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Bochum
A hardworking city with an industrial heritage, few places have harnessed the energy of their past quite like Bochum. The former coal mining hub turned university boom town – Bochum can boast nine in total – is now showing a fresh face to the world. Here you can enjoy top end dining, shopping and entertainment at Bermuda3eck and, to cap it all, join a record-breaking theatre run for Starlight Express (Bochum: answer me yes!) Apart from coal, this city has been an equally reliable production line for track and field talent, churning out gems like five-time Olympian heptathlete Sabine Braun and seven-times Paralympian Ruth Lamsbach. In sport, Bochum always brings out its best and the summer of 2025 will be no different. Especially now that the Lohrheidestadion – affectionately called the ‘living room’ by locals – is receiving more than a lick of paint as its prepares to host some amazing athletics action.
Venues
Lohrheidestadion
Athletics
Pull up a comfy chair! There can be few more welcoming venues in sport than the Lohrheidestadion, an athletics and football stadium known in Bochum as the ‘Living Room’. Opened in 1954, the much-used facility is being redeveloped for the Rhine-Ruhr 2025 FISU World University Games, when it will host seven days of top-class track and field. A home to athletics club TV Wattenscheid 01 and football club SG Wattenscheid 09, the Lohrheidestadion has a seating capacity of 17,000 and is the second largest venue in all six cities after the Schauinsland-Reisen-Arena in Duisburg.
Jahrhunderthalle
3x3 wheelchair basketball
3x3 basketball
Designed for a Düsseldorf trade fair, rebuilt in Bochum as a steam power station, and now repurposed as a cultural and commercial events space - is there a more appropriate venue for the FISU World Conference than the Jahrhunderthalle? The focal point of Westpark on the edge of Bochum, the old water tower and much of the exposed steel interior of the 66-metre-long main hall has been retained, and a modern steel and glass foyer added, giving this venue an edgy, yet modern, feel. A multiple-use facility, it says it all that the Jahrhunderthalle can be both an anchor point of the Route of Industrial Heritage and a former host of the European Film Awards. Whatever the ideas in your head, this cap fits.
