The 2019 Military World Games (), officially known as the 7th CISM Military World Games, () and commonly known as Wuhan 2019, was held from October 18–27, 2019, in Wuhan, Hubei, China.
The 7th Military World Games was the first international military multisport event to be held in China. The event was also the nation's largest military sports event ever with 9,308 athletes from 110 countries competing in 329 events and 27 sporting disciplines. The multisport event included 25 official and two demonstrative sports. Six sport disciplines such as badminton, tennis, table tennis, women's boxing, and men's gymnastics made their debuts in the event.
The Military World Games was also the second biggest international sport event to be held in 2019. The Games were organized by the Military Sports Commission of China, Ministry of National Defense, and the military commands (Army in accordance with CISM regulations and the rules of the International Sports Federations). For the first time in the history of the Military World Games, an Olympic village was set up for the athletes prior to the commencement of the Games. The village was officially opened for the athletes following the flag-raising ceremony.
Host nation China sent a delegation consisting of 553 participants for the games, which marked the record number of participants to represent a nation at a single Military World Games. Around 230,000 volunteers were recruited for the event.
Bidding Following the conclusion of the 2015 Military World Games, China won the bid to host the Games for the first time.
Venues The event was held in 35 venues. The Wuhan Sports Center hosted a soccer competition for both men and women held from October 16–27.
Houhu block Wuhan Five Rings Sports Center VenueSportCapacityStadiumAthletics (Track and field)30,000GymnasiumTable tennis7,559NatatoriumLifesaving1,090
Others VenueSportCapacityAeronautical Pentathlon Flying Contest VenueAeronautical Pentathlon (Flying Contest)n/aMulan Lake Campus of PLA Naval University of EngineeringNaval Pentathlon (Lifesaving, Utility Swimming, Obstacle Race, Seamanship Race and Amphibious Cross-Country Race)1,300Air Force Early Warning Academy VenuesAeronautical Pentathlon (Air Pistol Shooting, Swimming, Fencing, Basketball and Obstacle Race)1,000Wuhan National Fitness Center Soccer8,400Hankou Culture and Sports CenterSoccer8,756Wuhan GymnasiumTaekwondo2,430
Zhuankou block Wuhan Sports Center VenueSportCapacityStadiumOpening and closing ceremonies58,000GymnasiumWomen's Volleyball12,000NatatoriumSwimming, Diving3,500
Others VenueSportCapacityJianghan University GymnasiumMen's Volleyball2,300Hannan Municipal AirportParachutingn/aTianwaitian Golf CourseMen's golfn/aWuhan Business University NatatoriumModern Pentathlon (Swimming)514 Wuhan Business University GymnasiumModern Pentathlon (fencing)2,185Wuhan Business University Equestrian VenueEquestrian, Modern pentathlon (Riding and Laser-Run)2,120Hanyang District Beach Volleyball CenterWomen's Beach Volleyball1,160Caidian National Defense ParkArchery2,110Shooting (25/ 50 m Pistol/ Rifle, Trap/ Skeet)3,600Main Media CenterBroadcast, Pressn/a
Guanggu block VenueSportCapacityWuhan Sports University GymnasiumBoxing3,800Hongshan GymnasiumMen's Basketball8,000Optics Valley International Tennis CenterTennis (demonstration)13,722East Lake Greenway Marathon and Road Cycling VenuesAthletics (marathon) and Cycling (road)n/aWuhan Vocational College of Software and Engineering GymnasiumWrestling1,353Huazhong University of Science and Technology Optics Valley GymnasiumWomen's Basketball6,316Yishan Golf CourseWomen's Golfn/aWuhan University of Technology GymnasiumJudo5,212Ordnance NCO Academy, Army Engineering University of PLA VenuesCross-Country and Military Pentathlon (Obstacle swimming)2,280East Lake Sailing and Open Water Swimming VenuesSailing and Open Water Swimmingn/aEast Lake Hi-Tech Development ZoneShooting (300 m Rifle), Military Pentathlon (Shooting, Throwing, Obstacle Run)n/aHubei Olympic Center GymnasiumMen's Gymnastics (demonstration)5,294Wuhan University Student Sports CenterBadminton8,031Qingshan District Beach Volleyball CenterMen's Beach Volleyball1,116
Huangjiahu block VenueSportCapacityJiangxia District Liangzihu Lake Triathlon VenueTriathlonn/aJiangxia District Orienteering Venues:BafenshanDahuashanQinglongshanTianzishanOrienteering, Aeronautical Pentathlon (Orienteering)n/aWuhan City Polytechnic GymnasiumFencing2,433 Athletes VillageAthletes Villagen/a
Opening ceremony
The opening ceremony was held in Wuhan on 18 October 2019. The event was officially opened by the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), President of China Xi Jinping. An extravaganza titled "Torch of Peace" was performed during the opening ceremony highlighting the main motto of the event.
Prior to the opening ceremony, a light show was set to be staged in the Yangtze River in Wuhan. It featured a screen made up of millions of small LED lights installed on bridges and buildings along the bank of the Yangtze River. The torch relay for the event was held on 16 October 2019 with the participation of 100 torchbearers. Liao Hui, 2008 Olympic gold medalist in weightlifting, began the torch rally while hammer thrower Zhang Wenxiu concluded the torch relay. Flag raising ceremony was also held on 16 October 2019.
Mascot The emblem and mascot along with the website were unveiled on 24 November 2017 by Ministry of National Defense of China. The mascot, named Bingbing, was designed based on the Chinese sturgeon.
Marketing An online store and 21 franchised retail stores were newly opened in order to promote the sales of licensed items.
Sports The competition involved 28 sports.
Pentathlon (5) (6) (5) (6) Army Sports (8) (18) (2) Aquatics (12) (5) (42) (18) Main Sports (Athletics and Para Athletics) (45)+(29) (Road Cycling) (6) (25) Martial Arts (15) (12) (16) (16) (18) Team Sports (2) (2) (Indoor and Beach Volleyball) (4) Other Sports (Archery and Para Archery) (5)+(3) (6) (2) (4) (6) (Triathlon and Senior triathlon) (5)+(3)
Demonstration sports (5) Gymnastics (8)
Records On 20 October 2019, China's Lu Pinpin broke the world record in the women's 500 m obstacle swimming course classified under the military pentathlon with a record timing of 2 minutes and 10.9 seconds.
Overall, 82 records were broken during the nine day multisport event.
Controversies
Cheating China's orienteering teams originally captured a gold and a silver medal in women as well as a silver in men. They were all disqualified by the International Orienteering Federation after it was found out that they had been cheating through access to secretly marked paths, and received external assistance thus gaining major unfair advantage over other competitors. A common protest was also held by the competitors from Russia, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Poland, and Austria accusing the Chinese team for gaining a major unfair advantage in the competition.
COVID-19 claims Some world games participants developed symptoms of respiratory infections, which created rumors that the 2019 Military World Games spread COVID-19. However, this does not align with the timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic. The world games occurred in October 2019, and the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 in China did not occur until December 2019. The first confirmed cases outside of China did not occur until January 2020, although there is some unconfirmed evidence that COVID-19 was circulating in Europe before the games.
Participating nations It was reported that 109 nations took part in the event, including athletes from Russia. In September 2019, the International Association of Athletics Federation approved athletes from Russia with the Authorized National Athlete (ANA) status to take part at the event. However, the All Russia Athletics Federation remained silent on the participation of its athletes. The State of Palestine participated in the event, but Israel did not. Of the Commonwealth countries Canada took part along with Malaysia, Pakistan, India, Malta, Cyprus and various Commonwealth African nations but not Great Britain and Northern Ireland, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
List of participating nations As many as 9,308 athletes from 110 countries participated in the games: List of Participating NationsBelow is a list of the 110 participating nations (the number of competitors per delegation is indicated in brackets)
(5) (56) (2) (2) (15) (37) (20) (69) (2) (95) (51) (11) (15) (329) (21) (3) (55) (104) (4) (11) (32) (553) (31) (19) (11) (8) (27) (26) (61) (3) (31) (57) (83) (3) (27) (27) (53) (273) (9) (3) (167) (43) (13) (4) (4) (56) (54) (27) (90) (32) (139) (5) (62) (14) (35) (32) (7) (56) (18) (75) (3) (2) (2) (24) (44) (3) (89) (156) (4) (40) (3) (12) (28) (63) (19) (9) (15) (193) (9) (99) (77) (243) (41) (41) (3) (41) (14) (32) (172) (111) (73) (72) (67) (15) (22) (55) (3) (4) (22) (20) (5) (87) (29) (172) (36) (17) (84) (32) (13) (28)
Calendar
Medal table
Source:Results - 7th CISM Military World Games Wuhan 2019 Official Website. Archived from the original at the Wayback Machine on 2019-11-03. Retrieved on 2020-03-25.
Note: Para Athletics, Para Archery, Gymnastics, Tennis and three Senior Triathlon events not counted in medal table.
Results https://web.archive.org/web/20191112134942/https://results.wuhan2019mwg.cn/file/RESULTS-7th%20CISM%20Military%20World%20Games-%E6%80%BB%E6%88%90%E7%BB%A9%E5%86%8C.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20191028234735/https://results.wuhan2019mwg.cn/index.htm#/totalmedal https://web.archive.org/web/20191112134942/https://results.wuhan2019mwg.cn/file/RESULTS-7th%20CISM%20Military%20World%20Games-%E6%80%BB%E6%88%90%E7%BB%A9%E5%86%8C.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20191112135029/https://results.wuhan2019mwg.cn/index.htm#/index https://web.archive.org/web/20191112135047/http://web.archive.org/screenshot/https://results.wuhan2019mwg.cn/index.htm Results book (Track & Field) Results book (Marathon) Swimming Results book Orienteering Results book Fencing Results book
References
External links
Results book Opening ceremony of 2019 Military World Games in Wuhan, China