World Games Vital in Determining New Olympic Sports

(ATR) International World Games Association president Jose Perurena tells Around the Rings that non-Olympic sports at the Birmingham 2021 World Games could find their way onto the program of the Los Angeles 2028 Summer Olympics.

"The American city will be the showcase for the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 2028, because in Birmingham it will be too late to bring sports to the program of Paris 2024," Perurena tells ATR in an exclusive interview.

"All the federations are going to work to show their best and the next World Games will be in the same country of the Olympic host city in 11 years," says Perurena, who since 2011 has served as one of the three Spanish members on the International Olympic Committee along with Juan A. Samaranch and Marisol Casado. He has also served as president of the International Canoe Federation since 2008.

The World Games are a multidisciplinary event that brings together non-Olympic sports and disciplines, and with new IOC policies defined in Olympic Agenda 2020, can serve as a test run for sports seeking to join the Olympic program.

"The [World Games] are becoming a central project in the strategy of renewal of the Olympic Program," said IOC vice president Samaranch.

Fresh off the success of the 10th edition of the World Games in Wroclaw, Poland, Perurena hopes to travel to Birmingham in January to hold the first official meeting with the Organizing Committee and begin to outline the sports program. Perurena will have with him a report from Wroclaw 2017 with remarks from IOC sports director Kit McConnell and the event’s television broadcasters.

The World Games were created in 1981 and have 37 member international federations. The 2017 Games received the largest number of IOC observers, led by McConnell. Observers used the opportunity to learn about new sports and disciplines and determine their potential Olympic appeal.

"I will receive an assessment of the potential of each sport with regard to its ambition to appear in the Olympic Games, the implications on television and whether they are easy to understand or not for the audience," said Perurena

"All sports have to have an evolution, to make the rules simpler in the cases that demand it, and ensure that they do not bore."

The new Memorandum of Understanding signed with the IOC recommends "close cooperation on the composition of the sports program and its evaluation" and describes how the two organizations can work together as partners. As part of this agreement, a team of IOC experts traveled to Wroclaw where IOC chief Thomas Bach also attended the opening ceremony and a few events on the first days of competition.

Perurena revealed to ATR that under the influence of Agenda 2020 and this new era of relations with the IOC, there has been "greater openness" within the IWGA. One more member has been added to the Executive Committee in order to raise the number to seven.

"Before, in the event of a tiebreaker, the decisions remained in the hands of the President and that was not democratic," Perurena says.

A Committee on Ethics and Transparency was also created, as part of some amendments to the Constitution.

The 2017 World Games, cost approximately $70 million, and were held for 10 days with 3,500 athletes from 112 countries. Athletes competed in 31 sports for 219 medals. The Games were televised to 131 countries with an audience estimated at 420 million.

Various disciplines such as badminton, beach volleyball, trampoline, rugby sevens, taekwondo, triathlon, weightlifting, karate, skateboarding, rock climbing, surfing and softball – the latter five having already been added to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics – have appeared in the World Games.

Perurena acknowledges how the inclusion of the World Games in Agenda 2020 has increased the interest of the National Olympic Committees for sports not currently on the Olympic Program.

"The World Games are a great window, at a low cost, and the federations are open to the necessary changes," Perurena tellsATR."We will analyze with International Sports Broadcasting (IBS), the company that we have contracted to see what sports do well on TV and those which need changes.

"The sport has to be shown at its best as if it were the showcase of a jeweler, where he positions his best offerings so that when you are inside you are also shown others. This is my hope for the Birmingham Games."

Written by Miguel Hernandez and translated by Kevin Nutley.

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