Kaohsiung looks forward to hosting 2009 World Games (Taiwan Journal)

Next month, sports fans throughout the world will turn their attention to mainland China and the Games of the 23rd Olympiad. If everything goes according to plan, the Beijing Summer Olympics will likely be remembered as the proudest moment in mainland China's long history. In 2009, the world's second-largest international sports tournament will be held in Kaohsiung City. The eighth World Games is expected to give Taiwan's biggest port city a major boost, and help develop the nation's sports and tourism industries. Scheduled for July 16-26, next year's World Games will be by far the largest and most high-profile multi-sports event ever held on the island.

The World Games have been celebrated every four years since 1981, when the first event was hosted by the Californian city of Santa Clara. While not as well known as the Olympics or the FIFA World Cup, the World Games do have a longer history than some other major quadrennial sports events: The Rugby World Cup, for instance, was inaugurated in 1987; the East Asian Games were first held in 1993; and the World Baseball Classic began in 2006.

World Games host cities are selected by the International World Games Association, a federation of 32 global bodies, each of which supervises a particular sport...

The rest of this article is online. I was flattered by the fact the International World Games Association posted the article on their website.