World School Sport Games

Gymnasiade
First event	1974
Occur every	2 years
Last event	2024
Purpose	International multisport event for youth
Headquarters	Brussels, Belgium
Website	http://www.isfsports.org International School Sport Federation

The Gymnasiade, or World Gymnasiade, or World School Sport Games, or ISF World School Sport Games is an international multi-sport event which is organised by the International School Sport Federation (ISF). It is the largest event among many other sport events held by the ISF. Aligned with the philosophy of the organisation, only individuals between the ages of 13 and 18 are eligible to compete.^[1]

The current regulations estipulate that the program of Gymnasiade is composed of twelve mandatory individual sports with five optional sports (three optional sports, along with two additional, chosen by the organizing committee). The current obligatory sports are: archery, athletics, boxing, chess, fencing, gymnastics, judo, karate, swimming, taekwondo, tennis, and wrestling. At the edition held in 2018, the organizing committee chose as optional sports: petanque, road cycling, surfing, and golf.

The first edition of the Gymnasiade was held in 1974 in Wiesbaden, Germany and it featured solely gymnastics, athletics and swimming competitions. Since then, numerous editions of Gymnasiade had been held. In 2018, Morocco staged the event, receiving more than 3000 young athletes representing 58 countries. It was the biggest edition so far and the first ever International Multisport event for youth held in Africa. The 2022 edition took place in May 2022 and was hosted in Normandy, France.^[2]^[3]

Editions

ISF World School Summer Games

First held in 1974 the ISF World Gymnasiade is a multi-sport games organised by the International School Sport Federation for athletes in the under 18 age group. The 1974 athletics competition was not included as part of the main event held in Wiesbaden (FRG). The event was originally held every 2 years but after 1990 was only held every 4 years. From 1974 to 2009 only three compulsory sports made part of the event program: gymnastics, athletics, swimming.^[3]^[4]^[5]^[6]^[7]^[8]

Edition	Year	Host city	Host country	Dates	Sports	Nations
1	1974	Wiesbaden	West Germany	23–28 September	2	13
2	1976	Orléans	France	21–27 June	3	26
3	1978	İzmir	Turkey	18–24 July	3	17
4	1980	Turin	Italy	1–7 June	3	20
5	1982	Lille	France	1–6 June	3	24
6	1984	Florence	Italy	5–9 June	3	19
7	1986	Nice	France	2–7 June	3	22
8	1988	Barcelona	Spain	3–9 June	3	23
9	1990	Bruges	Belgium	20–27 May	3	30
10	1994	Nicosia	Cyprus	14–21 May	3	26
11	1998	Shanghai	China	12–19 October	3	33
12	2002	Caen	France	27 May–3 June	3	35
13	2006	Athens/Thessaloniki	Greece	26 June–3 July	3	36
14	2009	Doha	Qatar	7–12 December	3	39
15	2013	Brasília	Brazil	28 November–4 December	8	35
16	2016	Trabzon	Turkey	11–18 July	12	28
17	2018	Marrakech	Morocco	2–9 May	18	58
18	2022	Normandy	France	14–22 May 2022	20	69
19	2024	Manama	Bahrain	23 Oct - 31 Oct 2024	TBD

The 2020 Gymnasiade was scheduled to host in Jinjiang, China during 17–24 October, but after several postponements due to COVID-19 pandemic, ISF decided to cancel this event.^[9]

ISF World School Summer Games U15

Edition	Year	City	Country	Dates	Sports
1	2021	Belgrade	Serbia	11–19 September	14
2	2023	Rio de Janeiro	Brazil	19-27 August	18

ISF World School Winter Games (Winter High School Games)

Edition	Year	City	Country	Dates	Sports
1	2025	Lucerne	Switzerland	11-19 February

The 2023 Winter Gymnasiade was scheduled to host in Erzurum, Turkey during 11–18 February, but after the earthquake near the Syria–Turkey border regions, ISF decided to cancel the event.^[10]