Opening of multi-national LGBT+ festival in Malmo

A global Pride event was held in the southern Sweden city of Malmö on Thursday.

It kicked off a 10-day multi-national LGBT+ festival that will include a 22-sports tournament to be held in nearby Copenhagen.

The event - Copenhagen 2021 - combines a World Pride "to celebrate and advocate for the LGBTI+ equality worldwide," according to the organizers, and EuroGames where some 2,000 athletes from more than 50 countries will compete.

Danes see the area encompassing the Danish capital and Sweden's third largest city that are separated by a narrow waterway but are connected by a 16-kilometre (10-mile)-long link, as Greater Copenhagen. It will be the first time that these two events are combined.

Lars Henriksen, organizer of the WorldPride, said it had been an "enormous challenge (to organize) this event in the midst of a pandemic that has affected so many people across the world." Christian Bigom, who was the organizing force behind EuroGames, added that the sporting event was "the opportunity to make sure that sport is more inclusive and more diverse in the future."

Some of the events have been curtailed because of the pandemic. There has been a limit of nearly 600 people who participated in Thursday's WorldPride 2021 parade while there can be up to 3,000 spectators on the stands of Malmö's Stadium that can accommodate 24,000 people.

Swedish organizers said that although this is "far fewer people" than usually takes part in such a parade, they are "extremely happy to be able to carry out this demonstration and this celebration in such a large physical format."

While the EuroGames, held on the Danish side of the Oresund Straight, will push ahead with no changes to the tournaments, there also will be some limitations on the number of spectators, organizers say.

Also, a planned parade in Copenhagen was replaced by a series of so-called activism-led walks and a central stage on the City Hall Square was moved to a larger and more spacious park where the six WorldPride marches will converge for the closing ceremony.

The two-in-one event that runs from Aug. 12 to Aug. 22, also will include a human rights conference where up to 1,000 activists and policy makers are poised to discuss equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer people. On top of that are some 700 events organized by cultural institutions in either Copenhagen or Malmö.

The 2022 edition of the EuroGames will be held in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, while EuroPride for that year will be held in Belgrade. The 2023 WorldPride will be held in Sydney, Australia.