Gwangju to Host Summer Universiade in 2015
By Kang Seung-woo
Staff Reporter
Gwangju has won a bid to host the 2015 Summer Universiade.
The International University Sports Federation (FISU) announced Sunday (Seoul Time) in Brussels that the South Korean city was awarded the right for the World University Games over Edmonton, Canada and Taipei, Taiwan.
Gwangju, 350 kilometers southwest of Seoul, has become the third Korean city to host the University Games after Muju held the Winter Games in 1997 and Daegu opened the summer version in 2003.
In its final presentation, which took place before the FISU selection committee for the Summer and Winter Games in 2015, the 1.4-million populated city emphasized ``Challenge for the Best," the best venues, the best management and the best legacy for the best Universiade.
In addition, it came up with some appealing plans ― the South-North unified team and legacy program, such as funding for a Sports Event Management System, a FISU-UNESCO program and a Universiade Sponsorship program.
And President Lee Myung-bak backed the city's second campaign for the FISU Games through a video message.
The city, known for the bloody pro-democracy movement against the military dictatorship in 1980, lost out to Kazan, Russia in a bid for the 2013 Universiade last year.
Gwangju, which beat the Alberta city and Taipei 397 to 389 and 353, respectively, in the inspection results by the evaluation committee, unexpectedly closed out the ballot in the first round after winning a majority of the 27 votes from the executive committee.
``Many civilians walked 2,015 steps every day in support for the bid while more than 150,000 citizens have volunteered to help promote the bid,'' Gwangju Mayor Park Gwang-tae said. ``Our citizens will be ecstatic. We will host the best Games.''
``I really appreciate that the 27 members of the executive committee have chosen Gwangju over Edmonton and Taipei,'' said Chung Eui-hwa, the chairman of the bidding committee.
``We need to put all our abilities together to make the 2015 Games the best ever competition, and through the Summer Universiade, Gwangju will stand out as the hub city of Asian culture.''
The biennial Summer Universiade was first held in 1959 in Turin, Italy and about 10,000 collegiate athletes between the ages of 17 and 28 participate.
The Games consist of 10 compulsory sports and up to seven optional sports. The ten compulsory events are athletics, basketball, fencing, football, gymnastics, water sports (swimming, diving and water polo), tennis, volleyball, judo, table tennis, while taekwondo, badminton, golf, handball, archery, shooting and rowing are optional.
Spain's Granada has been nominated host of the 2015 Winter Universiade.