2019 Military World Games

Following the conclusion of the 2015 Military World Games, China won the bid to host the Games for the first time in 2015.[12]

The event was held in 35 venues.[12] Football stadium Wuhan Sports Center hosted the football competition for both men and women held from 16 to 27 October.[13]

Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping attends the opening ceremony

Opening ceremony of the 2019 Military World Games

The opening ceremony was held on 18 October 2019 and the event was officially opened by the Chinese President and General Secretary of the Communist Party Xi Jinping.[14][15] An extravaganza titled "Torch of Peace" was performed during the opening ceremony highlighting the main motto of the event.[16]

Prior to the opening ceremony, a light show was set to be staged in the Yangtze River in Wuhan. It featured a screen made up of millions of small LED lights installed on bridges and buildings along the bank of the Yangtze River.[17] The torch relay for the event was held on 16 October 2019 with the participation of 100 torchbearers. Liao Hui, 2008 Olympic gold medalist in weightlifting began the torch rally while hammer thrower Zhang Wenxiu concluded the torch relay.[18] Flag raising ceremony was also held on 16 October 2019.[19]

The emblem and mascot along with the website were unveiled on 24 November 2017 by Ministry of National Defense of China.[7]

An online store and 21 franchised retail stores were newly opened in order to promote the sales of licensed items.[20]

The competition involved 28 sports.[21]

On 20 October 2019, China's Lu Pinpin broke the world record in the women's 500m obstacle swimming course classified under the military pentathlon with a record timing of 2 minutes and 10.9 seconds.[22][23]

Overall, 82 records were broken during the nine day multi-sport event.[24]

In orienteering China's teams originally captured a gold and a silver medal in women as well as a silver in men, but were all disqualified by the International Orienteering Federation after it was found out that they had been given access to secretly marked paths and received external assistance thus gaining major unfair advantage over other competitors.[25] A common protest was also held by the competitors from Russia, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Poland and Austria accusing the Chinese team for gaining major unfair advantage in the competition.[26]

After the COVID-19 pandemic, conspiracy theories about COVID-19 attributing the virus' creation to the CIA emerged.[27] Some articles on popular sites in Chinese have accused American athletes participating in the Wuhan Military World Games to have deployed the virus. They claim the inattentive attitude and disproportionately below average results of American athletes in the game indicate they might have been in for other purposes and they might actually be bio-warfare operatives, and that their place of residence during their stay in Wuhan was also close to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, where the first known cluster of cases occurred.[28][29] Returning French athletes reported that a large number of athletes from different delegations had fallen ill with unusual symptoms during the games which some attribute to COVID-19; none have been tested, as military authorities asserted that it would be impossible in any event to determine exactly when the infection had occurred.[30][31]

It was reported that 109 nations took part in the event including athletes from Russia. In September 2019, the International Association of Athletics Federation approved athletes from Russia with the Authorized National Athlete (ANA) status to take part at the event.[32] However the All Russia Athletics Federation remained silent on the participation of Russian athletes.

  *   Host nation (China)

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	China (CHN)*	133	64	42	239
2	Russia (RUS)	51	53	57	161
3	Brazil (BRA)	21	31	36	88
4	France (FRA)	13	20	24	57
5	Poland (POL)	11	15	34	60
6	Germany (GER)	10	15	20	45
7	North Korea (PRK)	9	8	15	32
8	Bahrain (BHR)	9	1	7	17
9	Uzbekistan (UZB)	8	7	5	20
10	Ukraine (UKR)	5	13	15	33
11	Italy (ITA)	4	12	12	28
12	Kazakhstan (KAZ)	4	3	5	12
13	Belarus (BLR)	4	2	8	14
14	Iran (IRI)	4	2	5	11
15	Switzerland (SUI)	4	1	8	13
16	South Korea (KOR)	3	10	11	24
17	Norway (NOR)	2	4	2	8
	Slovenia (SLO)	2	4	2	8
19	Egypt (EGY)	2	2	5	9
20	Kenya (KEN)	2	1	2	5
	Morocco (MAR)	2	1	2	5
22	Turkey (TUR)	2	0	3	5
23	Romania (ROU)	1	4	3	8
24	Mongolia (MGL)	1	3	5	9
25	Hungary (HUN)	1	3	1	5
26	Czech Republic (CZE)	1	2	5	8
27	India (IND)	1	1	2	4
28	Belgium (BEL)	1	1	1	3
29	Latvia (LAT)	1	1	0	2
30	Lithuania (LTU)	1	0	1	2
31	Bulgaria (BUL)	1	0	0	1
	Namibia (NAM)	1	0	0	1
	Tunisia (TUN)	1	0	0	1
34	Finland (FIN)	0	4	2	6
35	United States (USA)	0	3	5	8
36	Austria (AUT)	0	3	1	4
37	Algeria (ALG)	0	2	5	7
38	Azerbaijan (AZE)	0	2	4	6
39	Dominican Republic (DOM)	0	2	3	5
40	Slovakia (SVK)	0	2	1	3
41	Qatar (QAT)	0	2	0	2
42	Thailand (THA)	0	1	5	6
43	Canada (CAN)	0	1	2	3
	Sri Lanka (SRI)	0	1	2	3
	Sweden (SWE)	0	1	2	3
46	Oman (OMA)	0	1	1	2
	Syria (SYR)	0	1	1	2
	Vietnam (VIE)	0	1	1	2
49	Denmark (DEN)	0	1	0	1
	Ecuador (ECU)	0	1	0	1
	Estonia (EST)	0	1	0	1
	Saudi Arabia (KSA)	0	1	0	1
	Tanzania (TAN)	0	1	0	1
54	Serbia (SRB)	0	0	3	3
55	Venezuela (VEN)	0	0	2	2
56	Albania (ALB)	0	0	1	1
	Armenia (ARM)	0	0	1	1
	Barbados (BAR)	0	0	1	1
	Greece (GRE)	0	0	1	1
	Indonesia (INA)	0	0	1	1
	Ireland (IRL)	0	0	1	1
	Kuwait (KUW)	0	0	1	1
	Luxembourg (LUX)	0	0	1	1
	Pakistan (PAK)	0	0	1	1
	Rwanda (RWA)	0	0	1	1
	Spain (ESP)	0	0	1	1
Totals (66 nations)		316	316	389	1021

Source:[35][36]

Note: Para Athletics, Para Archery, Gymnastics, Tennis and 3 Senior Triathlon events not counted in medal table.[lower-alpha 1]

• https://web.archive.org/web/20191112134942/https://results.wuhan2019mwg.cn/file/RESULTS-7th%20CISM%20Military%20World%20Games-%E6%80%BB%E6%88%90%E7%BB%A9%E5%86%8C.pdf
• https://web.archive.org/web/20191028234735/https://results.wuhan2019mwg.cn/index.htm#/totalmedal
• https://web.archive.org/web/20191112134942/https://results.wuhan2019mwg.cn/file/RESULTS-7th%20CISM%20Military%20World%20Games-%E6%80%BB%E6%88%90%E7%BB%A9%E5%86%8C.pdf
• https://web.archive.org/web/20191112135029/https://results.wuhan2019mwg.cn/index.htm#/index
• https://web.archive.org/web/20191112135047/http://web.archive.org/screenshot/https://results.wuhan2019mwg.cn/index.htm
• Results book (Track & Field)
• Results book (Marathon)
• Swimming Results book
• Orienteering Results book
• Fencing Results book

• Results book
• Media related to 2019 Military World Games at Wikimedia Commons