The Gay Games is the world's largest sporting and cultural event organized by and specifically for LGBT athletes, artists, musicians, and others. It welcomes participants of every sexual orientation and every skill level. Originally called the Gay Olympics, it was started in San Francisco in 1982, as the brainchild of Tom Waddell, whose goals were to promote the spirit of inclusion and participation, as well as the pursuit of personal growth in a sporting event. The Gay Games is open to all who wish to participate, without regard to sexual orientation. There are no qualifying standards to compete in the Gay Games. It brings together people from all over the world, many from countries where homosexuality remains illegal and hidden. The Federation of Gay Games is the sanctioning body of the Gay Games. From its statement of concept and purpose: “ "ref">[1] ”

GAY GAMES TICKETS Monster Jam Tickets The Harlem Globetrotters Los Angeles Lakers Tickets Chicago Bulls Tickets New York Knicks Tickets Boston Celtics Tickets

Sports

The Gay Games host sports broken down by gender and age. The following sports make up both current and past Gay Games official programs and are listed alphabetically according to the name used by the FGG. Tom Waddell also went by the name Tom Waddel.

List of Sports:
Badminton, Basketball, Beach Volleyball, Bowling, Cycling, DanceSport, Darts, Diving, Field Hockey, Figure Skating, Flag Football, Golf, Handball, Ice Hockey, Inline Speed Skating, Martial Arts, Physique, Pool (Billiards), Power Lifting, Racquetball & Squash, Road Races (1), Rowing, Rugby, Sailing, Soccer (Football), Softball, Sport Climbing, Sport Shooting, Swimming, Synchronised Swimming, Tennis, Table Tennis, Track and Field, Triathlon, Volleyball, Water Polo, and Wrestling.

1. ^   Road races are 5k and 10k races, and are associated with the full and half marathons.

Controversies

Naming controversy

Dr. Tom Waddell, the former Olympian, who helped found the Gay Games, intended the Gay Games to be called the "Gay Olympics," but a lawsuit filed less than three weeks before 1982's inaugural Gay Olympics forced the name change. ^[2]

Event organizers were sued by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) under the U.S. Amateur Sports Act of 1978, which gave the USOC exclusive rights to the word Olympic in the United States. Defendants of the lawsuit contended that the law was capriciously applied and that if the Nebraska Rat Olympics and the Police Olympics did not face similar lawsuits, neither should the Gay Olympics. ^[3]

Some, like Jeff Sheehy, coauthor of San Francisco's domestic partner legislation and former president of the Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Club, believed homophobia to be a motivation behind the lawsuit. They cite the authorized use of the word "Olympics" by the Special Olympics and other organizations as evidence of this homophobia.

Others, like Daniel Bell, cite the IOC's long history of protecting the Olympics brand as evidence that the lawsuit against the "Gay Olympics" was not motivated by discrimination against gays. Since 1910 the IOC has taken action, including lawsuits and expulsion from the IOC, to stop other organizations from using the word "Olympics." ^[4] since December 2008}}" style="white-space: nowrap;">[dead link]

A 2009 documentary film called "Claiming the Title: Gay Olympics on Trial" was created in the USA and has previewed at several film festivals. The subject was also included in a film by David Sector, called "Take the Flame! Gay Games: Grace Grit & Glory".

In the years since the lawsuit, the Olympics and the Gay Games have set aside their initial hostilities and worked cooperatively together, successfully lobbying to have HIV travel restrictions waived for the 1994 Gay Games in New York and the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

Schism in LGBT sports communities over Gay Games VII

In 2001, the bidding organization from Montréal, Canada won the right to negotiate with Federation of Gay Games (FGG) for a licensing agreement to host the 2006 Gay Games, but after two years of failed negotiations Montreal broke off talks at the 2003 FGG annual meeting in Chicago. There were three main points of contention, over which neither party could agree:

• Size of the event
• Size of the budget — especially the planned break-even participation point
• Financial transparency

In a weakening global economy following international terrorist attacks, including 9/11, the FGG wanted Montréal to be able to plan for a successful Gay Games even if participation did not meet Montréal's optimistic projection of 24,000 participants, twice the level of participation of the previous Gay Games in 2002. Due to financial problems in previous events, the FGG also asked for transparency into Montréal 2006's financial activities. After Montréal refused to continue talks, the FGG held a second round of bidding in which Chicago and Los Angeles bidders, who had put forth well-received bids to host the 2006 games in the first round along with Montréal and Atlanta, chose to bid. Ultimately, the FGG awarded Gay Games VII to Chicago Games, Inc. The Montréal organizing committee nevertheless decided to proceed to hold an athletic and cultural event without the sanction of the FGG; this plan developed into the first edition of the World Outgames, and the creation of its sanctioning body, the Gay and Lesbian International Sport Association.

Due to limited personal and organizational resources, many individual and team participants were forced to choose between Gay Games Chicago and World Outgames Montréal, a situation exacerbated by the two events being a week apart. The closing ceremony of Gay Games Chicago on 22 July 2006 was only 7 days before the opening ceremony of World Outgames Montréal on 29 July 2006. This meant that those who competed or performed in Chicago would have little recovery time before Montréal. The split resulted in a lower quality of athletic competition at both events because neither could claim the whole field of competitors. Team and individual sports were hurt alike. Few teams were able to field complete squads for both events; In wrestling, 100 wrestlers competed in Chicago (comparable to previous Gay Games), but only 22 competed in Montréal, by far the lowest number for any major international tournament. There was some advantages to the games being so close together time wise and location wise. For some overseas participants who had to travel far, the convenience of the two events being only a week apart and not far from each other enabled them to attend both. Many did not attend at all. After Chicago drew approximately 12,000 participants, Montréal drew an estimated 8,000 athletes -- a third of the organization's original projections."

Since 2006, the need for a secondary global multisport event has been the subject of much debate, especially after the final financial figures for 2006 were released. The Chicago Gay Games VII ended with no debt and all bills paid. In contrast, the Montréal World Outgames ended with 5.3M Canadian dollars of debt."

Gay Games VII will be held in Cologne, Germany on July 31, 2010, until August 6, 2010.

Host cities

#	Year	City	Country
I	1982	San Francisco
II	1986	San Francisco
III	1990	Vancouver
IV	1994	New York City
V	1998	Amsterdam
VI	2002	Sydney
VII	2006	Chicago
VIII	2010	Cologne
IX	2014	TBD

On 16 March 2005, the Federation of Gay Games (FGG) announced that Cologne, Johannesburg, and Paris were the official candidate cities for Gay Games VIII in 2010. Cologne was elected in the FGG annual meeting in Chicago on 14 November 2005. The 2010 Games will mark the second time the Games will be held in Europe, the first being in Amsterdam in 1998.

According to the FGG, fourteen cities had expressed interest in hosting Gay Games IX in 2014. During its annual meeting in Cape Town on 28 October 2008, the FGG announced that four cities made the deadline and were thus in the running to host the games: Boston, Cleveland, Miami, and Washington, DC. Given that all four finalist cities are in the US, the Gay Games will be returning to the United States. The Miami organization subsequently withdrew from the bidding process in March of 2009. The FGG will select the host city in October 2009 during its annual meeting in Cologne. ^[5]

See also

LGBT}}portal

Sports and games}}portal

• Federation of Gay Games, the sanctioning body of the Gay Games
• Gay Games VII Chicago 2006
• Olympic Games
• Gay Olympics
• EuroGames is an event similar to the Gay Games. Whereas Gay Games is a global event, Eurogames is primarily European.
• European Gay and Lesbian Sport Federation, the sanctioning body of the EuroGames
• World Outgames, sanctioned by the Gay and Lesbian International Sport Association

References

1. Concept and Purpose
2. Crushing the Gay Olympics: The USOC's homophobic past
3. Glory of the Gay Games
4. Why can't the Gay Games be the Gay Olympics?
5. http://www.gaygames.com/en/media/releases/2008/FGG081027PRen.pdf