History of University sport

The UIE members joined the FISU in 1959.  The first Summer Universiade was held in Turin in the same year.

985 young athletes from 45 countries participated in the competitions. The first Winter Student Games took place in Chamonix (France) a year later, where 13 sets of medals were competed.   The 3rd Summer Universiade was held in Porto Alegre in 1963 and went down in history as the first student competitions held outside Europe. The 7th Summer Universiade took place in Moscow. Competitions were held in 10 sports, which were attended by 4000 athletes - a record number of participants at that time. The 8th Summer Universiade in Rome was held in the form of the University World Championships in Athletics. Despite this, 468 athletes from 38 countries participated in the competitions.

The Universiade has always been a significant event for the USSR and Russia.

Soviet athletes missed World Student Games only once, in 1967, when the competitions were held in Tokyo. Russia and the USSR won 14 times in the team scoring of the Summer Games, and 16 times in the team scoring of the Winter Games, including Games in 2013 in Slovakia and Spain. Such famous sportsmen as Larisa Latynina, Valery Brumel, Valery Skvortsov, Tamara Press, repeatedly won at the athletic fields of the Games.Russia won the first place in the unofficial team scoring for eight times during Universiade from 2003 to 2017.  In total, Russian athletes won 1038 medals of different values at the World Student Games over the last 14 years (2003-2014). Athletes of our country won 34 gold, 34 silver and 49 bronze medals at the Summer Universiade 2015 in Gwangju. The Russian team became the winner in the team scoring (29 gold, 27 silver and 15 bronze medals) at the Winter Universiade 2017 in Almaty.