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24th Winter Universiade

Harbin, China - February 18th to 28th, 2009

The 24th Winter Universiade was attributed to Harbin, China at the Executive Committee Meeting in Innsbruck, Austria, on January 10th, 2005. Other bidding candidate for the 2009 Winter Universiade was Erzurum, Turkey.

25th Winter Universiade

From 18 to 28 February 2009, the 24th edition of our Winter Universiade took place in China, in the city of Harbin. After the 21st Summer Universiade organized in Beijing in 2001, as well as the Olympic Games, in Beijing again in 2008, China has proved all its organizing know-how. This time, it was in the context of a winter sports manifestation and this was quite a challenge. After all, although China has good experience in holding competitions of sports on ice, this was not the case, far from it, for snow sports. And the challenge was met beautifully as the cities of Harbin, Yabuli and Maoershan got together to offer us magnificent games.

Dimitri Cuche from Switzerland, gold medallist in the men's slalomWith 2,831 contestants from 44 countries, the Universiade drew full participation, and the organizers deserve our thanks. FISU President, George E. Killian, in his address at the opening ceremony, stressed the fact that it was an honour that China chose the Universiade as its first international winter event. With these games, China is now one of the rare countries to have organized every kind of FISU event: Summer and Winter Universiades, World University Championships and finally a Conference.

The opening ceremony was grandiose and certainly one of the handsomest that has been organized for winter games. The 2009 Universiade was able to count on participation of the entire Chinese Province of Heilongjiang. Three sites were our athletes’ base: Harbin, which hosted all the ice sports, Maoershan where snowboarding and biathlon took place and finally Yabuli, which grouped the other snow sports: Alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, ski jumping and freestyle skiing. Two optional sports were on the program: long track speed skating and freestyle skiing. Synchronized skating was in its first edition as a mandatory sport.

Finally, ice hockey was open to the ladies – for the first time a women’s tournament was organized. Eight Universiade records were broken in long track speed skating! This is just one example among others of the exceptional level of our student athletes.

A host of stars participated this year, among them we can mention: Zhou Yang (CHN), triple medal winner at the Universiade and overall bronze medal at the short track speed skating world championships; Jiayu Liu (CHN) women’s half pipe world champion and second in the world ranks; Kazuhiro Kokubo (JPN), vice world champion for half pipe in 2007; Zhang Hoa and Zhang Dan (CHN), silver medal winners at the Olympic Games and three times world University champions; Li Nina (CHN) the world’s first in free-style skiing and Artem Gusev (RUS), European champion of the biathlon, and men’s 10 km sprint – and this list is far from exhaustive.

Men's RelayIn short track, the Koreans and Chinese shared the medals, leaving little room for other countries. Twice, the podiums were exclusively Korean (men’s 1,500 m and 3,000 m) or exclusively Chinese (women’s 500 m and 1500 m). The level was very high.

As it was in long track speed skating as well, for that matter, where there too the lion’s share of medals went to the Koreans and the Chinese. In this discipline, however, other countries, like the Netherlands, Poland and to a lesser extent Russia and Japan, were also at the front.

The presence of many junior and Olympic champions made the men’s and women’s curling tournament very exciting. The Swedish took the day for the men ahead of Norway and China, whereas for the ladies China won the tournament followed by Canada and Russia. The interest shown for the sport by all observers again confirms the popularity of this discipline in our programme.

Alexandra Siblings and Roman Zaretski were the discoveries in the figure skating competition. It is quite rare for a country that is participating for the first time, Israel in this case, to win a medal straightaway. But that is what happened to Alexandra and Roman who shone in dancing on ice. For the third time in a row after Innsbruck in 2005 and Torino in 2007, Dan Zhan and Hao Zhang headed the pair events. For the individual events, performances of Chinese Ming Xu for the men and Japanese Yuakari Nakano for the women were outstanding. Finally synchronized skating went to Sweden, a great specialist in the field.

With 10 teams for men and six for the ladies, the ice hockey tournament was as usual very open. The first final in the history of women’s ice hockey kept every promise as Canada faced China. But the Chinese could do nothing to stop the Canadian steamroller that took this groundbreaking event on a score of 7 to 0. The men’s final was more traditional as Canada again met with Russia – a remake of the 2007 final. But this time, the Russians made the day on a score of 4 to 2 after an exciting match.

Dan Zhang & Hao Zhang (CHN) gold medallists Pairs WU 2005, 2007 & 2009Nothing could resist the Swiss team in Alpine skiing. With seven gold medals out of 11 events, the Swiss largely dominated the competition. This was a first for China, and everything went very smoothly at Yabuli. The technical staff had been trained well in advance thanks to collaboration set up with the International Skiing Federation (FIS).

The same collaboration did wonders for the ski jump and the Nordic combined. The ski jumps built for the occasion proved to be excellent, even when the wind occasionally taxed the organizers’ nerves. The ladies’ K90 looked like a final for the Asian games, since only China and Japan had enrolled ski jumpers. Japanese Misaki Shigeno took the day. For the men, Korean Hyun-Ki outdid Polish Marcin Bachleda and Austrian Bastian Kaltenboeck. In K 125, David Unterberger (AUT) was skiing on wind to take the gold medal in the event. For the Nordic combined, five countries shared nine metals – Japan was the strongest, with two gold medals and two silver, followed by Germany, Austria, Russia and the Czech Republic.

And what can we say about the cross-country skiing except that, once again, the organizers outdid themselves to provide excellent racing conditions for our skiers. The very strong and large Russian team, prepared especially for the occasion, monopolized the medals, leaving the other countries far, far behind...

The same scenario held for the biathlon, as the Russians reigned supreme over the events organized beautifully for the very first time on the Maoershan site. Artem Gusev had the largest appetite, winning no fewer than four medals on his own: two gold, one silver and one bronze. Maoershan hosted the snowboard event as well where the world number two half piper, Chinese Jiayu Liu participated. Logically, she came in ahead of two of her compatriots for a 100% Chinese podium. For the men, the half pipe and big air went to Japanese snowboarder Kazuhiro Kokubo. Finally, European contestants took the snowboardcross and the slalom events.

To close, the freestyle skiing events that were on the program for the first time in a Universiade went to China, a specialist in the discipline, or in any case in the acrobatic event. Antoine Galland took the other event, ski cross, for France, for the men, and Katrin Ofner, for Austria, for the women.

All of the events enjoyed exceptional television coverage. So it was already time to say goodbye at the splendid closing ceremony. The FISU flag was symbolically handed over to the Turkish delegation from Erzurum, the town that will be the next host of the 25th Winter Universiade in 2011.