World Games are the highest level of competition for Special Olympics. There are World Winter Games held every 4 years and World Summer Games held every 4 years. Like the Olympics Games, they are on a schedule so that every two years there is a World Games. Athletes selected for World Games are done so by nomination. A nomination process generally starts approximately 12-15 months prior to the start of the Games.
Prior to 2003, all World Summer Games events had been held in the United States, with only two World Winter Games events having been held elsewhere (1997 in Toronto, Ontario and 1993 in Salzburg and Schladming, Austria). In 2003, the World Summer Games were held in Dublin, Ireland. Nagano, Japan, played host to the next World Games outside the US, hosting the 2005 World Winter Games at many of the same venues that had been used for the 1998 Winter Olympics. The 2007 World Summer Games became the first Summer Games to be held in Asia when they took place in Shanghai, China.
Now the World Games return home to the United States with the 2009 Special Olympics World Winter Games which will be held Feb. 6-13 in Boise, Idaho. Two Kentucky athletes and one coach will be among the more than 3,000 athletes and hundreds of coaches from 85 countries that are expected to gather for the Games.
After their brief return to the U.S., however, the World Games go back overseas for the next World Summer Games in 2011. Those Games will be held at the birthplace of the Olympic movement, Athens, Greece. Team selection for the 2011 World Summer Games will begin in 2009.
For more information about the Kentucky effort for the 2009 World Summer Games or about how you can support the Kentucky athletes going to the Games, please contact Special Olympics Kentucky Executive Vice President Trish Mazzoni at 800-633-7403 or via e-mail at tmazzoni@soky.org.
2005 World Winter Games Archive
2007 World Summer Games Archive
(Click Here for More Information on Games in Individual Years)
1968 -- International Special Olympics Summer Games; Soldier Field; Chicago, IL
1970 -- International Special Olympics Summer Games; Chicago, IL
1972 -- International Special Olympics Summer Games; University of California at Los Angeles; Los 
Angeles, CA
1975 -- International Special Olympics Summer Games; Central Michigan University; Mt. Pleasant, MI
1977 -- International Special Olympics Winter Games; Steamboat Springs, CO
1979 -- International Special Olympics Summer Games; SUNY-Brockport; Brockport, NY
1981 -- International Special Olympics Winter Games; Smuggler's Notch and Stowe, VT
1983 -- International Special Olympics Summer Games; Louisiana state University; Baton Rouge, LA
1985 -- International Special Olympics Winter Games; Park City, UT
1987 -- International Special Olympics Summer Games; University of Notre Dame and St. Mary's College; South Bend, IN
1989 -- International Special Olympics Winter Games; Reno, NV
1991 -- World Summer Games*; Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN (* - Name officially changed for 1991 Games)
1993 -- World Winter Games; Salzburg and Schladming, Austria
1995 -- World Summer Games; New Haven, CT
1997 -- World Winter Games; Toronto, Ontario, Canada
1999 -- World Summer Games; Raleigh-Durham, NC
2001 -- World Winter Games; Anchorage, AK
2003 -- World Summer Games; Dublin, Ireland
2005 -- World Winter Games; Nagano, Japan
2007 -- World Summer Games; Shanghai, China
2009 -- World WInter Games; Boise, Idaho
2011 -- World Summer Games; Athens, Greece
