Paris, Cologne or Johannesburg? The 3 candidate cities for organizing the Gay Games VIII in 2010 will present their bids to the Federation of Gay Games General Assembly on 12 and 13 November in Chicago. Around 65 Federation representatives will vote to designate the city that will organize the Gay Games VIII in 2010.
There is a lot to say for each candidate city. After Sydney in 2002 and Chicago in 2006, should the Gay Games finally return to Europe, and would that limit the choice between Cologne and Paris? Or will the Assembly pour more value to the economical influence the Games will have on a city like Johannesburg?
The Gay Games idea goes back to Dr. Thomas Waddell, who had himself been a successful athlete at the 1968 Olympics. Waddell dreamt of a sporting event for EVERYONE, where gay and lesbian sports people could participate openly and without being discriminated against. The first gay and lesbian games were held in San Francisco in 1982 and 1986. In 1982, 1,350 sports people from 12 countries competed in 14 different sports; only four years later the number of participants had almost trimpled. For 2010 the expectation is that over 12,000 people will participate in 30 different sports.
From a "sport" point of view, today's Gay Games can be compared to the Olympic Games: each sport is strictly practised along the rules of its international association and records and annual best performances are recognised worldwide.
All candidates are online: Cologne, Johannesburg and Paris have released their websites and are getting ready for a final sportive and fair competition round.
Watch their individual websites at:
Cologne 2010
Johannesburg 2010
Paris 2010
Living in Paris, of course we hope our capital to be the host city for the Gay Games in 2010, not in the least because of the hard work our friend Michel (see photo) and his colleagues of the Paris Committee have done. Plus of course the amount of sportive gay men who will visit the city during the games...
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