World Games Kaohsiung - Wushu as demonstration sport

I hope that all of you had a very good holiday time. During this holiday there were some big events going on. The 2009 World Games had place from July 16-26 and some 31 sports were participating in this very big event. Some 5000 athletes from 103 countries took part in the competition in Kaohsiung. The Organising committee had recruited 6000 volunteers and there were some 280.000 visitors on the different venues all over Kaohsiung.

For the first time Wushu was presented as an demonstration sport, this is a very important step for Wushu. This is the result from our lobbying during the last years in Sportaccord meetings. The next step is the application to become a full sport in the World Games. Next year in April we will have the next Sportaccord meetings and also the International World Games Congress. During this General Assembly a new executive committee will be elected and the agreement of new sport federations and sport disciplines will be discussed. The World Games are always considered as the "anti-chamber" of the Olympic programme.

The World Games editions are every 4 years, the next World Games are in 2013 in Cali, Colombia. Let's work hard to be accepted by the IWGA as a full sport on the programme.

Wushu as a demonstration sport in the World Games Kaohsiung. Gleb Muzrukov, Peter Warr, Tatiana Kuprianova and Patrick Van Campenhout in the Wushu competition venue

Patrick Van Campenhout with the IWGA President Mr. Ron Froehlich and Mr. Max Bisschop executive member IWGA