Sports Tourism in Columbus Brings Waves of Excitement

Sporting events and activities continue to thrive since Olympic softball put the city in the spotlight in the late 1990s.

By Cary Estes on January 23, 2024

Jeff Adkins

When it comes to sports tourism in Columbus, GA, the Spirit of ’96 is alive and thriving in the city.

Columbus didn’t ease into the world sports scene. Instead, the city jumped onto the biggest of all athletic stages, serving as the site for the Olympic fastpitch softball competition during the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta.

Sports Tourism in Columbus Continues to Thrive

Nearly 30 years later, Columbus continues to utilize its beautiful natural landscape and impressive sports facilities to attract a wide variety of sports events to the city, from amateur tournaments involving local club teams to international competitions for professional athletes.

“Hosting the softball tournament for the Olympics really put Columbus on the map for sports, and it showed us how well sports tourism could work in our city,” says Merri Sherman, executive director of the Columbus Sports Council. “The reason we landed Olympic softball was the city built the eight-field complex (near historic Golden Park) needed to host the games.

“After having a facility made specifically for the Olympics and then bringing that high level of competition to Columbus, we started hosting events even before we really thought about sports tourism. Ever since then, we’ve been bringing these events to our city that create a significant impact for our economy,” Sherman says.

Jeff Adkins

Multisports Magic 

Over the years the events have included state, regional and national tournaments for soccer, tennis, swimming/diving, golf, bowling, fishing, gymnastics, dance, cheerleading and, of course, softball. The city even transformed the eight fields at Golden Park into separate event stages for the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Lumberjack Competition Series.

More events are sure to be on the way following last year’s opening of the $27.6 million Odis Spencer Stadium sports complex. In addition to being a site for Muscogee County School District football games, the complex holds soccer and tennis matches, and likely will be a location for future Georgia High School Athletic Association regional and statewide events.

Jeff Adkins

River Run & Cycling Fun

Mother Nature has provided some pretty good facilities in the Columbus area as well. The most obvious is the Chattahoochee River, which flows through the heart of downtown. In 2013, a 2.5-mile stretch of the river became the longest urban whitewater trail in the world, complete with Class III and IV rapids.

The course now attracts more than 50,000 visitors each year and has been the site of the USA Freestyle Kayaking National Championship.

The International Canoe Federation brought its World Cup to the Chattahoochee in 2022, then returned in 2023 with nearly 400 participants for the ICF World Championships, held as part of the RushSouth Music Fest and Outdoor Games.

The beauty of Callaway Resort & Gardens in nearby Pine Mountain is the backdrop for a series of events organized each year by TriColumbusGA. These include triathlons, duathlons, marathons and a 5K, all taking place throughout Callaway’s 2,500 acres and along Robin Lake.

Mountain biking also is an attraction, particularly at the Standing Boy Trails, located on 1,500 acres of rolling hills 10 miles north of Columbus. Longtime cyclist David Moore is tapping into the sport’s popularity through Go Nuts Biking, which is sanctioned by USA Cycling.

“The cycling scene in Columbus is big, but we weren’t getting enough race promoters coming to the area,” Moore says. “So, we just started putting on our own events to bring people to Columbus.”

Currently, the highlight is the Urban MTB Bike Race, which takes the challenge of mountain biking and places it on the streets of downtown Columbus.

“We set up a course downtown and give it that single-track style like you have in the woods, but you’re surrounded by buildings instead,” Moore says. “You go down alleys, through buildings and over some wooden features that we build. It’s pretty amazing. People who don’t know anything about cycling are entertained. There aren’t many places where you can have both mountain biking and kayaking right in downtown, but we have that in Columbus.”