The Lusophony Games
The Lusophony Games (Jogos da Lusofonia in Portuguese) are a multi-sports multi-national sports event involving athletes from Portuguese speaking countries. This sports event is organized by ACOLOP, which stands for Associação dos Comités Olímpicos de Língua Oficial Portuguesa (in English: Association of the Portuguese Speaking Olympic Committees).
This sports event is similar to that of Commonwealth Games and Jeux De La Francophonie Games, grouping countries based on a particular history and language.
These Games are for countries or territories where Portuguese is an official language, such countries include: Brazil, Mozambique, Angola, Portugal, Guinea-Bissau, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Macau, Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe.
The first Lusophony games were held at Macau, Peoples Republic of China. This nine day long event (7-15 October 2006) involved 733 athletes from 11 countries. Many international sports stars also participated in that event.
In that competition, 48 different events were distributed between 8 sports: athletics, football, table tennis, beach volleyball, basketball, volleyball, taekwondo and futsal. Portugal and Brazil dominated the medal tally, winning 71% of the medals and 85% of the titles. B
There is not any specific list of sports that should be included in the list of schedule of games for this event. The sports that were chosen for the first event are deliberated and discussed by the members of ACOLOP, but included in the list without any major principal of "core" and "rotating". It has been proposed to have five core sports to every future event of Lusophony games.
The second Lusophony games, in Lisbon 11-19 July 2009, 1500+ athletes participated from 12 countries of the world.
The 2014 Lusophony Games was held in Goa, India. It was originally planned to be held in 2013, but was postponed due to delays in construction. Brazil, traditionally the biggest winning nation, chose not to send a delegation of athletes in protest due to the delay of the works, with only 7 Brazilian wushu players attending.
The next Lusophony Games was due to be held in Maputo, Mozambique in 2017. However the event did not happen.
In 2021 there were reports that the next event was due to be hosted in Luanda, Angola. Apparently Sri Lanka showed interest in organizing the Lusofonia Games for 2021, though ACOLOP was keen on having it in Brazil. In 2023, there still had not been an event held since 2014.
Previous Games
- 2006 Macau, Peoples Republic of China
- 2009 Lisbon, Portugal
- 2014 Goa, India
The next Lusophony Games
- ?
Related Pages
- About the Commonwealth Games
- About the Jeux De La Francophonie Games
- Other International Multi-Events
- Multi-Sport Events (Games) Calendar
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