Symbolic “Rainbow Run” will travel to New York, Vancouver, Sydney, Amsterdam and Chicago before heading to Germany for the 2010 Gay Games in Cologne
This Saturday, 27 February 2010, the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade will take on new significance for the world’s LGBT athletes. Local sports groups, led by Sydney’s Frontrunners gay & lesbian running club, will carry a special memorial rainbow flag during the parade as the 2nd leg of the International Rainbow Memorial Run (IRMR), the “Torch Run” for the quadrennial Gay Games.
Sydney was the host of Gay Games VI in 2002 and the Mardi Gras Parade is their annual “pride” parade. The parade steps off at 7:45 pm local time. Live TV coverage is available in Australia on Fox’s Arena Network. For more info, visit www.mardigras.org.au.
South African Olympian and Gay Games Ambassador Leigh-Ann Naidooat the International Memorial Rainbow Run in Chicago in 2006
(Photo by Kat Fitzgerald)
San Francisco
The Rainbow Run got underway last weekend in San Francisco, 21 February 2010, the birthplace of the Gay Games movement and host of Gay Games I and II in 1982 and 1986. A special ceremony at the National AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park was followed by a ceremonial run of the flag to San Francisco’s Kezar Stadium, home of the Gay Games I (1982) and Gay Games II (1986) Opening and Closing Ceremonies. Following that ceremony, the flag was shipped to Sydney, Australia, for the Mardi Gras Parade.
About the Rainbow Run
Every four years, the Rainbow Run helps the Federation of Gay Games (FGG) celebrate the lives of those who have graced the Gay Games movement and served or participated in the Games. “In many ways, this is our own ‘torch’ run,” said Brent Nicholson Earle, founder and organizer of the IRMR, “and we begin by renewing our connection with San Francisco, ‘our Athens,’ the city of our birth. We then travel to all past host cities to honor their role in the movement.” The event celebrates friends of the Gay Games lost to AIDS and other diseases, including US Olympian and Gay Games founder Dr. Tom Waddell.
World Tour
The Rainbow flag will travel to the former Host Cities of the Gay Games with symbolic or 5K runs held in each city. Having now been in San Francisco and Sydney, the flag will travel to Vancouver, Canada (Gay Games III, 1990), New York, USA (Gay Games IV, 1994), Amsterdam, The Netherlands (Gay Games V, 1998), and Chicago, USA (Gay Games VII, 2006) before traveling to Cologne, Germany, host of Gay Games VIII, this coming 31 July to 7 August 2010. Similar events are being held throughout Germany in cooperation with local AIDS service organizations.
Cologne 2010 Opening Ceremony
The International Rainbow Memorial Run will make its way to Cologne after a tour through Germany in late July. On the morning of Saturday, 31 July 2010, a special ceremony will be followed by the official International Memorial (5K) Rainbow Run. The flag and flag bearers will enter RheinEnergieStadion, Cologne’s famous soccer stadium, that evening during Gay Games VIII Opening Ceremony, leading the parade of athletes.
To learn more about the history of the Gay Games movement, or to learn about an upcoming stop by the International Rainbow Memorial Flag, visit www.gaygames.com. For information about the 2010 Gay Games, visit www.games-cologne.com (English) or www.games-cologne.de (German).
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