The U.S. Transplant Games have been held every two years since 1990 by the National Kidney Foundation to honour transplant patients and donors. The 2004 Transplant Games held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, were especially significant since they marked the 50^th anniversary of the first successful kidney transplant. The surgery was performed in Boston in 1954, in which a young man, Ronald Herrick, donated his healthy kidney to his ailing twin, Richard. Nobel Prize winning surgeon Joseph Murray, who transplanted the kidney from Ronald to Richard Herrick, attended the 2004 Transplant games, as did Ronald Herrick, now 72. Richard Herrick lived for eight years after the surgery.

The Transplant Games emphasise the fact that transplants give a new lease of life to organ failure patients. Dottie Lessard O’Connor, 37, who had a double lung transplant in 1994 and a kidney transplant in 2002, has been a long time competitor and has won gold and silver medals at the transplant games. “It’s great to increase the awareness about organ donation, so people can see that it really does work,’ O’Connor said. ‘We aren’t people who are just existing; we are really living.’ The 13 events in the Transplant games range from cycling and swimming to bowling and table tennis.

The Transplant Games also aim to educate the public about the critical need for organs. More than 91,000 people are waiting to receive a lifesaving organ; more than two-thirds need a kidney.