The INAS Global Games is a

quadrennial An anniversary is the date on which an event took place or an institution was founded. Most countries celebrate national anniversaries, typically called national days. These could be the date of independence of the nation or the adoption o ...

global, international

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 intern ...

organised by the

International Sports Federation for Persons with Intellectual Disability Virtus Sport (formerly INAS or INAS Sport) (International Sports Federation for Persons with Intellectual Disability; originally called INAS-FMH, later INAS-FID, INAS and now as Virtus Sport) is a federation which was established in 1986 by pr ...

(INAS). First organised in 2004, it is intended for elite competition in

disability sports Parasports are sports played by people with a disability, including physical and intellectual disabilities. Some parasports are forms of adapted physical activities from existing non-disabled sports, while others have been specifically created fo ...

for athletes with

intellectual disability Intellectual disability (ID), also known as general learning disability (in the United Kingdom), and formerly mental retardation (in the United States), Rosa's Law, Pub. L. 111-256124 Stat. 2643(2010).Archive is a generalized neurodevelopmental ...

and, since 2017,

autism Autism, also known as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by differences or difficulties in social communication and interaction, a preference for predictability and routine, sensory processing d ...

and Down syndrome. It is the largest sporting event of its type. Athletes must have received classification from INAS to compete.

History

A precursor event was the World Games for Athletes with an Intellectual Disability held in 1989.Butler, Nick (2015-09-29)
Inas considering legal action after "collapse" of Global Games Organising Committee
Inside the Games. Retrieved 2019-09-21. The competition was discontinued following the integration of athletes with intellectual disabilities into the

Paralympics The Paralympic Games or Paralympics is a periodic series of international multisport events involving athletes with a range of disabilities. There are Winter and Summer Paralympic Games, which since the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Kore ...

programme in 1996, though renewed exclusion following disability fabrication at the

2000 Summer Paralympics The 2000 Summer Paralympic Games or the XI Summer Paralympics were held in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, between 18 and 29 October. The Sydney Paralympics was the last time that the Summer Paralympics were organized by two different Organ ...

led to the relaunch as the INAS Global Games. The first three INAS Global Games were hosted in Europe. The fourth edition in 2015 expanded to South America, though INAS were forced to take over organisational duties due to the collapse of the local organising committee. Australia won the hosting rights for the 2019 event, having led the medal rankings of the previous three. Initially the competition was seen as a specialist event by other

sports governing bodies A sports governing body is a sports organisation that has a regulatory or sanctioning function. Sports governing bodies come in various forms and have a variety of regulatory functions, including disciplinary action for rule infractions and dec ...

, but the INAS

athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competitio ...

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, such as saltwater or freshwater environments, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Swimmers achieve locomotion by coordinating limb and body movements to achieve hydrody ...

and

table tennis Table tennis (also known as ping-pong) is a racket sport derived from tennis but distinguished by its playing surface being atop a stationary table, rather than the Tennis court, court on which players stand. Either individually or in teams of ...

competitions are now recognised and sanctioned by the main global bodies for those disability sports.INAS Global Games recognised by ITTF
Paralympic (2019-01-10). Retrieved 2019-09-21. The games is separate from the INAS World Championships, which are a series of sport-specific championships.

Editions

Number of athletes at the 2019 Global Games (highest to lowest)

All-time medal table (2004 to 2023)

Regional events

Virtus Americas Regional Games

Virtus Oceania Asia Games

Virtus European Games

Sports

References

{{Multi-sport events Disabled multi-sport events Recurring sporting events established in 2004