History
In 1980, Un Yong Kim, President of the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF), invited leaders of 11 other international sports federations to a meeting in South Korea.
The other organizations represented badminton, baseball, bodybuilding, casting, karate, powerlifting, roller sports, softball, taekwondo, tug of war, and waterskiing, none of which was on the Olympic program at the time.
Kim proposed creating a new international games festival for non-Olympic sports. Such a festival, he reasoned, would give those sports some valuable publicity to help attract more athletes and fans.
As a result, the World Games Council, later renamed the International World Games Association (IWGA), was founded.
The first World Games were hosted by Santa Clara, California, in 1981. Subsequent games have been held in London (1985); Karlsruhe, Germany (1989); The Hague, Netherlands (1993); Lahti, Finland (1997); Akita, Japan (2001); and Duisburg, Germany (2005). The 2009 World Games will be staged in Kaohsiung, Taipei.
The World Games were not created to rival the Olympics, but as a complement. The IWGA is recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and operates by most of the same principles as the IOC.
However, athletes who compete in the World Games are selected by the international sports federations, not by their countries. Most of those selected have already won national or world championships in their events.
When a sport is added to the Olympics, it is dropped from the World Games. Four of the original World Games sports later became Olympic sports: Badminton, baseball, softball, and taekwondo. Baseball and softball have now been dropped from the Olympics, but it remains to be seen whether they will be restored to the World Games.