Denver to host the 2026 Transplant Games

DENVER — Denver will host the 2026 Transplant Games of America with thousands of local transplant recipients, living donors, donor families and healthcare workers.

The Transplant Life Foundation recently announced that the event will be held June 18-23, 2026. The six-day festival will include 20 athletic and recreational events like track and field events, ballroom dancing, cornhole, ping pong, basketball and swimming to recognize the success of donations and transplantation.

Former sportscaster and TV personality Mark McIntosh is the chair of the 2026 Denver TGA Host Committee, that helped put together the bid to land the games for the first time in Denver.

“It’s kind of like an Olympic competition where people vie for gold, silver and bronze,” McIntosh said. “We celebrate the donors, the donor families, we celebrate the healthcare community, and then recipients like me, we get to say, ‘thank you,’ and then we all compete.”

McIntosh was diagnosed in 2023 with amyloidosis, a rare blood disease, and needed a liver transplant. Last year, he heard the good news that they found a donor, and in September, he received a new kidney. Since then, McIntosh has made it his mission to bring awareness to the importance of organ donation and hopes the Transplant Games will get the message out to more communities in Colorado.

“(We’re) really trying to create an effective but fun public awareness campaign to just warn everybody,” McIntosh said. “Especially our friends of color to please watch the weight, the diabetes and the high blood pressure because you’re setting yourself up for trouble down the road.”

The Transplant Games were founded in 1990 and have been held every two years in various cities across the country. Last year, the games were held in Birmingham, Alabama where there were 8,908 attendees representing 48 states and six countries. Forty-one state, regional and international teams competed in the 20 various sports and competitions in 10 venues across the city.

“It’s a celebration of life and it’s called the largest celebration of life in the world,” McIntosh said. “It’s like an achievement of a lifetime and to think of what we could possibly do here and truly saving a lot of lives.”

Bill Ryan is the President and CEO of the Transplant Life Foundation which promotes organ, eye and tissue donation and transplantation. The foundation produces the games as a way of attracting more people to sign up to become organ donors. He said there are more than 100,000 people in the United States waiting for an organ donation or living transplant, including more than 1,300 in Colorado.

“There’s a world of people out there that need transplants and there’s not enough organs available for them,” Ryan said. “This is an opportunity to consider living donation or getting on a donor registry to be a donor when you pass away.”

Brandy Loseke is a living donor and competed in the 2018 Transplant Games held in Salt Lake City. In 2015, she found out her cousin Terry needed a kidney transplant. After multiple tests, she found out she was a match, but the size of her kidney was smaller than they preferred. She was then entered into the exchange program to donate to someone she didn’t know which moved her cousin to the top of the waiting list. Both her cousin and recipient are fully recovered, and now she wants to give back to the state where she donated by planning to participate in the Denver games next summer.

“It’s going to be an amazing experience, and I can’t wait,” Loseke said. “Just that simple decision of saying, ‘Okay, sure, I can do this.’ Two people are alive, and it makes me very emotional because like what a simple decision we all can do that.”

The Transplant Games will take place in various venues across the Denver metro area and McIntosh is excited to see it happen.

“It’s such an honor to be the chair,” McIntosh said. “We’re coming together to celebrate life and celebrate those who make it possible.”