A crucial event on the road to the Torino 2025 FISU World University Games Winter is approaching on 24 February at the Palavela in Torino, the home for figure skating during the Games. The Lights on U show will combine entertainment, a charitable component, as well as the official unveiling of the Games mascot, always an exciting announcement in the lead up to a FISU Games.
As part of planning for the show, the Torino 2025 Organizing Committee announced this week a collaboration with the UGI charity organisation as Charity Partner, with 1 Euro per ticket sold being donated to the UGI project.
The OdV UGI Association (Italian Parents’ Union against children’s cancer) is a voluntary organization, founded in 1980 at the Regina Margherita Children’s Hospital in Turin, on the initiative of a group of parents. The association assists families of children and adolescents suffering from cancer, providing free housing for families at Casa UGI during treatment, support for research, and treatment of pediatric tumours and psychosocial reintegration of patients out of treatment at UGIDUE.
President of UGI, Professor Enrico Pira, commented, “It is a source of great satisfaction and great pride that UGI has been chosen as charity partner of the prestigious ice show Lights On U, an event leading up to the next [FISU] World University Games in Torino 2025, [an event] born precisely in this territory. For this we thank the organizers.”
Thirty-six year old Carolina Kostner, Italian bronze medalist in women’s figure skating at the 2014 Sochi Olympics and winner of six World and 11 European medals, will lead a team of champions, acrobats, and stars from the world of skating who will delight the Torino audience. Under the artistic direction of Ghiaccio Spettacolo, the program that will introduce the Torino 2025 mascot also includes Italy’s 2023 World silver ice dancing medalists Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri, as well as American Ilia Malinin. Malinin, the former junior world champion who could compete in Torino in 2025, is the first person to successfully land a quadruple axel in competition, a feat he accomplished at a competition in Lake Placid, host of the 2023 FISU Games Winter.
President of the Organising Committee of the Torino 2025 Games, Alessandro Ciro Sciretti said, “Today we are pleased to announce UGI as our charity partner of Lights on U because, in addition to being a great occasion for celebration, it will be an evening that also offers the opportunity to do good to those who need it most: UGI is an excellence in this sense in our territory and we hope to bring a smile to many homes. Also, for this reason, we chose the splendid context of UGIDUE to launch a new star in the firmament of Lights on U, Ilia Malinin.“
With files from Torino 2025 Organizing Committee (editing by Doug McLean)
Top photo – Ilia Malinin (Credit Flavio Valle)
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