The FISU World University Games are staged every two years in a different city. This celebration of international university sports and culture draws many thousands of student-athletes together to compete, making it among the world's largest and most prestigious multi-sport events.
Embracing the FISU motto of Excellence in Mind and Body, the summer edition of the FISU World University Games incorporate educational and cultural aspects, encouraging student-athletes from around the world to combine high sports performance with their intellectual pursuits.
The twelve-day FISU World University Games competition programme includes fifteen compulsory sports. To stay at the forefront of sports development and innovation, organisers may also include up to three optional sports from the FISU Recognised Sports list and the FISU World University Championships programme into their event.
In 2003, the Daegu Summer Universiade saw a record 174 countries compete in the Republic of Korea. A decade later, the Kazan 2013 Summer Universiade drew a record 11,759 participants to this Russian city.
Sitting just south of Rome, the city of Napoli artfully combined the dynamism of university sport with the region’s rich culture and history. It was particularly fitting that an Italian city hosted the 30th edition of the Summer Universiade as the Universiade got its start six decades ago in Torino, Italy.
Check out what happened at the Napoli 2019 Summer Universiade!
The largest global multi-sports event for student-athletes
12 days of sports competitions
More than 10,000 student-athletes and officials from over 150 countries
15 compulsory sports and up to 3 optional sports
Broadcast to more than 100 countries, drawing over 300 million viewers
At FISU, the Summer Games Department assists and oversees all operational, administrative and logistical support that ensures the success of the largest university multi-sport event in the world.
The FISU Summer Games Department oversees all stages of the FISU World University Games, from candidatures to competition to legacy development. The department serves as the link between the different organising committees, National University Sports Federations (NUSFs) and international sports federations.
The FISU Summer Games team assists the FISU Executive Committee and various FISU committees as they play their very important roles in their respective areas in the management of the World University Games where the transfer of knowledge is paramount.
FISU staff and the FISU World University Games organisers work directly with specific FISU Committees to deliver a successful event.
In 2019, the list of compulsory sports was expanded as Archery became part of the programme. In 2021, Badminton also becomes a compulsory sport. The FISU World University Games hosts may request that optional sports be included in their edition of the event.
Depending on an organising committee's interests, they may choose up to three optional sports for inclusion into their Games. These sports must come from the list of the World University Championships (WUC) sports programme. For the more recent Universiades in Shenzhen (CHN), Kazan (RUS) and Gwangju (KOR), the total number of sports featured at the events reached 24, 27 and 21, respectively. To reduce the magnitude of hosting a FISU World University Games event for future candidate cities, FISU now holds optional sports to no more than three at each event edition.
We recently updated our statistics book to include the key facts and figures from the Napoli 2019 Summer Universiade alongside all 30 editions of the event.
Take a trip back through FISU's sports past with the FISU World University Games Statistics book | 1959-2019:
For more info regarding the hosting go to the hosting page.
For more information, please contact the FISU Summer Games Department at summergames@fisu.net.