Strong Finnish representation at the World University Games and the FISU General Assembly

The International University Sports Federation FISU held its General Assembly in mid-July in Düsseldorf, Germany. During the one-day event we heard reports on past and upcoming events and approved the memberships of member federations in Guinea-Bissau and American Samoa. The umbrella organisation also gave out awards for promoting equality in university sports.

The Finnish member of FISU’s Gender Equality Committee, OLL-alumnus Lari Koskinen announced the award winners. During the General Assembly and the World University Games he also surveyed student participation in the decision-making of national and continental university sports federations. The purpose of the project was to support federations in strengthening the students’ role.

“In many places, students mainly have an advisory role, so we want to get a better understanding of where students also have real decision-making power, and what we can learn from different models. It’s important to us that students are given places on boards specifically as voting members, so that the student participation isn’t just symbolic,” Koskinen says.

At the General Assembly I also met the new Finnish representative. Jukka-Pekka Vuori took on the role as FISU’s Marketing Director and member of the Management Team in July. Vuori, who left the job as Managing Director at the sports museum TAHTO to join FISU, brings his experience in marketing, sales, brands and sports business to the world of university sports.

“The goal is to strengthen FISU’s commercial position and growth by building a modern marketing strategy for the Federation and to strengthen the positioning of the brand in the global competition. The most important goal, however, is to promote the general growth of student sports throughout the world. That is a task no one can achieve alone, so we need intensive collaboration with the national federations,” says Vuori.

FISU has 43 employees from 19 countries. Vuori, who moved to Lausanne, Switzerland for this job, is currently the only Nordic employee. As well as getting to grips with the new job, he is also in the process of getting to know a new country and culture.

“It’s just a matter of working humbly every day, and things will progress,” he says with a smile.

Neutral athletes arrive in student sports

Before the General Assembly, the attention of many was drawn to the news that FISU held a meeting with the Russian Students Sport Union and that Russian and Belarusian athletes would return to student sports at the World University Games in Germany. The Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish federations sent a joint letter to the leadership of FISU, asking for clarification.

The response highlighted that Russian and Belarusian student-athletes would participate in the World University Games as neutral athletes under the FISU flag in line with the recommendation of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The contents of the response were also published online.

This decision did not come as a surprise, as FISU as event organiser follows the decisions of the international sports federations and the IOC. The sports federations are in charge of monitoring the neutrality of the athletes, which means that they should e.g. ascertain whether the athletes have any links to the Russian and Belarusian armies. Based on the conversations I had, many believe that all federations won’t carry out their monitoring duties, but that they will instead assess athletes’ neutrality based on the information provided by the athletes themselves.

OLL believes that the ban due to the war of aggression should not be removed. We have also demanded that Israel be banned from international competitions because of the events in Gaza, but so far, we have been fairly alone in making this demand among both Finnish and international organisations.

Medal record repeated at the World University Games

The Summer World University Games in Rhine-Ruhr began shortly after the General Assembly. Finland’s team of 50 won a total of 6 medals, which equals the best result ever achieved at a Summer Games, first seen in 2019. The neutral athletes won no medals.

The Finnish gold medals were won by University of Helsinki students Ilona Mononen in the 3000 metres steeplechase and Saara Keskitalo in the 100 metres hurdles. Aleksi Savolainen from the University of Tampere took silver in decathlon. Bronze medals were won by Topias Laine from Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences in the javelin throw, Emma Krapu from Aalto University in judo and Sara Killinen, who studies in the USA, in the hammer throw.

“As well as the medallists, many other athletes also managed to bring out their best in time for the World University Games. The excellent event arrangements and the team spirit of the Finnish team also helped bring along our success,” says OLL’s specialist Markku Rantahalvari, who worked as a team manager.

Congratulations from OLL to the whole team! See the placings of all Finnish athletes on the website of the Finnish Olympic Committee (in Finnish).

A Nordic candidate for the EUSA Executive Committee

Our international work continues in the autumn with both meetings and competitions. In October, we will be electing a new Executive Committee for the European University Sports Association EUSA in Zagreb, Croatia. Yngvild Larsen Schei from Norway is the joint Nordic candidate for the Executive Committee. We will also be interviewing the other candidates and finding out their views e.g. on the situations in Russia and Israel.

There were a few more European Universities Championships in some summer sports at the end of August, and we will be summarising these a little bit later. The European Universities Winter Championships will take place in Italy in December. Applications are currently open.