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Malta hosts Small States games in 2023
Malta hosts Small States games in 2023
The Games of the Small States of Europe (GSSE), which is a super exciting biennial multi-sport event, will be heading back to Malta in 2023, twenty years after it was hosted on our island!
The launch of the Games took place, as one may imagine, in a hybrid format and welcomed a number of Maltese medalists from both the 1993 and 2003 editions. GSSE member states’ presidents and chefs de mission also joined the event virtually.
What are the Games about?
The GSSE was first launched upon initiative by the NOC in Malta in 1985. The Association then launched the first edition of the Games, which was organised by San Marino. Since then, the multi-sports event has been reserved for eight countries of our continent with less than a million inhabitants and has taken place regularly every two years, with growing success. The countries that take part in the Games are Monaco, Cyprus, Andorra, Malta, Luxembourg, Iceland, Liechtenstein, San Marino and Monte Carlo, all of whom have a population of less than one million people. Cyprus is the only exception however, but its population was below a million in 1984.
The Games feature a core of six individual sports and two team sports. Each organising committee may add a maximum of two other Olympic sports or one Olympic sport and one non-Olympic sport.
In 2023, Malta will be presenting a sports programme that includes athletics, basketball, judo, rugby 7s, sailing, shooting, squash, swimming, table tennis and tennis and the Games will take place between 28 May and 3 June, 2023.
Back in 1993, the fifth edition of the Games was also hosted in Malta and that year, Maltese athletes brought home no less than 32 medals. Malta’s second turn at hosting the event was in 2003, where athletes secured 44 medals.
“A local organising committee was chosen and besides sports experts, there are experts in various fields that will ensure that the Games will be a success. In the months to come we will engage with the public so that the Games will not only be for athletes and officials taking part, but for society at large,” said Mark Cutajar, GSSE organising committee chairperson.
The Maltese Olympic Committee also announced that it will be launching a Games Mascot and Logo Design competition, the latter of which calls for the design of a logo and mascot that will be used as part of the Games of the Small States of Europe branding.
Closing the event was the Minister for Education and Sport, Dr Clifton Grima, “we invested both in infrastructure to increase the number of high-level venues, but for the first time we also invested in human resources. €5 million was passed to SportMalta to facilitate the training of athletes, engaging professional coaches and their sport entourage.”
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