2014 Alliance Games

The 2014 Alliance Games, officially known as the VII Alliance Summer Games, are a major international multi-sport event for the Alliance of Independent Nations and due to be celebrated in a reformatted way to previous Alliance Games and governed by the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Sport (MCAS). The games are planned to be held in Illium City, Illium. Illium City was announced as the host city after the bidding process ended May 23, 2014. The city won the right to bid against it’s only competitor; Leinster, New Duveland.

Bidding
There were a total of 2 bids which were submitted for the 2014 Alliance Games. Illium City was ultimately elected as the host city after a private vote when the bidding process ended May 23, 2014.

Bidding itself started on April 19 with the deadline for bids on May 23, be posted on separate threads and contained of criteria that the bidding city must meet, including;


 * A city of at least 100,000 inhabitants
 * An adequate stadium
 * An airport and well developed mass transit
 * A logo and a slogan/motto
 * Adequate accommodation for athletes, spectators and journalists

Cities which expressed interest in bidding
After the announcement of the bidding process, only one nation stated an interest in bidding while announcing a possible host city which was Tasbury, New Duveland and the only other expression of interest was Escambia.

Illium City’s bid
The bid from Illium City was announced May 8 and later presented June 4. The bid contained all the information needed to answer the criteria including the city having a population of 1.4 million, plenty of stadiums in the AIN Games Complex and lots of transportation methods. Accommodation for athletes, journalists and spectators alike were commented to be inside of Hotel Row in the Arts/Suites district of the city, with enough rooms to house roughly 35,000 guests.

In terms of transportation, the city is serviced by Sariah International Airport which is connected to the complex though high-speed rail and passenger rail lines and a stated ‘’thorough bus and metro system’’.

The logo and motto was also shown alongside the bid, with the logo being represented by the common Illium motif of the phoenix as such on their flag, surrounded by beams of different colours. The motto is written in Latin, being ‘’Patria Optima Vincat’’ and translated roughly to English as “May the best country win”

Leinster’s bid
A bid from New Duveland originally came April 27 when Tasbury showed interest in bidding, but opened up later on June 5 to Tasbury, Leinster and Esperance. Leinster was the only city to bid of the 3 with a presentation coming the day after.

The bid also contained all the information the criteria needed stating that Leinster, being the second largest city in New Duveland, had a population of 2.5 million. They would utilise new stadiums and arenas as well as upgraded stadiums used from the 1970 Commonwealth Games, the largest of which has a capacity of 90,000 and have a specially built Games Village for athlete accommodation while Spectators and Journalists had hotels inside of Leinster they could use. Transportation included a large underground metro system, trams into the inner city, rail connections to the cities airports, buses and high-speed rail connecting all the major cities on the mainland.

The logo and motto were also announced in the bid, with the logo being in a crown shape consisting of 2 orange triangles made of 5 stars each and a central green diamond being made of 5 stars. The motto was ‘’All for the Games!’’

Vote
Vote taken on in private to 5 members of AIN with those members being anonymous to the rest of the members. In the vote, 4 voted for Illium City while 1 voted for Leinster.

Sports
In the previous Alliance Games which were called off, the sports for the event were split into 3, being core sports, optional sports picked out my the Alliance Games Federation and 18 sports for the host nation to pick 3 optional sports from. This changed for the 2014 Alliance Games as there were no longer any optional sports. This meant that massive cuts were made from the list, equalling up to 21 sports, and 10 sports were made into core sports for these games. Sports that were made core sports include the Triathlon, Pentathlon, BMX, Kayaking, Canoeing, Judo, Badminton, Softball, Baseball and Rugby 7s.

There were 4 new sports created, mostly in the Cycling area to make up for all other cycling events in a Velodrome being cut. These sports are all split from the Road Race event, being split into a Sprint, Race and Marathon events. This and the upgrading of BMXing meant that the entire core sports of Cycling are entirely new. The other new sport added to the games is Squash.

The sports removed included Archery, Equestrian, Football/Soccer, Golf, Mountain Biking, Rhythmic Gymnastics, Shooting, Table Tennis, Weightlifting and Wrestling to name a few of the 21 sports.

Sports of the VII Alliance Games

&bull;&#32; Track and Field

&bull;&#32; Swimming

&bull;&#32; Road Cycling

&bull;&#32; BMX

&bull;&#32; Diving

&bull;&#32; Sailing

&bull;&#32; Rowing

&bull;&#32; Gymnastics

&bull;&#32; Hockey

&bull;&#32; Judo

&bull;&#32; Fencing

&bull;&#32; Boxing

&bull;&#32; Tennis

&bull;&#32; Badminton

&bull;&#32; Squash

&bull;&#32; Softball (Ladies only)

&bull;&#32; Baseball (Mens only)

&bull;&#32; Handball

&bull;&#32; Basketball

&bull;&#32; Rugby 7s

Point Allocation System
To simplify the Point Allocation System (PAS) of the Alliance Games from previous games, the system was changed. Nations are no longer given a solid number to spread evenly between as many sports as possible, but are instead instructed to list down the amount of athletes (including entire teams as 1 entity) in each sport and then marking the sport between 0 and 10 showing the importance of the sport in the country applying the PAS. The PAS form for this Alliance Games opened 30 September and closed on 12 October, 7 days before the Opening Ceremony.