Four renowned keynote speakers offered inspiring views in the opening part of the Torino 2025 FISU World Conference. The sport medicine round table also looked into possible developments in the coming years.
Over 300 people – students, tutors, specialists and members of the OC and FISU families – took part to the on 14 January at the Lingotto Congress Centre.
The academic highlight of these Torino 2025 FISU World University Games focused on the present, but keeping an excited eye on the future, exposing how sport must share a closer dialogue with the environment, with nutrition, with society through inclusion and with innovation through a clever use of AI.
The day kicked off with probably the most inspiring presentation of the day, courtesy of first keynote speaker, Yannis Pitsiladis who is, amongst many other things, a member of the IOC Medical and Scientific Commission, a member of the Executive Committee and Chair of the Scientific Commission of the International Sports Medicine Federation (FIMS). His presentation started off by exploring how wearables and telemedicine could help save athlete’s lives in challenging weather conditions.
His definition of AI is much larger as what the general public thinks, and could be simplified as technology.
“By monitoring the athlete’s conditions in real time, we know exactly what is happening inside his or her body, explained Yannis Pitsiladis (right). In some cases, this data is also streamed live to the fans, which can make the sport more interesting to watch at the same time as protecting the athletes’ health.”
Professor Daniel Svensson carried on talking about climate change, this time focusing on the influence sport has on the environment.
“Mega sports events can really impact the environment negatively, through pollution due to transport, waste or even deforestation, which all indirectly end up impacting the athletes’ health admitted Daniel Svensson. But sport also has a huge potential to change things, by managing it’s own impact and to act as a platform to raise awareness and influence change thanks to the strong emotional link that binds sport and its public.”
Just like para-sport is now also part of the FISU World University Games, para-sport was also an important topic of this FISU World Conference. Anna Bjerkefors, an Associate Professor at the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences, has co-led the Swedish Parasport Academy, a synergy project dedicated to creating an innovative environment for physical activity and sports Since 2022.
Through video testimonies, she addressed the specific training needs of a para-athlete, underlining how little this subject is covered in the media.
“The Paralympic sports include para-alpine skiing, para-biathlon, para-curling, para-cross-country-skiing, para-ice hockey and para-snowboarding, listed Anna Bjerkefors. I hope we will see all of those disciplines in the next FISU World University Winter Games!”
Not without humour, it was just before lunchtime that Maria Caboni spoke to the audience about “Good fats, bad fats, just fats. Challenges and innovation related to the production of food for sport”. She insisted on the oxydation of foods, that lost all their good power to even create inflammation in the body.
“For too long fat was seen as the absolute enemy and protein as the solution to everything, smiled Maria Carboni. But this is way too simplistic as we all need good quality fats… Olive oil had an awful reputation only a few years ago, but of course things have greatly changed. We must always use our common sense when choosing what to eat: it is not the kind of biscuits you eat but the amount of them you swallow!”
The sports medicine round table included many talks about knee ligaments and their crucial role for athletes in many sports, the importance of communication between all the medical people surrounding any given athlete and some interesting thoughts came from Mike Carmont, the official team physician of the United Kingdom delegation.
“We always tend to concentrate on injuries, but in this type of events, it is as important for me to try to prevent athletes from hurting themselves that it is to insist that the players of our hockey team wash their hands regularly and watch what they eat, as sickness often does more harm to a delegation than broken limbs!”
The day finished with specific sessions from the participating universities, Politecnico di Torino, Università di Torino, Università del Piemonte Orientale and Università di Scienze Gastronomiche di Pollenzo.
The take place from 13-23 January. Watch all the competitions live on . Click on the link to find the full schedule.
Written by Thérèse Courvoisier, photos courtesy of the Organising Committee
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