Chungcheong Megacity (Republic of Korea) and North Carolina (USA) will compete for the organisation of the 2027 FISU World University Games Summer , FISU announced today.

The bidding process will remain open for the 2027 FISU World University Games Winter, as well as for both the winter and summer editions for 2029.

At the end of January, FISU sent letters to North Carolina and Chungcheong Megacity confirming their candidatures. Both will now formally move into the next phase of the bidding process.

With their candidatures confirmed, the next of those phases for both Chungcheong and North Carolina will be to prepare their bidding dossier and to host technical visits before 31 August 2022.

At the same time, the attribution contract’s terms and conditions will be finalised. Following those elements, evaluation visits by FISU will take place between 1 September and 24 September 2022.

Attribution of the 2027 FISU Games will then occur at the Executive Committee meeting in early October 2022 in Ekaterinburg.

Should the North Carolina bid be successful in October, it would only be the second time the United States, and only the third time North America, will have hosted the summer edition of the FISU World University Games after Buffalo in 1993, and Edmonton, Canada in 1983.

The proposed host is named the Triangle Region and is made up of the Raleigh-Durham-Cary-Chapel Hill areas of the state of North Carolina.

For Korea, the country is seeking to host the FISU World University Games Summer for the third time following Daegu in 2003 and Gwangju in 2015.

The combination of the cities and provinces of Daejeon, Sejong, Chungbuk, and Chungnam make up Chungcheong Megacity. At the geographic centre of Korea, this region is home to 5.8 million people.

Written by Doug McLean