With the Women's Floorball World Championships in Singapore now over, the qualification process for The World Games 2025 in Chengdu, China, is complete for this year. So far, six out of a total of 35 sports have made their first entries on the qualification list: these are Boules, Fistball, Floorball, Gymnastics (Trampoline), Karate and Korfball. Qualification has not yet been finalised in these sports either, however. Overall, most of the tickets for Chengdu will not be booked until next year.
However, the interim results are already impressive, and confirm once again that The World Games are real world games. Athletes and teams from 39 countries have already qualified. At this point in time, China is represented in three sports with five athletes.
The fact that Benin will make its debut at The World Games 2025, thanks to qualifying for the Pétanque Classic Doubles Mixed medal event, has already been reported. There have been no other newcomers since then, but there will be plenty of opportunities to welcome new nations to the Games in 2024.
The expectation is that the 5,000 participants will come from at least 100 countries. In Birmingham, USA at TWG 2022, the athletes came from a total of 99 nations. At the 2017 Games in Wroclaw, Poland, the participants came from 103 countries. The aim is to beat this figure in 2025.
Qualification of Athletes from Russia and Belarus
In the meantime, the Executive Committee of the International World Games Association has answered questions regarding the current regulations for qualification of athletes from Russia and Belarus for the 12th edition of The Games in 2025.
In a letter to the 35 international federations taking part in the event, it is stated: "The IWGA Executive Committee unanimously agreed that for team sports, the IWGA bans the participation of Russia and Belarus for TWG 2025 in accordance with the IOC's recommendation. For individual sports, the IWGA follows the current IOC recommendation when it comes to the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes for qualification and participation in TWG 2025." The Executive Committee passed the resolution covering this during its recent meeting in Chengdu.
In compliance with the IOC recommendation, athletes from Russia and Belarus can take part in qualifying competitions of individual sports on the programme of The World Games 2025. This is under the condition that the individual regulations of each federation allow this. The IWGA Executive Committee will decide on actual participation of Russian and Belarussian athletes in the Games in Chengdu, and under what regulations, at a later date.
The letter to the 35 International Federations concludes: "The IWGA maintains its autonomy to review and change its position at any time."
The current IOC statement can be found here: IOC statement
You can follow the qualification process here: https://www.theworldgames.org/editions/Chengdu-CHN-2025-14/qualifications/by-sport
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 World Games 2022 was held in Birmingham, Alabama, USA, 7-17 July 2022. 3,600 athletes from 34 sports and 100 countries took part in the Games. The 12th edition of The World Games will be held in Chengdu, CHN, 7-17 August 2025.
