The next edition of the World University Winter Games, scheduled in 426 days in the city and region where the event was born under the name Universiade, will be the first event open to all without barriers of any kind. 

The best paralympic athletes enrolled at universities in every country will be the protagonists on the snows of Piemonte from 13 to 23 January 2025, in an event under the banner of inclusiveness and social sustainability.

The worldwide announcement came during the talk organised at Casa Tennis in Piazza Castello during the Nitto Atp Finals, further confirmation of Piedmont’s vocation as a Land of Sport, just as the claim of Torino 2025 states. The decision was taken on Monday evening by the Board of Directors of the Organising Committee of the Games.

Giving the official announcement was the President of the Torino 2025 Organising Committee, Alessandro Ciro Sciretti: “Today we are announcing a great novelty, because Torino 2025 will be the Universiade of all and for all. The Universiade will be open for the first time to Paralympic athletes, who will be able to compete in snow sports disciplines together with able-bodied athletes. In Turin, therefore, another first after the invention of the Universiade in 1959, driven by our territory’s intention to innovate in the name of social sustainability. We look forward to Torino 2025”.

the historic first Universiade open to para-student athletes, announced yesterday afternoon by the president of the Torino 2025 Organising Committee Alessandro Ciro Sciretti during the talk on the FISU Games organised at Casa Tennis in Piazza Castello ©wugtorino2025
the historic first Universiade open to para-student athletes, announced yesterday afternoon by the president of the Torino 2025 Organising Committee Alessandro Ciro Sciretti during the talk on the FISU Games organised at Casa Tennis in Piazza Castello ©wugtorino2025

This news arrives on the day when the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella inaugurated the Festival of Paralympic Culture in Taranto in the name of inclusion. This is the message from the FISU Winter Games Director, Milan Augustin, who is pleased with this innovation coming from Torino: “We have been working on this for the past two years with the Organising Committee and the FIS, because this project has long been included in the FISU’s long-term global strategy for 2027, so I am very happy about this news”.

“This is a historic day for the entire university sports movement, which, once again from Turin where everything was born thanks to Primo Nebiolo, adds another important opportunity, namely that of participation also for para-athletes with visual impairments, or the Sitting and Standing categories in alpine and cross-country skiing. It was very important to start with this new page, which we hope to expand in terms of disciplines and numbers during future editions that will follow the virtuous example of Turin 2025”.

The president of the FederCUSI, Antonio Dima, echoes him: “Upon hearing the news of the opening to parasports at the FISU World Winter University Games, I congratulate the Torino 2025 Organising Committee and its President Sciretti for this valuable and commendable initiative. The openness to the world of disability and its inclusive current through sport represents for FederCUSI not only a founding stone of this governance but also a statutory mission that is more and more actual and witnessed". 

"The occasion of Torino 2025 are a showcase and an international stage that gratify the choices made at national and territorial level. FederCUSI’s support for this important initiative is total”, concluded.