2007 CMAS World Games
2007 CMAS World Games| Host city | Bari, Apulia |
|---|
| Country |  Italy |
|---|
| Events | 5 sports |
|---|
| Opening | 31 July 2007 |
|---|
| Closing | 4 August 2007 |
|---|
|
The 2007 CMAS World Games was the first and only edition of the CMAS World Games, an Olympic style tournament for underwater sports organised by the Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (CMAS) and hosted in Bari, Italy.[1]
CMAS created the event in attempt to boost popularity of underwater sports by combining the world championships of the sports under its purview into one event. However the concept ultimately failed due to discontent from the individual sports bodies as a result of being forced out of their pre-established competition calendars, which affected some sports more than others, and ultimately resulted in the 2007 event being the only one ever organised and played.
Results
Finswimming
The finswimming tournament contained 41 different events. For full results see:[3]
Events covered men's and women's events across multiple distance races (50m, 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1.5km), relays (4×100m, 4×200m), across both surface and immersion finswimming, in addition full breath hold for short races, as well as bi-fin and mono-fin categories.
Freediving
No sources available
Underwater hockey
No sources available: Event may have not taken place as an alternative 15th World Championship was held a year later by a rival body - the World Aquachallenge Association.[8][9]
Underwater orienteering
No sources available
Underwater rugby
Reaction
Underwater hockey
The World Underwater Hockey Commission, a group under the CMAS Sports Committee, opposed the World Games on grounds that their advice was being "consistently ignored" and that they were "[attacking] the democratic elected commission".[12]
On 2 January 2007, the British Octopush Association (BOA) pledged full support to the commission opposing CMAS in the process, joining the opposition from the underwater hockey bodies from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States.[12]
On 19 January, following further meetings, while still overall opposed to games, the BOA release a statement saying they saw the games as "an exciting opportunity for underwater sport". They also announced while they wouldn't send an official team to the games, they wouldn't not oppose their athletes attending.[13] Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States did not send athletes to the games, while Canada and The Netherlands (like Great Britain) did not officially participate.[13]
An alternative world championships was held by the World Aquachallenge Association (WAA) in 2008 following the schism created,[8][9] thought this was the only WAA championship to occur with CMAS re-establishing their championship, albeit very reduced in comparison to before the schism, in 2009.[14] A 'full' world championships, resembling the 2006 tournament, did not occur until 2013.[15]
