The World Mind Sports Games (WMSG) was a

multi-sport event A multi-sport event is an organized sporting event, often held over multiple days, featuring competition in many different sports among organized teams of athletes from (mostly) nation-states. The first major, modern, multi-sport event of interna ...

created by the

International Mind Sports Association The International Mind Sports Association (IMSA) is an association of the world governing bodies for contract bridge, chess, draughts (checkers), go, xiangqi (Chinese chess), and mahjong. Its members are the World Bridge Federation (WBF), World ...

(IMSA) as a "stepping stone on the path of introducing a third kind of

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a vari ...

" after the Summer and the Winter Olympics". The inaugural 2008 World Mind Sports Games were held in Beijing from October 3 to 18, about two months after the Summer Olympics and one month after the Paralympics. Five mind sports participated in the first Games:

bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

draughts Checkers (American English), also known as draughts (; British English), is a group of strategy board games for two players which involve diagonal moves of uniform game pieces and mandatory captures by jumping over opponent pieces. Checkers ...

(checkers), go (weiqi), and

xiangqi ''Xiangqi'' (; ), also called Chinese chess or elephant chess, is a strategy board game for two players. It is the most popular board game in China. ''Xiangqi'' is in the same family of games as '' shogi'', '' janggi'', Western chess, '' c ...

(Chinese chess). Thirty-five gold medals were contested by 2,763 competitors from 143 countries, using the Olympic Village in Beijing. The sophomore 2012 World Mind Sports Games were held in

Lille Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the N ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

, from August 9 to August 23, 2012, with 30 events. It starting during the 2012 Summer Olympics held in London, England, and ended shortly before the

2012 Summer Paralympics The 2012 Summer Paralympics, branded as the London 2012 Paralympic Games, were an international multi-sport parasports event held from 29 August to 9 September 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. They were the 14th Summer Paralympic Gam ...

. At the closing ceremony of the 2012 games,

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...

was announced as hosts for the 2016 event, but that did not happen and no further games have been held.

Sports

At the first two WMSG events, medals were contested in five different mind sports:

(checkers), go (weiqi), and

(Chinese chess). The International Federation of Poker (IFP) is an observer member of IMSA, so poker has been mentioned as a possible future sport at the WMSG. Mathematical games are also planned to be present at 2012 WMSG, in the form of a contest between national teams. The

Mahjong International League The Mahjong International League ( Chinese: "国际麻将联盟") is the international governing body of mahjong. Its registered office is located in Lausanne, Switzerland. As of 2016, its president is Frank Ng from Hong Kong. History Establ ...

was accepted as the sixth member of IMSA in 2017.Mah Jong now a full member of IMSA
. IMSA. Retrieved 2017-06-05. * Provisional

Continuing competitions

More than half of the 2008 participants were bridge players, partly because the World Bridge Federation transferred some important quadrennial competitions to the WMSG, especially the Open and Women flights of its

World Team Olympiad The World Team Olympiad was a contract bridge meet organized by the World Bridge Federation every four years from 1960 to 2004. Its main events were world championships for national teams, always including one open and one restricted to women ("O ...

.The third flight, contesting the Senior International Cup, also moved as a non-medal event sharing the same venues. In 2004 there had been in the main continuing events 72 Open and 43 Women "Olympiad" entries (national with six players on most squads). Under the Minds Sports rubric in Beijing there were 71 and 54 entries, about 700 players. The one-time, similar tournament with a 28 years age limit attracted another 400 players.

Notes

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External links

* {{WPCBIndex Multi-sport events Mind sports competitions Contract bridge world competitions Chess competitions

Sports

Continuing competitions

See also

Notes

References

External links