Multiple locations
August 26 – September 5
Admission: free for most events
www.2011wpfg.org
The New York City Police Department and the Fire Department City of New York, as well as the Port Authority Police Department and the New York City Department of Corrections, have been battling it out for years in many ways, so this year they are going to do it in style at the fourteenth biannual World Police & Fire Games. Held in conjunction with the tenth anniversary of 9/11, some sixteen thousand athletes from more than seventy nations will descend on Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, New Jersey, Long Island, and Connecticut, participating in approximately seventy sports, from archery, bowling, golf, and ice hockey to softball, squash, surfing, and wrestling, from cycling, handball, volleyball, and racquetball to rowing, horseshoes, soccer, and badminton. Also on the schedule are baseball, the biathlon, pistol and rifle shooting, skeet, trap, rugby, darts, and dodgeball. Among the most unique and specialized contests include muster, ultimate firefighter, police service dogs, and toughest competitor alive. The events will take place at such venues as Lehman College, Fort Totten, Icahn Stadium, Eisenhower Park, Bethpage State Park, Van Cortlandt Park, Liberty State Park, and the Javits Center, which is serving as home base for the Games and also is hosting an expo through August 28. In addition, there will be a pipe band competition on Randalls Island on August 27. The Games, which were held in British Columbia in 2009 and will move on to Calgary in 2013, get under way with the opening ceremonies on Friday. While all events are free, tickets are needed for the opening and closing ceremonies and the candlelight vigil at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine at the end of the Games, a nonprofit gathering that seeks to “remember those lost and express gratitude for the support received from around the world.”