Universiade '83, Edmonton

From July 1 to 11, 1983, Edmonton, Alberta, will host the World University Games, Universiade '83. The event will further enhance Edmonton's reputation as a centre of world class amateur sport. The World University Games take place every two years. They are second only to the Summer Olympics in terms of the number of athletes competing, the number of countries attending, and the number of sports being contested. Since many of the world's best athletes are students, and since the most powerful countries in international sport will be participating, spectators at the Edmonton Games will enjoy an intensity of competition that will not be matched until the Los Angeles Summer Olympic of 1984. World records regularly fall at World University Games. It is expected that approximately 4,500 athletes from about ninety countries will compete in the games. The athletes must be between seventeen and twenty-eight years of age and must be either university student or less than a year out of university. Organizers expect 700,000 spectators in addition to the millions who will view the Games on television. There will be competitions in track and field, swimming, diving, cycling, fencing, basketball, volleyball, tennis, water polo, and gymnastics. The track and field program will include a women's marathon, which has never before been presented at an event of the University Game's stature. Women will also compete in cycling for the first time in the history of University Games. The World University Games began in Paris in 1923 as part of a student congress. By 1937 the idea was catching on. Over 1,000 athletes from twenty-six countries partook in that year's Paris Games. Since 1961 the Games have been sponsored by the International Federation of University Sport. The Universiade '83 stamp designs capture the excitement of this sporting event by using a victory pictogram as the dominant element against a background of the official colours representing the various disciplines included in the Games. Edmonton graphic artists Krista Huebner and David Kilvert are responsible for the designs, with Pierre-Yves Pelletier of Montreal as consultant.