Minnesota Senior Games in St. Cloud Metro Area in August

ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- The St. Cloud metro area is getting ready to host the Minnesota Senior Games.

Over 350 people from seven states will be coming to town to compete from August 3rd through the 6th.

Visit Greater St. Cloud Executive Director Rachel Thompson says there are over 20 different events in the games.

Anything from archery, badminton, basketball, bowling, cycling, the list goes on, so there are a lot of different levels that they can choose to participate in.  With their one registration, they got up to five different events that they could play in, so we actually have over 1,000 entries on the event level.

Thompson says they'll utilize facilities all around the area.

We have headquarters at Whitney Recreation Center here in St. Cloud, and then we use everything from Apollo's swimming pool, Sta-Fit in Sartell for tennis, we also have events out a Blackberry Ridge which is the golf events of course, and the Sauk Rapids-Rice Middle School is a big one for us we use their track and field.

Thompson says they rely on sports coordinators and volunteers to help pull off the games. Funding comes from competitor registrations.

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The Minnesota Senior Games rotate between Mankato and St. Cloud on a two-year cycle. Next year St. Cloud will host the games again, which will be a qualifier for the 2025 national games to be held in Des Moines, Iowa. Thompson expects that with the nationals so close they could see well over 700 competitors sign up next year.

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