UNIVERSIADE TORCH AND THE OLYMPIC/INNOVATIVE DIMENSION

The 2013 Trentino Torch has been welcomed by Francis Gabet (Director of the Olympic Musum at the International Olympic Committee) in front of the Olympic flame at the IOC in Lausanne. This has been a symbolic moment, celebrating the 90th anniversary of the “World University Games” of Paris 1923, the mutual friendship between Jean Petitjean (inventor of the World University Games) and Pierre de Coubertin (inventor of the modern Olympics) and the mutual inspiration between Olympics/Universiade (the Olympic Games and Pierre del Coubertin inspired the 1923 World University Games; the 1960 Olympics inspired Primo Nebiolo and the first modern Universiade in 1959). An academic dialogue with Nuria Puig Brandes (Head of University Relations, Olympic Studies Research Centre, IOC) has followed on the themes of sport, innovation and the Universiade Conference. www.universiadetrentino.org/conference The Trentino Universiade has learned that the Olympic Museum is in a phase of “total metamorphosis” and will be inaugurated on December 10th, the day of the Universiade Conference (9-10.12). Also this seemed particularly symbolic to the interlocutors, as it is an additional element linking the academic dimension of sport, the mutual inspiration of Universiade-Olympics and the current focus on sport/innovation.

The previous day, the Universiade Torch has been welcomed by the FISU Secretary General Eric Saintrond at the Maison du Sport International (FISU Headquarters) and at City Events (below with Vice-President Leonz Eder. This passage celebrated the 90th anniversary of the “World University Games”, the 10th edition of the Universiade in (where the Universiade has been invented in Turin 1959), the “the Universiade of Innovation” (as the FISU President Gallien suggested last week in a Brussels workshop with Prof. Bouquet).

the Universiade Torch has been welcomed at the Rolex Learning Centre by AISTS and by the Executive Director Claude Stricker (who will be a keynote speaker at the Universiade Conference). The workshop “Understanding the power of technology in sport” http://aists.org/smart_textiles has been the perfect occasion to continue the dialogue on innovation and sport, which will be the theme of the Universiade Conference at MART in Rovereto/Trentino on December 9-10th.

The Torch has been greeted by Dr. Claude Stricker(Executive Director of the AISTS), Prof Jan- Anders Månson (EPFL Professor, AISTS President and scientific advisor to America’s Cup- Alinghi), Bill Morris (Director of Culture, Ceremonies and Education at London 2012), Antoine Dénériaz (Olympic Gold Medallist in Downhill Skiing, Torino 2006), Dr Kim Blair (Director of the Sports Innovation Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and President of the International Sports Engineering Association/ISEA), Robbert de Kock (WFSGI Secretary General of the World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry), Dr. Jean-Marie Ayer, Dr Mattia Bertschi (CSEM) and the AISTS/CSEM participants.

The next stages of the Torch will be Pisa (18.11), Bergamo and Milan (20.11). A seminar on “Innovation and Sport” has been organized by Confindustria/Assolombarda, in the occasion of the passing of the Torch through Milan and the reflection will continue also on http://www.huffingtonpost.it/universiadi-mondo/ Lausanne, 15 November 2013.

Links: Official Press Communiquè by the Autonomous Province of Trentino Official news by FISU News from Inside the Games.biz

Twitter: https://twitter.com/WUTrentino2013 https://twitter.com/AISTS_Sport/status/400714989025370113/photo/1 https://twitter.com/CITYevents_2013