They had originally been scheduled for 2021 in Andorra, but were postponed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

When the Games were re-arranged, Malta stepped in as hosts and Andorra are now scheduled to stage the GSSE in May 2025.

The idea of staging an event for small nations was first put forward at the 1981 International Olympic Committee (IOC) Congress in Baden Baden.

It was a gathering at which all the headlines were made by the choice of Seoul as host city for the 1988 Olympics and when Thomas Bach and Sebastian Coe made memorable contributions as representatives of the first athletes group allowed to speak at an IOC Congress.

Away from the limelight, representatives of Andorra, Cyprus, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco and San Marino discussed the establishment of an event for countries with populations not greater than one million.

Qualification standards at major championships had made it increasingly difficult for them to obtain the standard of competition which would allow them to improve their own performances.

Although Hanni Wenzel had won double skiing gold for Liechtenstein at the 1980 Winter Olympics, only Luxembourg of the founding nations could boast an Olympic champion in a Summer sport by the time of the first GSSE.

Even that had not happened since 1952, when Josy Barthel won the men's 1500 metres at the Games in Helsinki.

Senior IOC advisor Artur Takac saw the Games as "a positive initiative to establish within the Olympic Movement their own simple and modest Games."

Perhaps most importantly, the idea also caught the imagination of the new IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch.

In years to come, many athletes at the GSSE received grants from the Olympic Solidarity fund.

The Games were designed to create "a genuine and sporting contest,to back up the ties of peace and friendship and promote understanding, cooperation and mutual help and to encourage consultation and exchanges of information and experience."

They were also intended to "to promote the Olympic Movement and its ideals in each member country."

It was arranged that the first GSSE would be held in May 1985 and the first host nation was to be San Marino.

Takac was despatched from Lausanne to offer advice on preparation.

"During a preliminary visit, technical details and the organisation of these first Games were studied in depth with the members of the the National Olympic Committee (NOC) of San Marino," Takac wrote.

"Several days before the opening of the Games in May, practicable cooperation was established between the different departments of the Organising Committee."

Takac praised the work of San Marino NOC President Domenico Bruschi and technical officials and volunteers "who had succeeded in preparing these Games in an  extremely small amount of time."

Samaranch was joined by World Athletics supremo Primo Nebiolo and other leading Italian sports officials for the Opening Ceremony.

"They were a festival of friendship and joy in accordance with the International policy of our states," San Marino Foreign Minister Giordano Bruno Reffi declared.

The sport programme featured athletics, basketball, cycling, judo shooting, weightlifting and swimming and the final count of competitors was 284.

Cyprus proved the dominant nation in athletics at the first Games with 14 gold medals.

Filippos Filippou, a 3,000m steeplechase semi finallist at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, was a gold medallist at 10,000m. 

Iceland also won four titles in the athletics as part of an overall campaign which brought them 21 gold.

An estimated 5,000 spectators watched the eight sports, which organisers had made free to enter. 

Officials did, however, reveal that swimming had failed to attract sufficient entries.

"Unfortunately very few swimmers started in many of the events," World Swimming delegate Gunnar Werner admitted.

Events still took place when fewer than six entries had been received.

"Nobody complained over this decision and all the teams competed in a real championships spirit," Werner explained.

"In all, the Games were a great benefit for the sport in the small European countries which took part and gave these countries an opportunity to compete on an equal level."

Werner called for an expansion of the swimming competitions but also gave a warning.

"After the success of these first Games, I am sure that more competitors from more countries will take part in the next Games," he continued.

"It is, however, important to keep the Games for the small countries, not to destroy the idea behind the Games and not to increase the number of 'big' championships in Europe."

It had been decided that each of the eight nations should have the opportunity to organise the Games in turn, so the next two games were scheduled for Monaco in 1987 and Cyprus in 1989.

At the IOC Session held in Istanbul, held in May 1987, Prince Albert told his fellow members about plans for the upcoming Games.

Samaranch "wished him luck", and announced he would be attending the Opening Ceremony.

It was Albert's father Prince Rainier who opened the Games.

Most sports were held at venues within the impressive Stade Louis II complex in Monaco.

Iceland were once again the most successful nation overall with 27 gold medals, although Cyprus dominated athletics as they had done in the first Games.

Many feel the Games truly came of age in 1989 when Cyprus were the hosts for the first time.

The official song Voyage to the Horizon, was recorded by Mario Frangoulis, who had become an international singing star, performing in London's West End in one of the starring roles in the hit musical, Les Miserables.

"Cyprus in 1989 was an explosion," the Olympic Review reported.

A total of 675 athletes took part, an increase of almost three times from 1985.

A Flame was lit on the morning of the Opening Ceremony at the Temple of Apollo at Kourion, 70 kilometres away and carried in an Olympic style Torch Relay to the Makarios Stadium.

A crowd of 20,000 was present to hear Cypriot President George Vassiliou open the Games.

"A four-day festival of sport was to follow which showed the immense pleasure of competing on equal terms and of communication for these young athletes, whether on the sports field or as spectators," the Olympic Review  reported.

It was also the first time that every competing nation returned home with a gold medal.

Andorra hosted the Games in 1991, at altitude for the first time.

The head of the Organising Committee, Isidre Baro I Cabanes, had earlier been a founding member of the Andorran National Olympic Committee and its President since 1975.

At the time, the Spanish sports newspaper Mundo Deportivo dubbed him "the most famous man in Andorra,"

There was a familiar theme in athletics where Cyprus were again the dominant nation.

In the throws however, Iceland’s Pétur Guðmundsson, already champion in 1985 and 1987, cemented his dominance of the shot put with a third title after a best of 18.61 metres.

He added two more shot titles at Valetta 1993 and Reykjavík 1997, and also won gold in the discus.

Andorra won five silver and nine bronze medals, their best performance at the Games to that point.

Malta’s first time as host nation came 30 years ago when the competition attracted 690 athletes in eight sports.

As night fell on the eve of the Games, the flags of the competing nations were paraded at the Megalithic temples of Ggantija on Gozo as a Flame for the Games was kindled.

The Torch was taken around the islands of the archipelago before it arrived at the Ta’ Qali National Stadium carried by an equestrian rider.

A cauldron bearing the Maltese Cross and circles representing the competing nations was ignited as Games were opened by Maltese President Censu Tabone.

The medals during competition were evenly spread and this time only Andorra failed to win gold.

The Games returned to Malta 10 years later.

The 2003 Games attracted a record 820 competitors and Malta alone had 156 participants.

The official song Reaching Higher was performed by Malta’s 2002 Eurovision Song Contest representative Ira Losco.

Malta beat Cyprus to win gold in women's basketball, one of 11 won by the host nation at the Games.

"That gold medal in basketball ranks as one of our greatest achievements in these Games," Malta Chef de Mission Pippo Psaila told The Times of Malta, 

"Our players have exceeded expectations as at the start of the tournament our sights were set on a bronze medal." 

At Cyprus in 2009, Montenegro made their first appearance at the GSSE.

Exactly 10 years later they hosted them for the first time in Budva.

Although the GSSE are only open to nations with a recognised NOC, the Vatican sports organisation and the Faroe Islands were both invited as observers in 2019,

"It is a symbolic first step toward a full participation of Vatican athletes in international competitions where they will bring a momentous message of friendship, fraternity, and loyalty to revive the most authentic values of sport," Vatican sports Commissioner, Monsignor Melchor Sánchez de Toca said.

At the time when the Games were first held in 1985, medallists from the Small States at global level were few and far between but since then there have been some notable success stories.

High jumper Kyriakos Ioannou won high jump gold at the 2005 Games in Andorra and went on to victory at the Mediterranean Games in Almera the same year.

He competed in four Olympics in the course of his career but it was at the World Athletics Championships that he made his biggest impact on the global arena.

Ioannou set a national record with a height of 2.35mat the 2007 World Championships in Osaka where he won a bronze medal.

He added World Indoor bronze in 2009 and followed up with gold on home soil in the 2009 GSSE and another Mediterranean gold.

Later that year came Ioannou's finest achievement with silver in the World Championships in Berlin when he cleared 2.32m, the  same height as Russia’s Yaroslav Rybakov, but lost the gold medal on countback.

At the re-arranged 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, San Marino's first Olympic medals came from a duo who had also prospered at the GSSE. 

Alessandra Perilli took bronze in the women’s trap and then teamed up with Gian Marco Berti to win mixed trap silver.

Berti had won bronze at the two previous GSSE Games and Perilli won silver in the women’s trap in 2009.

In 2019 Cypriot judoka Georgios Balarjishvili won gold at the GSSE in Montengegro when he defeated  Yann Sicardi of Monaco, champion at the three previous Games, in the under-60 kilogram class.

Last August in Birmingham, Balarjishvili became the first Cypriot to win judo gold at the Commonwealth Games when he defeated Scotland’s Scotland’s Finlay Allan in the 66kg class.

Results such as these provided precisely the kind of progression the pioneering officials had dreamed of in those tentative conversations in Baden Baden over 40 years ago.