LAKE PLACID — Lake Placid is looking ahead to 2023 when the North Country community will host the Winter Universiade (also called the Winter World University Games in English) for the second time. The International University Sports Federation (FISU) has selected Lake Placid to host the event, which is an Olympics-style competition for university athletes […]
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LAKE PLACID — Lake Placid is looking ahead to 2023 when the North Country community will host the Winter Universiade (also called the Winter World University Games in English) for the second time.
The International University Sports Federation (FISU) has selected Lake Placid to host the event, which is an Olympics-style competition for university athletes from around the world.
The Adirondack North Country (ADKNC) global-sports committee and FISU have until June 15 to finalize a formal agreement, the office of Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a March 5 news release.
Once the contract is signed, work will begin on creating an official organizing committee and a master plan that will include an action plan and final concept to execute the Winter Universiade.
Delegates from the ADKNC global-sports committee and FISU signed a memorandum of understanding at the FISU headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, Cuomo’s office said. The negotiations lasted nearly 18 months.
“Lake Placid is the perfect location to host this event, which will showcase the very best of New York and the North County to an international audience,” Cuomo boasted in the release.
Lake Placid first hosted the Winter World University Games in 1972 and Buffalo hosted the Summer Universiade in 1993.
Lake Placid is also known for hosting the 1980 Winter Olympics, which included the U.S. men’s hockey team defeating the Soviet Union in a game known as the “Miracle on Ice” before beating Finland to capture the gold medal. Lake Placid hosted the 1932 Winter Olympic Games, also.
New York is the only U.S. state to host the Winter World University Games, according to Cuomo’s office.
Selection process
The ADKNC global-sports committee has been working directly with FISU since Sept. 1 to develop a bid that meets the “necessary requirements,” Cuomo’s release said. It didn’t provide specifics.
Members of the FISU site-evaluation committee in February spent a week in the North Country evaluating the bid committee’s plans for hosting the Winter Universiade.
The committee toured and evaluated the sporting facilities, venues, and lodging properties in Plattsburgh, Potsdam, the tri-lakes area (Lake Placid, Saranac Lake, and Tupper Lake), Wilmington, and Gore Mountain.
FISU “continues to be very impressed” by Lake Placid and the Adirondack region, Oleg Matytsin, FISU president, said in Cuomo’s release.
“We are pleased to formalize our dialogue with the signing of this memorandum of understanding. The [document] clearly demonstrates the willingness of all parties to move towards a suitable hosting agreement. From its outset, the bid has been one of the strongest we have seen. FISU has no doubt that Lake Placid would be a great host for the 2023 Winter Universiade, making a lifelong impact on the thousands of student-athletes who would come from all around the world,” said Matytsin.
About the Universiade
The Universiade, or World University Games, organized by FISU, is an international sports and cultural event staged every two years in a different city.
The 11-day winter competition draws more than 2,400 student-athletes together to compete in various disciplines including alpine, freestyle and cross-country skiing, biathlon, speed skating, curling, figure skating, hockey, short track speed skating, and snowboarding.
Optional sports may include ski jumping, Nordic combined, ski orienteering, and long track speed skating.
The Universiade would utilize “many” area sport venues for the event, including the Olympic venues managed by the New York State Olympic Regional Development Authority, Cuomo’s office said.
The next Universiade will be in 2019, with the winter games held in Krasnoyarsk, Russia and the summer event hosted by Naples, Italy.
