Lucerne is preparing a bid for the 2021 Winter Universiade

 GRANADA – The application of the Swiss city of Lucerne for the organization of the 2021 Winter Universiade is taking shape. At the currently ongoing 27th Winter Universiade in Granada, Spain, a delegation from the city of Lucerne met with FISU President Claude-Louis Gallien and the Secretary-General/CEO Eric Saintrond.

From left to right, Urs Hunkeler, Eskil Läubli, Claude-Louis Gallien, Beat Hensler, Eric Saintrond and Werner Grossniklaus

The delegation consisted of 5 people, i.e. Cornel Hollenstein, Vice-Director of the Swiss Olympic Committee (Swiss Olympic); Urs Hunkeler, head of the observer delegation for “Lucerne Events”; Werner Grossniklaus; Beat Hensler and finally Eskil Laubli, all three observers for the city of Lucerne.

Welcoming the delegation, President Gallien explained them the benefits for a region of organising the Winter Universiade. Eric Saintrond addressed the aspects more related to logistics and financial aspects of the organization itself.
The Lucerne delegation that arrived here three days ago also is involved in the observer programme which allows our future Organising Committees to live the Universiade from within.

We already knew that the cantonal government of Lucerne supported the idea of organizing the 2021 Winter Universiade in Central Switzerland based on the bid document for the 2020 Youth Olympic Winter Games, which have not been retained by the Swiss Olympic Committee.
Members of the future organizing committee were willing to do the work necessary to prepare a bid for the Winter Universiade. Currently, they approach different cities of the region to see which would be most interested in hosting the different competitions.

The Swiss University Sports Federation (SHSV) is behind the project: “Central Switzerland presented an excellent bid for the Youth Olympic Winter Games in 2020. It is an ideal base for the organization of the Winter Universiade in 2021”, says the director of the SHSV Leonz Eder. Most sports facilities necessary for the Winter Universiade already exist in Central Switzerland. The host city and therefore the ‘brand’ of the event, would be Lucerne; the various competitions would be located in the ski resorts of Central Switzerland.

Text and photos: Yvan Dufour, Editor-in-Chief