SLUSA gearing up for XXXI Summer World University Games
View(s):The Sri Lanka Universities Sports Association (SLUSA) is gearing up for the XXXI Summer World University Games to be held next year in China.
Artistic gymnastics will be one of the 22 sports at the 2021 Summer Universiade
The 2021 edition of the Games is scheduled to be held from August 18 to 29 in Chengdu, China.With several modern sports venues such as the Dong’ an Lake Sports Park and Fenghuangshan Sports Park, Chengdu has successfully hosted over 100 international sports events before earning the right to host the 31st FISU World University Games.
Previous events that have come to the heart of Sichuan Province include the 18th World Police and Fire Games, the ITTF Men’s World Cup and Women’s World Cup, and the Chengdu Marathon addition to the World Marathon Majors series.
The World University Games is staged every two years by the International University Sports Federation (FISU). A celebration of international university sports and culture, it draws many thousands of student-athletes together to compete, making it among the world’s largest and most prestigious multi-sport events.
The twelve-day FISU World University Games competition programme includes 15 compulsory sports. Sri Lanka has participated on every occasion in the history of the World University Games.
Over 150 countries are expected to participate in the 2021 Summer World University Games which comprises 22 sports disciplines.
They are athletics, archery, badminton, basketball, diving, swimming, artistic gymnastics, rythmic gymnastics, fencing, volleyball, tennis, shooting sport, taekwondo, table tennis, judo, rowing, water polo and wushu.
This time Sri Lanka hopes to participate in athletics, table tennis, tennis, badminton and chess, according to an official of SLUSA.
They hope to form a pool of 15 to 20 top athletes from universities in preparation for this event.
The Inter-University competition scheduled to be held from May to August this year could not be held because of the coronavirus epidemic.
Therefore, SLUSA has decided to hold inter-university competitions from January till June in stages in preparation for the World University Games.
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.
The Summer Universiade in Napoli saw 18 sports, 220 medal events, 6,000 athletes and 24 Universiade Records set. Japan headed the medals with 82 (33 gold 21 silver and 28 bronze).
Tayla Lovemore won two gold medals for South Africa at last year’s Napoli 2019 Summer Universiade. Now she relishes the opportunity to be back in the pool again as her focus turns on the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
Tayla Lovemore won two gold medals for South Africa in 2019 Napoli