The Warmia Mazury Senior Games will be held from 10 to 16 September 2012 in Warmia and Mazury.
The contests are organised by the Marshal’s Office of the Province of Warmia and Mazury and communal self-governments where events will be held.
Athletes from around the world will compete in 11 disciplines at sports facilities in:
– Olsztyn – swimming, sailing, football, bridge, golf (Naterki)
– Lidzbark Warminski – athletics, table tennis, badminton (Orneta)
– Ilawa – volleyball, beach volleyball, tennis
Accompanying events are also planned.
The Warmia Mazury Senior Games are a way of meeting the growing demand from the 50+ generation – people who live interesting, active lives who seek different forms of self-actualisation and being actively involved in the activities of local communities in sport, health and recreation.
The aim of the games is to integrate active people through sport and encouraging people to participate in various sport disciplines, regardless of their age. Physical activity affects physical and mental health and the general well-being.
Participants in the games may include those of previous competitors, Poles living in the USA and in Europe as well as Polish athletes taking part in the contest for the first time. We estimate that there will be about one thousand contestants who will arrive here with accompanying guests. This means that as many as five thousand visitors and onlookers may visit Warmia and Mazury.
How did it start?
The history of the Senior Games goes back to 1985, when a group of seven men and women in St. Louis, USA, established an organisation, originally called the National Senior Olympics Organization. At the end of the same year, a meeting was held, attended by groups which managed competitions for seniors in 33 states. The group devised a plan to organise the first National Senior Olympic Games in 1987 in St. Louis. The event was a success – there were 2.5 thousand participants and the opening ceremony, both live and on TV, was watched by a hundred thousand people.
The second Senior Games also took place in St. Louis, with 3.5 thousand participants. Media coverage was provided by the New York Times, ESPN and Good Morning America. In 1990, as a result of a controversy over whether the organisation could use the title “Olympic”, it was decided that the name would be changed to U.S. National Senior Sports Organization. However, it is currently called the National Senior Games Association, based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The association is a non-profit organisation, encouraging active adults to pursue a healthy lifestyle by participating in the games.
One of the events organised by the NSGA, the “Summer Games”, has become one of the most important, multi-disciplinary sporting events in the world. This is shown by the fact that such events are held in the USA every year and that the American tradition is being transferred to Europe.
The first such games in Europe were held in 2009 in the Netherlands, in the province of Zeeland. There were 17 sport disciplines and 7 recreational ones.
There were 1.9 thousand participants in the games (aged 45-100) from 32 countries. The European Senior Games manager is Ton Kienhuis, who organised the Senior Games in the Netherlands in 2009.