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The inaugural 2008 World Mind Sports Games were held in Beijing from October 3 to 18, about two months after the Summer Olympics and one month after the Paralympics. Five mind sports participated in the first Games: bridge, chess, draughts (checkers), go (weiqi), and xiangqi (Chinese chess). Thirty-five gold medals were contested by 2,763 competitors from 143 countries, using the Olympic Village in Beijing.
The sophomore 2012 World Mind Sports Games were held in Lille, France, from August 9 to August 23, 2012, with 30 events. It started during the 2012 Summer Olympics held in London, England, and ended shortly before the 2012 Summer Paralympics. At the closing ceremony of the 2012 games, Rio de Janeiro was announced as hosts for the 2016 event, but that did not happen and no further games have been held.
More than half of the 2008 participants were bridge players, partly because the World Bridge Federation transferred some important quadrennial competitions to the WMSG, especially the Open and Women flights of its World Team Olympiad. In 2004 there had been in the main continuing events 72 Open and 43 Women "Olympiad" entries (national teams-of-four with six players on most squads). Under the Minds Sports rubric in Beijing there were 71 and 54 entries, about 700 players. The one-time, similar tournament with a 28 years age limit attracted another 400 players.
