ROME, 9 October 2024 – The Torino 2025 World University Winter Games of the International University Sports Federation (FISU) will be presented to the Italian sports world.
Having left Turin on 20 September, the torch returned to Italy on Wednesday 9 October with the passage from FISU to FederCUSI at the Foro Italico in Rome, where a meeting was held in the morning between the university sports world, represented by Federcusi, and the Italian National Olympic Committee, in the presence of the highest Italian sports officials.
The Flame was brought by Marco Belotti (former Italian national team member at the Universiade and the Olympic Games in the free swimming discipline), Alberto Arpino (sabre fencing champion and outstanding student at the University of Bologna) and Valentina Marchei (figure skating champion and Olympic athlete) to Federcusi President Antonio Dima, who finally handed it over to Silvia Salis, CONI Vice-President, in the presence of the President of the Organising Committee of the Torino 2025 Games Alessandro Ciro Sciretti.
Designed under the banner of sustainability, the protocol of the World University Games Flame Relay is divided into three phases – international, national and Piedmontese – and includes stages on university campuses and places of cultural and tourist interest.
The relay of the international phase started on 23 September in Brussels and travelled to Rabat in Morocco, where Turin and Rhine Ruhr celebrated the passing of the torch at the FISU Executive Committee on 26 and 27 September. After the stop in Rome, the tour will touch down in New York on 14 October, participating with the Italian government and the Piedmont Region in the Columbus Day parade. The Torchlight’s institutional stops will then continue with the Lausanne date scheduled for 22 October at the University and Headquarters of FISU.
The tour will return to Italy with the stops in Trento on 29 October, in Milan on 4 November and on 8 and 9 November in Caivano and Salerno (organiser of the European University Games 2026), then, again in November, it will reach the main venues of the universities in Piedmont and, in December, arrive in the municipalities hosting the Games.
Finally, the Torch will return to Turin on 13 January 2025 on the occasion of the Inauguration Ceremony that will kick off the XXXII FISU World University Games Winter.