Lusofonia Games

Lusofonia Games
Lusofonia Games
Status	Active
Genre	Sports event
Frequency	Quadrennially (planned)
Location(s)	Varies
Inaugurated	2006
Organized by	ACOLOP

The Lusofonia Games (Portuguese: Jogos da Lusofonia) is a multinational multi-sport event organized by the ACOLOP, which involves athletes coming from Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) countries. Most countries competing are members of the CPLP (Community of Portuguese Language Countries), some with significant Portuguese communities or history with Portugal.^[1]

Participating countries are founding members Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Macau (Chinese SAR), Mozambique, Portugal and São Tomé and Príncipe, and associate members Equatorial Guinea, India (Goa) and Sri Lanka. In addition, Ghana, Flores (an island of Indonesia), Mauritius and Morocco have also expressed the desire to participate in future events.^[2]

This event is similar in concept to the Commonwealth Games (for members of the Commonwealth of Nations) and the Jeux de la Francophonie (for the Francophone community).

Editions

Year	Edition	Date	Host country	Host city	Champions	Athletes (nations)
2006	I	7–15 October	Macau	Macau	Brazil (57 medals)	733 (11)
2009	II	11–19 July	Portugal	Lisbon	Brazil (76 medals)	1300 (12)
2014	III	18–29 January	India	Goa^[3]	India (92 medals)	7000 (12)
2017	IV		Mozambique	Maputo	—	Cancelled
2021	V		Angola	Luanda	—	Null

The 2017 Games were awarded to Mozambique. However, as of November 2017, they had not taken place. A delegation from CPLP met with officials in São Tomé and Príncipe about holding the Games there in July 2018.^[4] There are currently no plans for any future edition.

Inaugural edition

Participating countries (purple) and host city (yellow square) of the 1st Lusofonia Games.

The 1st Lusofonia Games were hosted by Macau, from 7 to 15 October 2006, comprising 733 athletes from 11 countries (Equatorial Guinea did not field any athletes), some of which are international sports stars.

In competition were a total of 48 events distributed between 8 sports: athletics, basketball, beach volleyball, football, futsal, table tennis, taekwondo, volleyball. Portugal and Brazil were the top medal collectors of the Games, managing to grab 85% of the titles. These two countries acquired 71% of the total medals of the Games. All delegations won medals.

List of countries/territories

Countries that have participated

All-time medal table

Lusophony Games medal count^[5]
Total		206	203	227	636
Pos	Country				Total
1	Brazil	64	43	32	139
2	Portugal	55	72	48	175
3	India	38	29	35	102
4	Macau	16	15	33	64
5	Sri Lanka	10	13	18	41
6	Angola	9	12	25	46
7	Mozambique	8	7	10	25
8	Cape Verde	3	8	16	27
9	Guinea-Bissau	2	1	1	4
10	São Tomé and Príncipe	1	3	7	11
11	East Timor	0	0	2	2
12	Equatorial Guinea	0	0	0	0

Sports

Football match: India vs Mozambique, during the 2014 Lusophony Games at Tilak Maidan Stadium, Vasco da Gama, India.

So far there are not any regulations concerning the list of sports that should be included in the Games schedule. The sports chosen for the 1st edition were discussed and deliberated by the ACOLOP's members on general assembly, but without any principle of future 'core' and 'rotating' sports from a list of approved ones.

However, on 14 October 2006, the president of the organizing committee for the 2009 Lusophony Games, José Vicente de Moura, mentioned the possibility of the ACOLOP proposing four or five core sports to be included on every future edition, plus the prerogative for the host country to propose three of four more to a maximum of nine sports. In 2009 edition (Lisbon) 1500 athletes participated from 12 countries. In the football tournament five U-20 national teams competed.^[6] The sport marked with an asterisk (*) means that it was a demonstration event.