Today 17 of July, the first day of the Observer Programme, took place at Holiday Inn hotel in Lodz. Observer program is a program that will give a wider insight into the whole key information about the process of organizing the European Universities Games for future host and organizers. The Observer Program will be last three days from 17-20 of July. 

The purpose of this Observer Programme is to provide first-hand experience and opportunity to understand the scope, dimension, and complexity of the European Universities Games, to create platform for learning, exchanging ideas and knowledge and to network with EUSA staff and different stakeholders. Some of the objectives of this program is to provide a structured tailor-made program for future organizers to observe EUG time operations in full action, to offer guided visits, briefings, and round table discussions on specific EUG topics and to support and assist observers through allowing them to meet experienced staff to learn more. This program is available for future organizers, candidate cities, European Universities Championships organizers, NUSA, sports organisations, and other multi-sport event organizers.

Ms Nataša Jankovic, as the lead speaker of the Observer Programme, gave the honour of the opening message to Mr Krzysztof Jóźwik, rector of the Lodz University of Technology. He stated his happiness to see all of the representatives here and to this opportunity to share experience and knowledge for the future organizers. Mr Jóźwik invited the attendees to give comments and ask questions about the organizational process, to improve and to create even more successful games.

Mr Adam Roczek, President of EUSA, had also the chance to greet the present representatives on the Observer Program, saying that the games are not just about sport but its also about building community, while inviting the future hosts to take as much knowledge and experience from this program. He also recommended the futures hosts to define their goals in advance so we can all put a bigger value on the long-lasting legacy of the European Universities Games and to keep developing the community and the university sports. 

The program was then followed by presentations on different topics connected to the Observer Programme and organizational matters of European Universities Games, as one of the biggest sports events organized in Europe.
First to have a presentation was Mr Matjaž Pečovnik, who spoke about EUSA, EUSA sport event philosophy, joint projects, publications and past experiences and knowledge gained from organizing the past 5 editions of the European Universities Games and many more European Universities sports events. He also pointed that the collaboration, good work, mutual communication and keeping the legacy of the Games is a very important thing to focus on, to build bigger and better European Universities Games in the future.

The next presentation of the program was given by Mr Besim Aliti, who spoke about managing EUSA sports events, the lifecycle of an event, the strategic planning, operational planning, event delivery and mobilisation. He stated that for future organizers is very important to understand the process and to learn from previous experiences, to prevent the risks and to do better. Mr Aliti also spoke about different parts of the managing process such as: bidding, mobilising partners, stakeholders, strategic planning, priorities, engaging human resources, operational planning, event delivery and testing through organizing bigger sports events before organizing European Universities Games. He shared a lot of examples and practices from previous experiences. 

Representative from this year’s OC, Ms Marta Rybicka also had a presentation involving information about the team of European Universities Games 2022 in Lodz, their roles, details about accreditation process, deadlines, transportation, accommodation, safety measures, guests and officials, sports and many other details related to the experience of the process of organizing this edition of the Games. 

Today the attendees will also have the chance to do a visit of the General Technical Meeting of Para Table Tennis and to visit some competitions of futsal and water polo at Zatoka Sportu. Later, they will also be part of the OC Reception and the grand Opening Ceremony of the European Universities Games at Atlas Arena.

For more information, please visit www.eusa.eu