E-Sports to feature at Gay Games 11 Hong Kong 2022
The Federation of Gay Games (FGG) together with the Gay Games 11 Hong Kong 2022’s management team announced today that for the first time in the history of the Gay Games, E-Sports will be offered at the event hosted in Hong Kong in November 2022.
The Gay Games is a sporting and cultural festival event organized by the LGBT+ community every 4 years, where everyone is welcome to participate regardless of sexual orientation, ability, age, and gender identity.
Founded in San Francisco in 1982, the Gay Games have become the world’s largest sporting and cultural event open to all led by LGBT+ sports participants, artists, and musicians. The event was most recently hosted in 2018 in Paris, France, and involved over 10,000 participants from 91 countries competing in 36 sport disciplines.
For the 2022 Games, E-Sports joins Dodgeball, also debuting for the first time, on a 36 strong list of sports that will be available.
While compiling the list we wanted to make sure that we struck a good balance between traditionally popular sports among Gay Games participants from around the world, and sports enjoyed in the region like Dragon Boat Racing and Dodgeball, as well as new disciplines like E-Sports. It was a bit of a challenge, but I think we have succeeded, and we are looking forward to the best Gay Games ever.
Sabrina Yang, Gay Games Hong Kong Sports Director
Sean Fitzgerald, co-president of the Federation of Gay Games (FGG), the sanctioning body of the Gay Games, is also very excited about the sports that will be included in Hong Kong in 2022:
For the first Gay Games held in Asia, we believe that the sports offered will attract returning Gay Games participants as well as new sports enthusiasts from the region. A perfect mix ensuring that Hong Kong becomes a trailblazer for increased progress in diversity and inclusion in the world’s most populous region.
I spoke exclusively to Sabrina Yang, Gay Games Hong Kong Sports Director, about the choice to include E-Sports:
In recent years Hong Kong has been investing heavily in E-Sports including opening a multi million dollar E-Sports complex earlier this year as the city seeks to become a regional hub for Esports and the wider industries. E-Sports is also hugely popular with the local population and as we wanted to include sports that authentically represented Hong Kong, it made sense for E-Sports to be on that list alongside Dragon Boat Racing, Rugby Sevens and Dodgeball. The Federation of Gay Games is also keen to ensure that we grow diversity and inclusion in the Games so E-Sports provides another way for people of all backgrounds to come together and compete in ways that other sports may not physically allow.
Sabrina Yang, Gay Games Hong Kong Sports Director
Gayming Magazine will be following this news with great interest and will be reporting back soon on any future developments as we build to the Gay Games Hong Kong 2022.
For more information about the Gay Games in Hong Kong visit www.GayGamesHK2022.com and follow @GayGamesHK2022 on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
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