World Mind Sports Games

The World Mind Sports Games (WMSG) was a multi-sport event created by the International Mind Sports Association (IMSA) as a "stepping stone on the path of introducing a third kind of Olympic Games" after the Summer and the Winter Olympics".[1]

The inaugural 2008 World Mind Sports Games were held in Beijing from October 3 to 18, about two months after the Summer Olympics and one month after the Paralympics.[2][3][4] Five mind sports participated in the first Games: bridge, chess, draughts (checkers), go (weiqi), and xiangqi (Chinese chess).[5][6] Thirty-five gold medals were contested by 2,763 competitors from 143 countries, using the Olympic Village in Beijing.[7]

The sophomore 2012 World Mind Sports Games were held in Lille, France, from August 9 to August 23, 2012, with 30 events. It starting during the 2012 Summer Olympics held in London, England, and ended shortly before the 2012 Summer Paralympics. At the closing ceremony of the 2012 games, Rio de Janeiro was announced as hosts for the 2016 event,[8] but that did not happen and no further games have been held.

Sports edit

At the first two WMSG events, medals were contested in five different mind sports: bridge, chess, draughts (checkers), go (weiqi), and xiangqi (Chinese chess).[5][6][9] The International Federation of Poker (IFP) is an observer member of IMSA, so poker has been mentioned as a possible future sport at the WMSG. Mathematical games are also planned to be present at 2012 WMSG, in the form of a contest between national teams. The Mahjong International League was accepted as the sixth member of IMSA in 2017.[10]

WMSG Sports
Number Sport Organisation Web Join
1 Chess World Chess Federation http://www.fide.com/ 2008
2 Draughts World Draughts Federation https://fmjd.org/ 2008
3 Go International Go Federation http://www.intergofed.org/ 2008
4 Xiangqi World Xiangqi Federation http://www.wxf.ca/ 2008
5 Bridge World Bridge Federation http://www.worldbridge.org/ 2008
6 Poker International Federation of Poker http://pokerfed.org/ 2010 *
7 Mahjong Mahjong International League http://mahjong-mil.org/ 2017
8 Card game Federation of Card Games http://www.fcgoffical.com/ 2018
  • Provisional

Continuing competitions edit

More than half of the 2008 participants were bridge players, partly because the World Bridge Federation transferred some important quadrennial competitions to the WMSG, especially the Open and Women flights of its World Team Olympiad.[a] In 2004 there had been in the main continuing events 72 Open and 43 Women "Olympiad" entries (national teams-of-four with six players on most squads). Under the Minds Sports rubric in Beijing there were 71 and 54 entries, about 700 players. The one-time, similar tournament with a 28 years age limit attracted another 400 players.

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ The third flight, contesting the Senior International Cup, also moved as a non-medal event sharing the same venues.

References edit

  1. ^ World Bridge Games Archived 2013-12-20 at the Wayback Machine. World Bridge Federation. Retrieved 2011-05-27.
  2. ^ "First World Mind Sports Games to be held in Beijing" Archived 2008-06-30 at the Wayback Machine. www.chinaview.cn 26 September 2007. Retrieved 2008-04-29.
  3. ^ "China to host Bridge Games" The News–International, Pakistan. Retrieved 2008-04-29. Archived September 28, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ "Beijing hosts first ^Mind Games^" Archived 2008-10-06 at the Wayback Machine. Shirong Chen. BBC News, 3 October 2008. Retrieved 2011-03-23.
  5. ^ a b "The first international mind sports games ^IMSA Cup^" Archived 2008-04-26 at the Wayback Machine. FIDE (chess) 22 April 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-29.
  6. ^ a b "China to host 1st World Mind Sports Games" Archived 2012-07-09 at archive.today. latestchess.com 4 March 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-29.
  7. ^ "2008 WMSG Results" Archived 2017-03-23 at the Wayback Machine. 2008WMSG. Retrieved 2011-05-25.
  8. ^ [1] Archived 2016-08-20 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 2012-10-03.
  9. ^ "2nd World Mind Sports Games: Lille 2012" Archived 2016-09-10 at the Wayback Machine (pdf presentation). IMSA. Retrieved 2012-06-04.
  10. ^ Mah Jong now a full member of IMSA Archived 2017-06-14 at the Wayback Machine. IMSA. Retrieved 2017-06-05.

External links edit