Student comparisons: Russia competed at the Universiade for the first time in six years

The World Student Games have come to an end in Germany, where representatives of Russia performed for the first time since 2019. Due to visa issues and difficulties with neutral status, the domestic application turned out to be significantly smaller than planned. Of course, it was impossible to perform at the same level with a weakened squad — for example, at the 2013 home Universiade in Kazan, the Russians won 283 awards, including 150 gold. But the result of the current starts — 16 medals, including 6 gold — is quite worthy. We have been outpaced by countries that traditionally pay a lot of attention to university sports. And if the sanctions are finally lifted, there is no doubt that we will quickly return to the leadership cohort.

A weekday return

The sports results of the Universiade are always a conditional parameter, which makes it difficult to draw adequate conclusions. The competition programs at different Games change dramatically, and so does the level of participants. In addition, the International Student Sports Federation (FISU) recently lowered the age limit from 28 to 25 for some reason (although the definition of "youth" in the world is shifting in the opposite direction), completely confusing everyone.

In general, the slogan about participating instead of winning these competitions is much more relevant than at the Olympics. And for Russia — three times. After all, it became known only three months ago that we would be allowed to start in Germany after a three-year ban, so many of our athletes had to urgently adjust their plans for this trip.

Even taking into account the global difficulties with neutral status in athletics and gymnastic disciplines, initially 139 athletes were listed in our application. But due to the denial of German visas, that number has dropped to 48 in nine sports. For comparison, we took 275 athletes in 17 sports to the Universiade 2019.

Other difficulties were compounded by the extremely unfortunate timing of the current Student Games in 2025. They were held almost in parallel with the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore, the World Fencing Championships in Tbilisi and the European Youth Olympic Festival in North Macedonia. The organizers who allowed such an outrage are clearly not sophisticated in the science of PR. However, this is probably a plus for us — the Russians' return to the elite of student sports was businesslike and casual.

Swimming and tennis are the main culprits

The most successful swimmer in our national team was Alexander Stepanov, who refused to go to the World Championships for the sake of playing at the Universiade. The 21-year-old athlete won two gold medals in the 800 and 1,500 m freestyle and silver in the 4 x 200 m relay. Another swimmer, Nikolai Kolesnikov, also distinguished himself by winning gold in the 400 m freestyle and silver in the 200 m crawl. Alexander Shchegolev (bronze in the 100 m freestyle) completed the picture of success in the Essen pool. Thus, men's swimming provided Russian neutrals with more than a third of the Universiade awards. This is a great result.

Representatives of lawn tennis also collected a good collection of medals. It is clear that all the stars are currently busy at big tournaments and it is simply unrealistic to get players from the top two hundred rankings to the Universiade. But in such a company, the Russian tennis players showed a high class. Egor Agafonov and Ilya Simakin became the winners in the men's doubles, defeating Mert Alkai and Tuncay Duran from Turkey in the final. (3:6, 6:2, 10:3). And the 342nd racket of the world Alevtina Ibragimova became the second in the singles tournament and, together with Ksenia Zaitseva, won bronze in pairs. Three tennis awards are a solid contribution to the common piggy bank.

To this, it is necessary to add two awards for fencers (Dmitry Shvelidze's gold and Kirill Gurov's bronze), two medals in table tennis (Vladimir Sidorenko's gold and Maxim Grebnev's silver), as well as two silver (Abrek Naguchev and Armen Agayan) and one bronze (Valery Endovitsky) in judo.

According to the organizers, "neutral" awards were not taken into account in the official medal table. However, if we compare our results with the achievements of our rivals, we will get seventh place in the overall standings — not so bad, considering all the advantages.

Alina Gornosko, the winner of the 2020 Olympic Games in rhythmic gymnastics, distinguished herself among Belarusians. She won four medals in Germany: gold in the all-around and club exercises, as well as silver in the ball and ribbon programs. Let me remind you that there were no Russians on the Essen gymnastics platform.

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Politics ruined the holiday

The victory in the overall standings of the Games was celebrated by the Japanese, who "made a cash register" in gymnastics and judo. Japan had already won the overall Universiade in 2019, but then many attributed this to preparations for the home Olympics. Currently, representatives of the Land of the Rising Sun have managed to outpace both China and the United States in terms of the total number of gold awards. Despite the fact that, admittedly, college sports are much more advanced in the United States than in other countries. However, at the Student Games in Germany, we again received an abnormal result, once again confirming the specificity of the starts under the Universiade brand.

The Germans held a university sports festival with a clear view to the Olympics. The Rhineland-Ruhr region is going to submit a joint application with Berlin for the 2036 Games. In general, these claims can be called justified, if not for the failed history of visa support for Russian and Belarusian students. And this is despite the fact that no anti-Russian incidents were registered during the competition. On the contrary, our athletes noted the benevolent attitude from the audience and the stands, including during the opening ceremony, where neutrals were allowed to march in a separate column.

The inability to resolve an elementary issue with the authorities and the political flavor from the actions of the organizers negated the positive from the sports festival. Yes, at the last moment we were allowed to attend one of the most popular multi-sports events. However, these days it doesn't seem enough. After all, the Universiades are not at all about politics and, as we can see, not exactly about goals, points and seconds, but about something more.

Medal standings of the 2025 Summer Universiade

1. Japan: 34 gold + 21 silver + 24 bronze = 79 medals

2. China: 30 + 27 + 17 = 74

3. USA: 28 + 27 + 29 = 84

4. South Korea: 21 + 9 + 27 = 57

5. Italy: 14 + 10 + 19 = 43

6. Germany: 11 + 12 + 17 = 40

7. Russia: 6 + 6 + 4 = 16