From 13th until 16th of June the first General Assembly of the Panamerican Continental University Sports Association (ODUPA) took place in San Salvador, El Salvador. The President of ODUPA, Julio Jakob, who was elected exactly one year ago, invited all member associations to come to El Salvador to take the first steps for the establishment of an efficient structure as well as some initial activities for the next couple of months.

 

Representatives from 19 countries attended the meeting. Luciano Cabral, Pedro Dias and Kole Gjeloshaj supported the organizers as representatives from FISU during the meeting and presented the most recent development concerning the cooperation between FISU and the five continental associations. Olaf Tabor, Member of the EUSA Board, was present to inform the members of ODUPA about the structure and general objectives of EUSA. In a one hour presentation he described the inner organization of EUSA, the development and the current statistics of the European Universities Championships as well as special events and projects like the seminars, symposiums and conventions or the volunteer program organized by the Student Commission. Much attention was paid to the achievements EUSA can look back on and the European experience serves as a model for the development of ODUPA in the near future.

 

The following work sessions were dedicated to the questions of finding a suitable and efficient structure for ODUPA, developing a strategy for the introduction of the new continental association into the Sports World especially in the Americas and establishing an activity plan for the short and midterm range. During these discussions the participants came across aspects like the structure of competition, where there are the options to compete country vs. country or university vs. university. Also the problems of a very tight competition calendar or difficulties in financing the ODUPA competitions were touched upon.

Even though no final decisions were taken, the fruitful discussions have led to a more defined vision of the future of ODUPA. Since many of the members will meet again in Valencia in early July the conclusions drawn form the meeting in El Salvador will be the basis of further consideration.

As a result of the discussion concerning the future competition program, Brazil offered to host the first ODUPA championship in Football already this year. It was generally agreed that one of the most important goals for ODUPA would be to organize the first competition as soon as possible, have two such events in the following year and increase the number of championships in the years to come.

 

Even though the general problem that ODUPA has to overcome in order to become a powerful organization in the near future are due to the extreme size of the continent and the heterogeneous situation of university sports in the member countries, EUSA and ODUPA have much in common. It was very much appreciated to learn more about the development EUSA has been going through since its foundation in 1999. The close cooperation between the two continental associations has been beneficial so far and Tabor stressed the fact that an even stronger link between the organizations will help ODUPA develop a strong foundation and grow towards an important part of FISU. Therefore EUSA congratulates ODUPA for its first anniversary and a successful first General Assembly.