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LAUSANNE – From 26 to 28 April, FISU’s World University Championships Department hosted its traditional WUC Seminar to prepare future World University Championship hosts for their job to come.

Around 100 delegates, representing the Organising Committees of 31 WUCs to be staged in 2018 were present in Lausanne. Organised every two years, the seminar seeks to aid in the preparation of the WUC events that will take place during the running year.

The two-day Seminar was set up focusing on providing all attendants an overview of the fields related to the organisation and management of a FISU World University Championship. The 100 delegates present had the opportunity to hear a wide variety of topics, from a general presentation of FISU to the specificities of protocol and communication at FISU events, from the administrative processes and cooperation to the roles of various delegates nominated to the events, amongst many other interesting and in-depth presentations.

This was also the case for the four case studies related to LOCs that organised WUCs in 2016, i.e. a practical case of ‘A day at the WUC’ was presented by Lavinia Falese of the 2016 WUC Cross Country in Cassino, Italy; Ian Fitzpatrick talked about the work force management at the 2016 WUC Sailing in Perth, Australia; Neil Rogers about media and marketing at the 2016 WUC Rugby Sevens in Swansea, United Kingdom and Kunnar Karu talked about protocol at the 2016 WUC Beach Volleyball in Pärnu, Estonia.

IFMA Sport Director Charissa Tynan was in attendance in her role as FISU TD for the 2018 Muaythai WUC set to be held in Pattaya, Thailand from July 23-31. Together with members of the Muaythai WUC Organising Committee, the University Sports Board of Thailand and the Institute of Physical Education; the sport director reported that they were able to gain an incredible insight into the detailed organisational structures in the organisation of a WUC from the importance of the FISU timeline, accreditation system, protocols and volunteer programmes.

Charissa Tynan stated “This seminar was a wonderful learning experience for all of us, and enabled us to gain valuable knowledge from other Organising Committees, learning about the problems they faced so that we as future WUC organisers can benefit from their experiences, thereby continually improving the standard and quality of the FISU WUCs.”