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The World Police and Fire Games

The World Police and Fire Games (WPFG) takes place every other year. It is an athletic event that is open to active and retired law enforcement and fire service personnel throughout the globe, comprising a wide range of individual and team sports.



The WPFG was established by the World Police and Fire Games Federation that is based in San Diego, California. The Games has over 10,000 participants, just a little more than the participants of the Summer Olympic Games. It also exceeded the third position holder which is The Commonwealth Games. 

The first California Police Olympics was held in 1967. The idea of the Games started to evolve and led to create the World Police and Fire Games Federation – it is a non-profit organization that is run by the Californian Police Athletics Federation.

In 1985, the first WPFG was held in San Jose, California with almost 5,000 participants. In 2011 in New York, over 16,000 athletes from 59 different countries attended.

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During the early 2010s, the United Kingdom hosted all three events consecutively—the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, the 2013 World Police and Fire Games in Belfast, Ireland and the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland.

Montréal was originally set to host the 2017 Montreal World Police and Fire Games, however the Montreal Firefighters Association called for a boycott of the event, which was supported by other groups around the world and subsequently the host city decided to withdraw. The event was held in LA.

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Major Events Extra

The largest sporting event in the world is the Olympic Games, but there are many other multi-sport games. In terms of single sport events, nothing beats the FIFA World Cup. To see what's coming up, check out the calendar of major sporting events.

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