World Outgames

The World Outgames are a sporting and cultural event hosted by the gay community. With over 12,000 participants, the 1st World Outgames, held in 2006, was the largest international event to be held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada since the 1976 Summer Olympiad. These first Outgames were not as successful as the organizers had hoped and ended up with a deficit of $5.3 million. Many suppliers were left unpaid after the various governments refused to cover the debt.^[1]

The Outgames are open to all who wish to participate, without regard to sexual orientation. There are no qualifying standards, although competitions are arranged according to the skill levels of the competitors. The Outgames bring together athletes and artists from all over the world, many from countries where homosexuality remains illegal and hidden.

The Outgames are not to be confused with the Gay Games. The seventh edition of the Gay Games was supposed to take place in Montreal in 2006, but the Federation of Gay Games (FGG) removed their sanction after it and Montreal 2006 were unable to agree on the size of the games. The official Gay Games for 2006 were awarded to Chicago, with just over 12,000 participants. Montreal 2006 announced its intentions to continue organizing the games without the sanction of the FGG; this plan developed into the first edition of the World Outgames, sponsored by the Gay and Lesbian International Sport Association, the city of Montreal, the Province of Quebec, the Government of Canada, GlaxoSmithKline, Air Canada, Labatt Brewing Company, Bell Canada, as well as dozens of other national and international business and media organisations.

World Outgames

#	Year	City	Country
I	2006	Montreal (Montréal)	Canada
II	2009	Copenhagen (København)	Denmark
III	2013	Antwerp (Antwerpen)	Belgium

1st World Outgames 2006

For the first World Outgames, the organization, as well as officials from the City of Montreal, the Province of Quebec and the Government of Canada welcomed 10,248 athletes to participate in games from 29 July to 5 August, alongside about 1500 participants for an international conference on lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-gender (LGBT) human rights, including Workers Out. Workers Out is the third international gathering of LGBT trade unionists. Approximately 5,200 volunteers worked at the events.

2nd World Outgames 2009

The second World Outgames started in Copenhagen on 25 July and ended on 2 August 2009. The opening ceremony took place at City Hall Square.

3rd World Outgames 2013

The third World Outgames will be held in Antwerp in 2013.

Trivia

• Cities which hosted World Outgames and/or Gay Games have some Olympic tradition and the facilities have been used. The Games are not being held during an Olympic Year.
• Host cities intentionally switched between the North American and the European Continent.
• 2nd World Outgames were held in Copenhagen (Denmark) in 2009.
• The 3rd World Outgames will be held in Antwerp in 2013.

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."

See also

	LGBT portal
	Sports and games portal

• Gay Games / Federation of Gay Games
• EuroGames ( European Gay and Lesbian Multi-Sports Championships ) / European Gay and Lesbian Sport Federation
• EuroPride

References

Citations

1. ^ (Canada.com) Montreal Gazette Small company out $6,000 over Outgames Tuesday, November 14, 2006

External links

• Gay and Lesbian International Sports Association
• World Outgames