‘Summer of distinction’: sports world assembles on ‘win-win journey’ to Rhine-Ruhr 2025

The leading lights in world university sport descended on Dusseldorf this week as one foot was planted firmly in the starting blocks of the 2025 FISU Games. With under 100 days to go until the world's largest field of play is marked out across the Rhine-Ruhr region and Berlin, the Spring Heads of Delegation meeting enabled organisers to share their latest hosting plans for the two-week festival in July.

“What we promise you here is not just the next edition of a FISU Summer Games - what we promise is a summer of distinction,” Jing Zhao, FISU Games Summer Director, told the four-day meeting at the Hilton Hotel Düsseldorf.

“We want to build a win-win journey together, which means we need understanding, we need collaboration, and we need teamwork. We’re going to create something that is truly meaningful for this summer.”

With over 50 delegations sending representatives, and dozens more including Barbados, Estonia and Turkmenistan following the event on a livestream, this was a truly global gathering of the university sport community.

“It’s invaluable, the time we have spent here,” Baljit Singh, leading the India delegation, said. “We’ve appreciated the precision and the punctuality, and how every duty has been attended to with such special attention.”

‘Proud to be a part’

As one of the larger teams attending the meeting, India said they were expecting to bring over 300 student- athletes and officials when they return to the Rhine-Ruhr region and Berlin in July. But the meeting was vitally important for some of the smaller delegations, also.

“Zambia is proud to be a part of this effort, and we are looking forward to the event itself in July,” Manfred Sidambi, one of the heads of delegation making a first visit to Germany, said.

“The level of development here is quite amazing and, most importantly, the people are nice. When you are a stranger in a particular place, you are not sure whether or not they will accommodate you. But here the people have been very receptive and helpful.”

One person shaking more hands than most was Hill Carrow, the chairperson and CEO of the organising committee for the North Carolina USA 2029 FISU Games.

“You know, we kind of brag that in the southern United States, we're very warm, friendly people,” he said. “But I will say everybody here has been bending over backwards to make sure we were happy. Things were running smoothly, questions were answered, and people got lots of good information.

“So that's a high standard. I took a lot of notes and I said, ‘Alright, we’ve got to be delivering like Rhine-Ruhr, because they've done a very good job’.”

‘New experience’

Representing Portugal at the meeting was Patrícia Mamona, a two-time Olympian who won the silver medal in the women’s triple jump at Tokyo 2020. In the rare position of leading a

delegation while still training as a full-time athlete, the 36-year-old said she had joined the Portugal University Sports Federation only a month ago.

“This is quite different from what I'm used to,” Mamona said. “As an athlete, it is quite easy to complain when things go wrong, but now I have a different view. I enjoyed understanding how the next stage is done.”

For the Organising Committee, the Spring Heads of Delegation Meeting was an opportunity to connect to people they had previously only seen on excel spreadsheets, messaging apps, or through a series of one-on-one webinars which began last year.

“This event is the only opportunity we had to talk directly to delegations in-person, and to put faces to the names, so it is extremely important,” Mirinda Kidman, the Delegation Services Manager for Rhine-Ruhr 2025, said.

“We’ve had a lot of good feedback, not only from delegations but also from other people who have just walked past and asked us what’s going on. We’ve built a lot of excitement in the local area. Overall, we’re pretty satisfied and after a couple of hours of sleep, we’ll be even more satisfied.

“We’re looking forward to seeing everyone again in under 100 days.”

Photos: © Rhine-Ruhr 2025/Andrea Bowinkelmann