European Universities Games come to Rotterdam

Major European sporting event awarded to Erasmus University Rotterdam

The biggest European sporting event for students will be coming to Rotterdam in 2014. The European Universities Games have been awarded to Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR). That means that in over three years’ time Rotterdam will be welcoming 4000 students from all over Europe.

Rotterdam won the bid from Wroclaw in Poland at a meeting of the European University Sports Association (EUSA) in Córdoba in Spain where the first European Universities Games is due to be held next year. The deciding factor for the choice of the EUSA was the international character of Erasmus University and Rotterdam, the good sports facilities in the city and the experience with organising a major sporting event. Moreover the event will be the sporting close of the university’s anniversary year 2013-2014 when EUR will be celebrating its centenary.

From 4 to 13 July 2014 around 4000 participants and 1000 officials will be coming to Rotterdam for the European Universities Games, which are held biennially. Medals are to be won in ten sports: basketball, football, indoor football, handball, volleyball, badminton, tennis, table tennis, golf and rowing.

The EUR will be organising the European Universities Games together with the Rotterdam local authority, Studentensport Nederland and a few other partners. The games will require the use of the Topsport Centrum at De Kuip and the Excelsior stadium as well as the university’s own sports faculties. Other (planned) locations include the Willem-Alexander Baan, the rowing facility currently being created and the new Golf Park Rotterdam. The organisers are looking to cooperate with the North Sea Jazz festival for musical performances in the student village on the new Woudestein campus.

Delegation
The plans were presented in Córdoba by Pauline van der Meer Mohr, president of the Executive Board of Erasmus University, deputy mayor Antoinette Laan (Sport and Recreation) and Menso de Maar, director of Erasmus Sport. Hans den Oudendammer, director of Rotterdam Topsport, spoke about the Olympic ambitions for 2028.

Pauline van der Meer Mohr is obviously extremely pleased that Rotterdam has won the European Universities Games. "This is fantastic news for the university and for Rotterdam. The Games fit perfectly with the international character of both the city and the university. The European Universities Games will shortly be a splendid finale to our centenary year. What’s more putting student sport on the map is one of the mainstays of EUR’s policy.”

Deputy Mayor Antoinette Laan: “Winning the bid for this marvellous event is part and parcel of the sporting highlights that we have had the privilege of experiencing in Rotterdam in the past years. It is a great, wide-ranging sporting event that links our top university with the many sports enthusiasts in the city.”

Erasmus Sport, the university’s student sport organisation, officially put in the bid for the European Universities Games on 1 September. The bid is supported among others by the Public Health, Welfare and Sport minister, Edith Schippers, the mayor of Rotterdam Ahmed Aboutaleb and André Bolhuis (chairman of the Dutch Olympic Committee*Dutch Sports Federation (NOC*NSF)). In recent years Erasmus Sport has supported various top sports people who are students like the hockey player Fatima Moreiro de Melo.

See for more information:

Press Department Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR),
tel: (010) 408 1216, e-mail: press@eur.nl