FISU returns to Napoli for the second Summer Universiade 2019 technical site inspection visit

NAPOLI — FISU returned to the capital of Italy’s Campania region for a week of meetings and venue visits with the upcoming Summer Universiade organisers, which will take place 3-14 July 2019.

The meetings opened Monday morning with remarks from Francesco Massidda, senior advisor to Luisa Latella, the Extraordinary Commissioner of the Napoli 2019 Organising Committee. Mr. Massidda then relinquished the floor to Roberto Outerino, the Napoli 2019 Sports and Operations Director, who carried out the rest of the meeting. Also joining in were Gianluca Basili, the Napoli 2019 General Director, and Annapaola Voto, the organising committee’s Institutional Relations Director.

27 international and Italian sport delegates valuated renovation projects and visited venues for volleyball, swimming (pool and open water), archery, judo, waterpolo, football, sailing, tennis, artistic and rhythmic gymnastics in Napoli 

“We are confident,” the Extraordinary Commissioner, Mrs. Latella said. “The Government commitment proves the importance of the event not only for Campania, but also for the whole nation. We are working intensively and in synergy with CUSI, CONI, ANAC, the Campania Region and Napoli municipality.”

A bird’s eye view of Napoli and its harbor area that will play a central part in the 30th Summer Universiade 

During the meetings and site visits, the Napoli team demonstrated the progress underway at the sports venues and on the event delivery front. The visit marked the second time that FISU’s Summer Universiade International Technical Committee (CTI-UE) has made an official venue inspection visit.

Leading FISU’s technical committee is the Frenchman Jean-Paul Clémençon, who chairs the CTI-UE. Joining Mr. Clemencon as part of the FISU delegation on-site are: CTI Vice-Chair, Mark Tennant of Canada; Summer Universiade Deputy Director, Jing Zhao; and Summer Universiade Sport Assistant, Brian Carrer.

Italy has a proud and prominent history in university student sports, including hosting the 5th International Student Games back in Torino in 1933 — not to mention the first Summer Universiade in the same city in 1959 

With Italy’s long sporting history and experience in hosting premiere sports events, the country boasts some of the most well-regarded sports competition officials. Perhaps its little surprise that the FISU CTI delegates remarked that those being called into duty for the Summer Universiade are of the top international calibre. Having such a storied history as a Universiade host doesn’t hurt, either: Napoli would mark the 11th time (6 Winter / 5 Summer) that an Italian city hosts the Universiade.

The April visit focused heavily on the ongoing preparations in the fields of venues, technology and workforce matters related to ten sports: Archery, Football, Artistic Gymnastics, Rhythmic Gymnastics, Swimming, Judo, Sailing, Tennis, Volleyball, Water Polo.

One of the previous ten Universiades that Italy hosted was the 1975 edition in Roma 

The FISU Technical Committee Chairs for Archery, Judo, Volleyball, Swimming, Water Polo and Tennis in particular expressed their satisfaction with the status their competitions venues during the visit. However, the international technical committee members from Football, Gymnastics, and Sailing expressed concerns about certain areas of their respective venue progress.

“We visited about 50 venues, a real treasure for Napoli and Campania, and this demonstrates the region’s great sports desire” Mr. Clémençon said. “Certainly, there are some venues renovations still to realize, such as in PalaVesuvio, but these are ordinary actions and we come away from this visit reassured about the timing.”

Inspection of the Open Water Swimming competition venue 

“To host the competitions of such an important and complex event such as the Universiade needs a great synchrocity between all  the functional areas,” the FISU CTI Chair added. “From this point of view, the arrival of Commissioner Latella has been important to achieve the great work done up to now. From the first visit in Naples, we have cooperated to start a long path together and we are sure that we will get it.”

The FISU technical team is set to return for the second-half of the second CTI visit  from 7-12 May to assess progress with the eight other sports that will be contested at the 30th edition of the Summer Universiade.