Photos by Marco Campanozzi

The program is simple and direct: "The competition will take place, rain or shine"... it did not rain but that didn't make the task of running either 4 or 10 km up and down over grass and dirt easier.

Michael Ross, a Canadian from Mission was the winner of the 10km men's event, despite de fact that he was in the 50/54 category. He took 38 minutes to do the course and ran with 35 other competitors from places as far as Brusnwick, Australia and Winterthur, Switzerland, the last one took 1 hour and 15 minutes... by coincidence also a fellow Canadian. On the 4km event, Ireland got the lead with Edwin Keville, but it was a narrow escape: after him 3 Canadians ended also in the 14 minutes mark.

There where 25 participants for the two races on the women side, half of them from Canada and they took from 50 minutes to 1 hour and 22 minutes for the 10km and between 18 and 27 minutes for the 4km race.

Photos by Marco Campanozzi

What more can you wish for than being grabbing and scrubbing all over the floor with a sweaty muscular guy (especially after they had a medical exam to avoid any skin contagious diseases)? Ok... as in many other situations, things are easier said than done and Wrestling is one of the more demanding sports. Drop your guard for 1 second and you are nailed down. Literally.

The competition had very few female participants, but did manage to join a group of men especially in the 66.01 - 74kg and the 74.01 - 84 categories. In the 3 events in these categories the focus went to Germany that got 2 gold medals and 1 silver and Switzerland with the remaining 1 gold. Other participants came from USA, Canada, United Kingdom, France and Netherlands.

Photos by Miguel Legault

This is one of the events that puts OutGames in a different level of other sports competitions. Where else could you see male, female and mixed couples competing in a dance event?

As in other sports in the games, Dance is open to everyone, from the absolute beginners to the experts in 4 levels. The experts had to do Waltz, Tango, Viennese Waltz, Slow Foxtrot and Quickstep in the "Standard Dances" competition, and Cha-Cha-Cha, Samba, Rumba, Paso Doble and Jive on the "Latin American Dances" competition, the "10 Dance Championship" includes all dance styles of the 2 5-dance events. Other levels had fewer dances required with only 3 for beginners and recreational level participants.

In the program, there are also events for Wheelchair dancers where a couple is composed of one wheelchair dancer and one standing dancer.

The grand finalle of the competition that gathers more than 200 participants will be the "Grand Ball" at the Centre Pierre-Chabornneau with 2 hours of dance show and the rest of the night with social dancing for all.