Fruitful visit to Chengdu

Fruitful visit to Chengdu

An IWGA delegation has just returned from a visit to Chengdu, the Chinese organiser of The World Games 2025. "Chengdu could hold an Olympic Games tomorrow," President José Perurena said, as a conclusion for the delegation’s experiences during the visit. "Today, for every sport we may have at the Games in Chengdu, they have two or three places to choose from," he said.

Chengdu is a city with 16 million inhabitants and is the capital of Sichuan province. In the next few years preceding The World Games, Chengdu is organising several high-ranked sport events. Recently the World Police and Fire Games took place, and in 2021 the FISU Summer Universiade will be hosted. Amongst other opportunities for accommodation and sport venues, Chengdu builds a new sports university with all facilities for a multi-sport event and a second modern international airport by 2022.

“The Chengdu organisers were very well prepared for our visit,” IWGA CEO Joachim Gossow said, and continued: “The programme of visits they had organised for The World Games team was outstanding. Each of the venues we visited exceeded our expectations, and it is clear to me that we can look forward to 2025 with great confidence. They have an experienced and enthusiastic team, their infrastructure is of the highest standard, and it is clear from the smooth running of our visit that we can expect seamless as well as very friendly organisation. There seems to be a lot of interest in the Games in Chengdu: wherever we went in the city, there were always Press folk around.”

IWGA President José Perurena with Mr Luo Qiang, Mayor of Chengdu

The Chengdu organisers, together with the Chinese Olympic Committee and the IWGA analyse the possibility to work closely together with IWGA’s member federations to introduce, to promote and to educate sports of The World Games programme in preparation of the Games in 2025. In addition, the province of Sichuan and the City of Chengdu seek for opportunities to host international championships of The World Games sports in the period 2022 to 2024.

“This is a great opportunity for the development of The World Games sports in China and a win-win situation for all parties involved," President Perurena said. “We directly started our work on these programmes with our partners after our return and I have no doubt looking into a first step of a very successful collaboration to organise extraordinary Games in 2025."

 The World Games is a multi-sport event staged every four years by the International World Games Association under the patronage of the International Olympic Committee. The 11th edition of The World Games will be held in Birmingham, Alabama, USA, 15-25 July 2021. 3,600 athletes from over 30 sports and 100 countries will take part in the Games.

Social