In Canoe Polo, Elena Gilles aims to equal her German teammate Tonie Lenz as being the most successful athlete of The World Games at this particular discipline. The water polo/paddling crossover was introduced to The World Games at the 2005 Duisburg edition. Tonie Lenz played in all four women’s finals, winning gold in three of them. The only edition that the German team had to settle for silver was in 2009 in the Chinese Taipei city of Kaohsiung, which was when Gilles made her debut. However, as Lenz is not playing in Birmingham, this opens the door for Elena to stake her claim as the joint best canoe polo player at The World Games.
Competition starts today in Wheelchair Rugby, and it's the first time that an adaptive sport features at The World Games. In the run up to Birmingham 2022, it was decided to make The World Games even more inclusive by adding adaptive sports to the programme and giving other athletes with disabilities - such as compound archers Ben Thompson and Mariana Zuniga - the chance to compete with their able-bodied peers. However, the wheelchair rugby marks the first competition in The World Games that athletes with disabilities are guaranteed to win medals. The squad lists illustrate the diversity of the sport; the Great Britain side includes Kylie Grimes, the first woman to win a Paralympics gold in the sport, whilst Germany will be giving playing time to two athletes in their fifties, Christian Riedel and Peter Schreiner.
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In sport climbing, the men’s world record for speed climbing is likely to be under serious threat tonight by two incredibly fast Indonesian athletes, who both have very strong claims to be regarded as the Usain Bolt of vertical racing. On an incredible day of racing in Salt Lake City last year, Kiromal Katibin broke the World Record in his qualifying race, only for his countryman Veddriq Leonardo to shave a further 0.05 of a second off the record in the final.
If you love Ninja Warrior, then the slalom discipline of water skiing is definitely for you. The sport sounds quite straightforward, transfer your body weight from side to side to ensure you safely pass around the buoys. However, there is a fiendish twist: after every pass the rope get shorter and shorter, thus meaning the skiers have to lean closer and closer towards the buoys. By the end of the competition the athletes will be nearly horizontal. This is one sport, where every competitor at some point is going to fail…and get wet.
The World Games is a multi-sport event staged every four years by the International World Games Association, organised with the support of the International Olympic Committee. The 11th edition of The World Games will be held in Birmingham, Alabama, USA, 7-17 July 2022. 3,600 athletes from 34 sports and over 100 countries will take part in The World Games.