceremony may have been tonight but there was plenty that occurred before the dazzling spectacle at the Tianfu International Conference Center.
Six sports were on show across Chengdu as the Archery, Beach Handball, Inline Hockey and Lacrosse action began whilst the preliminary Baseball and Floorball matches continued from yesterday.
Lacrosse has heightened intrigue as it will be returning to the Olympics in 2028, ending a 110-year absence from the Games as a medal sport (it was a demonstration sport in 1928, 1932 and 1948).
Archery
One world number one archer lived up to his position in the archery space whilst another struggled.
In the compound men’s qualification, Mike Schloesser – nicknamed ‘Mister Perfect’ for his trademark perfect scores – seeded first out of 26 archers, dropping a score of 715 across 72 arrows with 67 10s in total.
The compound women’s world number one Ella Gibson however couldn’t match her male counterpart’s fine effort, no doubt affected by the humidity and sodden shooting line from intense rain in the morning.
The Brit shot 699 to get the ninth seed whilst Mexico’s Andrea Maya Becerra Arizaga is the women’s top seed with 706.
Beach handball
High quality was on show in the men’s beach handball preliminary matches at Xinglong Lake Beach Arena as all top four teams from the 2024 World Championships competed.
The World Games defending champions and gold medallists from last year’s World Championships Croatia suffered a 2-1 loss to the fourth placed Germany whilst the runners up Denmark from 2024 also got beaten by Spain 2-1.
Meanwhile Birmingham 2022 bronze medallists Brazil got off to a winning start in Group A against Portugal (2-1).
The Birmingham 2022 World Games queens of Beach Handball Germany also got off to a winning start in the women’s event with a 2-0 victory versus Spain, as did the World championship runner ups Argentina against Portugal.
Floorball
There were wide scores in most of yesterday’s preliminary matches and the same occurred today at Xindu Xiangcheng Sports Centre.
Latvia beat the Philippines 12-2 in floorball men’s although had to be patient playing as six of their goals came in the final third period.
Switzerland were yesterday’s opponents for Latvians – the fourth placed team at the 2024 World Championships – and edged them 4-3 in a fiery contest but were expectedly dealt with by the World runners up Sweden at an 8-1 scoreline.
The Swiss women’s side though had a much better day as they began their journey in Chengdu with an 8-2 victory over Slovakia.
Inline Hockey
USA vs Czechia for the gold medal final is a safe bet in the men's Inline Hockey given they share 25 World Championship triumphs together from the past 30 years (17 USA, eight Czechia).
The two had completely different matches today however.
In Group B, Czechia were pushed to the limits against 2017 World champions France - although they are another top team and will too be vying for a podium – defeating them 2-1 despite firing 23 shots at French goalkeeper Bastien Chaumet.
USA on the other hand in Group A had a joyride, smashing host nation China 20-1 whilst Italy and Namibia also recorded wins against Argentina and Chinese Taipei.
Lacrosse
Similarly to the Inline Hockey, host nation USA and neighbours Canada arrive in China as big favourites for the Women’s Sixes Lacrosse event being the sport's highest medalling nations in The World Games.
Even though in The World Games it is the indoor sixes discipline rather than outdoor 10s, expect a rematch from the Birmingham 2022 gold medal final in Chengdu - which Canada emerged victorious – given they have faced each other in the final of the World Cup three consecutive times.
Today their form didn’t beg to differ as USA annihilated Ireland 32-11 in Group B whilst Canada smashed Japan 20-5.
It is still early of course but expect the race to the bronze medal match to bee far more unpredictable.
Softball
Due to kit logistical issues which caused postponements yesterday, Canada, Czechia, Japan and USA’s men’s softball teams were made to play two games on day one at the Xindu Better City Softball Arena.
Canada began their campaign of The World Games with a convincing 14-2 win against Australia who failed to bounce back after their shock loss to wildcard team Singapore yesterday.
USA cut the Singaporean momentum though as they too strung a big 15-2 victory against them whilst Japan upset recently crowned World Cup champions Venezuela.
Czechia, the second wildcard, lost their opener to Argentina 7-0. The rescheduled USA v Canada and Czechia vs Japan matches were interrupted later in the evening due to time clashes with the opening ceremony.