Overview The Iowa Games are the state's Olympic-style sports festival for weekend athletes, school kids and seniors, with more than 60 sports in summer and more than 20 in winter, open to Iowans of any age or ability and to athletes from states that have no state games of their own. The 2026 Summer Iowa Games were the 40th, and moved several marquee events to Drake University and other Des Moines venues. The Winter Iowa Games center on a weekend in Dubuque in late January or early February. The nonprofit Iowa Sports Foundation, based in Ames and a member of the National Congress of State Games, runs them, along with the Iowa Senior Games for athletes 50 and over, Adaptive Sports Iowa for athletes with physical disabilities, corporate games in four regions and the Live Healthy Iowa wellness challenges. The foundation says it is the only National Congress of State Games member that runs all five of those programs, and that its events reached 63 Iowa communities and participants from all 99 counties. On site The 2026 Winter Iowa Games put about 1,200 athletes into venues across Dubuque on January 31 and February 1: swimming at the Hempstead High School natatorium, alpine ski racing at Sundown Mountain, indoor soccer at Five Flags, martial arts at the Peosta Community Centre, pickleball at the University of Dubuque and volleyball in two gyms. An indoor track and field meet ran separately at the end of February. The summer program spreads over several weekends, with archery, track and field, soccer, pickleball, swimming and wrestling among its sports, and keeps an Opening Ceremony and an Athlete Jamboree. Audience The athletes are the crowd, and they span every age. Pete Kennedy, 90, who swam for Niagara University and later ran a swim school in Iowa City, entered eight events at his first Winter Iowa Games in 2026. The Senior Games award medals in five-year age brackets from 50 up. Athletes travel to the host city for the weekend, Kennedy from Iowa City to Dubuque among them, and the Winter Games site carries its own hotel and lodging page. Track record The first Iowa Games, in August 1987, ran 16 sports for 7,104 participants. Participation across the foundation's programs by decade: 43,598 (1987-89), 167,438 (1990s), 747,113 (2000s), 2,266,089 (2010s), and 476,639 from 2020 to 2024. The foundation added Live Healthy Iowa in 2002 and Adaptive Sports Iowa in 2011, which brought adaptive divisions into the Games and put an adaptive team on RAGBRAI. The athletes of the year named in February 2025 were Luke Daoust of Shenandoah and Makenzie Klatt of Boone. Brand presence A sponsor can take a single sport, with its banner at that sport's venues and a booth at the Summer Games athlete tailgate; the Opening Ceremony and athlete tailgate, with a speaking slot at the ceremony and its logo on the big screen; or the Games as a whole as presenting sponsor, with its logo set beside the Iowa Games mark. Foundation-wide gold, silver and bronze partners appear on the video board at the Opening Ceremony, tailgate and athlete check-in, in the Iowa Games TV spots and on athlete materials, with first right of renewal at the top levels, and the package reaches into the Senior Games and Adaptive Sports Iowa, whose RAGBRAI team jersey carries gold partners' logos.