2010 Gay Games to be in Köln, but without rowing

At the 2005 annual meeting of the Federation of Gay Games, delegates voted to select Köln, Deutschland as the site for the 2010 Gay Games. Three cities submitted bids to host the 2010 Gay Games: Johannesburg, Köln, and Paris. Each bid consists of a set of 22 required sports and up to 8 optional sports, that are selected from an official list of authorized additional sports. Rowing is one of the authorized additional sports. Each of the bidding cities selected various additional sports but none included rowing. Both Johannesburg and Paris did not select a full compliment of additional sports, leaving the door open for adding extra sports later on. The Köln bid included the maximum of 30 sports. When queried why rowing was not included in their bid, when there is a World Class championship rowing facility in the city, Köln organizers responded that they did not believe they could obtain an adequate number of class A racing boats for rental and that there was not the infrastructure to organize a regatta.

Köln was the site of the 22nd annual FISA World Rowing Championships 6 - 13 Sep 1998.