The World Games in Taiwan

Team South Africa has arrived in Kaosiung, Taiwan for the 8th World Games.

South Africa has a team of about 70 athletes representing the country in 11 of the sporting codes taking place at the Games. Orienteering is one of these, being represented by Tania Wimberley and Nicholas Mulder with Ian Bratt as the team official. In total, the Games is hosting about 4800 competitors representing 105 nations in 31 different sports codes. All these sports are Olympic recognised, but currently are not part of the Olympic programme. The World Games are in effect the younger brother / sister of the Olympics.

Pic: Tania and Ian at Kaosiung Airport

The SA team arrived in Kaosiung Airport to a rapturous welcome from the Games organising committee. We were quickly bussed to the accreditation centre and then our hotel. As the Orienteering programme is early in the Games programme (we will be the first SA sports discipline to compete at this years Games), we immediately left the rest of Team SA for our own orienteering hotel.

Pic: Ian, Tania and Nicholas at the accreditation centre

The weather here is Kaosiung is very warm and extrely humid. You break into an immediate sweat every time you leave the air-conditioned buildings. To make matters worse, the Sprint and Middle distance races (taking place on Saturday and Sunday) that we will be competing in, will take place in the early afternoon! To add a bit of spice, we also presently have a tropical depression bearing down on the country out of the Pacific, with an expected arrival late on Saturday.

Yesterday was our first full day in Taiwan and we used it to acclimatise and recover from jet lag. We took in a few of the sights of the city, including one from the top of a 17-storey department store.

Pic: Nicholas in front of part of the city skyline

Pic: We also managed to pose with the 2 mascots of the World Games, Gao Mei and Syong Ge

Last night was the official opening of the World Games Plaza, which is the cultural and entertainment venue for the World Games. The opening, music arena and cultural and food stands were packed with thousands of Kaosiung residents who also took in one of the biggest and best fireworks displays I've ever seen.

Pic: World Games Plaza opening fireworks display from the True-Love Pier

We also had a good walk around the food stands, immersing ourselves in the sights and smells of eastern cuisine. Needless to say, we didn't taste as we don't want to risk any unusual foods before our races.

Pic: Ian in front of one of the many food stands selling unusal (by western standards) cuisine.

Today we will be going to the official model event for the orienteering, before attending the Opening Ceremony at the newly completed 40'000 seater stadium that were purpose built for these Games.

We expect a superb celebration. One of the remarkable things is the level of support that the whole population of the city has given the World Games. They are truly treating is as the biggest ecent in Taiwan in 2009 and many years. Wherever you go in the city, you have questions as to which country you are here to compete for. The level of support from SASCOC has also been superb, due also to strong support from the National Lottery. We had a welcoming dinner at the SA Team hotel together with the South African dimplomatic representation to the country last night. Jointly, SASCOC and the National Lottery have enabled South Africa to send a strong team to the World Games in the hope of doing well in all the sports we're entered into. The team includes other sports such as Rugby 7's, Lifesaving, Dance Sport, Water skiing and so on.

I'll be keeping regular blog updates on the World Games in the next few days. In the meantime, more information about the Orienteering at the World Games can be found here. The information includes venues, race distances as well as the start lists for the Sprint Distance race taking place on Saturday.