Remember the Games: FISU releases updated Winter WUG Statistics book

Following 29 editions of the Winter Universiade, with the 30th and final coming up next January in Lucerne, Switzerland before the title gets retired for the FISU Winter World University Games, FISU has updated its Winter World University Games Statistics book. 

While numbers, trends, and results only tell part of the story from over 60 years of student-athletes competing on the world stage in snow and ice events, this book still hints at the dedication, drive, and devotion these dual-career athletes have put into performing at their peak in the sports arena. 

When 220 athletes from 16 countries converged in Chamonix, France for the first Winter Universiade at FISU we’re sure the forefathers and mothers of university sport would be proud to know that the university sports movement is still going strong — as evidenced by the Lucerne 2021 Winter Universiade ushering in seven decades of international winter university sports competition.  

The numbers of competitors and competing nations have steadily climbed through the years, just as the competition schedule has changed from the original six disciplines — alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, ice hockey, ice skating, Nordic combined, and ski jumping — to now include biathlon, curling, figure skating, freestyle skiing, short track speed skating, and snowboard on its compulsory competition programme. 

The historic ski jumps of Lake Placid tower over the Adirondack Region – and look to set new history in 2023 when the FISU Winter World University Games return to North America after four decades away

And while Nordic combined and Ski Jumping are no longer requisite disciplines for future World University Games hosts, they remain part of the optional sports programme — and they will make their way back to Lake Placid when the Games make their return to America’s Adirondack Region. Keep your eye out for news about women competing in Nordic Combined for the first time, too, in the coming weeks.

As Luigi Gui, the Italian Minister of Education said to conclude the Sestriere 1966 Winter Universiade: “Results aside, from this great meeting, springs a warm friendship among the world’s university students, as a prelude to more fertile understandings of higher ideals.”

We couldn’t agree more.