The most important sporting event dedicated to university students, is back on stage 

FISU World University Games: Two different ways of referring to the most important university sports event, which represents the meeting of sport and study. In Europe, they are known as the Universiade; the Americans call them the World University Games. They are held every two years and, like the Olympic Games, are divided into a summer version and a winter edition dedicated to ice and skiing sports. 

Four years after the last edition, Krasnoyarsk (Russia) 2019, the event organised by the FISU (International University Sports Federation, the world governing body of university sports founded in 1949), returns to the stage in Lake Placid, New York State. A highly anticipated edition after the cancellation of Lucerne 2021 due to the global pandemic, which can be summed up by the list of numbers below. 

Eleven days of competition, starting on 12 January and closing on 22 January, for a calendar of 86 events with medals up for grabs and 743 volunteers in the field to ensure the smooth running of the competitions. At the start, 1,443 student-athletes from 595 universities spread across 43 countries registered their respective competitors. More than 105,000 spectators are expected at the ten competition venues for an event broadcast to more than 100 countries for a potential audience of more than 300 million people. 

Sustainable sports competition

With 150 athletes aged between 17 and 25, the United States is the largest team, not least because they are playing at home for the second time in history, after the 1972 edition in which they also competed in Lake Placid (also the site of the 1932 Winter Olympics). In order to keep up with the times, new slopes were built, and older ones expanded, with the installation of state-of-the-art, energy-efficient snowmaking and grooming equipment. 

The brazier that christens the event’s start was designed and created by Adirondack Studios of Argyle to protect the environment. Made of steel and 3.5 metres high, it features depictions of the High Peaks on the upper edges and a series of pictograms referring to various winter sports and is powered by carbon-neutral LED lights. 

Returning to the teams, Japan is the second largest country in terms of the number of participants (139). At the same time, Canada has 121 athletes and is ahead of the Czech Republic and South Korea, at the start, with 94 and 85 young athletes, respectively. The Universiade in Lake Placid 2023 marks the absolute debut of Haiti, present with only one athlete, like Mexico, Luxembourg, Croatia and Turkey. The Ukrainian representative team is much larger, with 58 athletes, thanks also to the men’s hockey team, which played four friendly matches in Canada in the weeks leading up to the tournament to raise funds for Ukrainian and Canadian humanitarian organisations. 

In terms of gender, there are 832 male and 611 female athletes at the starting line-up. Twelve sports are on stage at the Lake Placid 2023 FISU World University Games: alpine skiing, freestyle and freeskiing, snowboarding, biathlon, cross-country skiing, curling, figure skating, ice hockey, short track speed skating, Nordic combined, ski jumping and speed skating. Ice hockey is the sport with the most participants at the start (488), ahead of alpine skiing (194) and cross-country skiing (161). In addition to Lake Placid, competition will also take place in the surrounding areas, namely Saranac Lake, Whiteface Mountain in Wilmington, North Creek, Canton, Potsdam and Gore Mountain.

Sport and Beyond

The opening ceremony is scheduled for 12 January at the Herb Brooks Arena, a multi-purpose facility in Lake Placid built for the 1980 Winter Olympics. In the preceding days, the first men’s and women’s ice hockey and snowboarding competitions began. Simultaneous with the sports competitions, the FISU World Conference will be held, dedicated this year to finding solutions to safeguard the winter and its animal and natural peculiarities, which are endangered by global warming because the Universiade is the most eagerly awaited sporting event for students, but also a time for reflection to try to improve their own and others’ futures.