Basel hosted the 2017 edition of the annual Swiss University Sports Days between June 19 and 21, hosted by Ms Bettina Herzig-Lyner, Head of University Sports in Basel, and her team. During the three days conferences and workshops, a lot of different themes were discussed.

Mr Ralph Stockli, Head of Elite sports at Swiss Olympic and Chef de Mission for the Swiss Olympic Teams, presented a lecture about Swiss Olympic and Swiss University Sports – Expectations and Chances. He mainly focussed on the topic of dual career and the Winter Universiade 2021 in Luzern.



Mr Urs Hunkeler, Managing Director of the OC Winter Universiade 2021, gave an update of the preparations and expressed his wish that the University Sports Teachers of the Swiss University Sports Organisations will be actively involved in the Winter Universiade 2021. He also stressed the fact that lots of students should be part of the team.



In addition to these themes, the President of the Swiss University Sports Federation, Mr Andreas Csonka, explained the reasons why the Federation will organise Swiss University Championships as a multisport event in the next years, including 7-10 sports instead of individual ones. He also underlined the 30 years of cooperation with Credit Suisse, the main sponsor of SUSF since 1987.



Mr Reto Zimmermann, Director of Berne University Sports, presented the latest version of the newly developed strategy of Swiss University Sports which should be finalized by the end of this year. The Rector of the University of Basel, Mrs Andrea Schenker-Wicki, stressed the importance of University sports and compared the sport competitions with the rankings of Universities. “We can learn of lot from University sports, from the experience in the competitions, but also from the skills of students which perform very well both in studies and sports,” she said. “Education and sports are main pillars for building the character of human beings, therefore it’s so important to pay high attention to the model of dual career.”



The President of the University Sports Director’s Conference, Mr Patrick Udvardi from Luzern, handed over to Pierre Pfefferle from Lausanne, who will lead this Conference for the next two years. The participants of the Conference also had a lot of possibilities to discover the City of Basel and to practise sports together, such as rowing and swimming in the Rhein river.