Australia at the 2013 Summer Universiade

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While many elite athletes have one eye on the London Olympics in just under a years time, for one group of student athletes from the University of Melbourne, their sights were set firmly on Shenzhen in China this August. That's where the 26th Summer Universiade, or World University Games, were held, with Australia sending athletes to compete in a variety of sports, everything from swimming to basketball. Eleven University of Melbourne students were part of the team that competed in China, the most successful Australian team yet to compete at the World Uni Games. The Uniroos team of nearly one hundred and fifty athletes finished with sixteen medals across sixteen different sports including five gold, three silver, and eight bronze. Swimmer Marieke Guehrer, who led the Australian swimming team to a games record in the four-by-100 metre freestyle relay, said the event was a fantastic experience. I just came back from the World Championships so it was great for me to be able to swim some of my individual events and try and improve on those, and I did. Our four-by-100 freestyle relay was a great night and a great swim and we were head to head, or neck to neck with the Americans the whole way and then I was just able to touch them out in the finish so it was a great race especially for the people watching, maybe not so much for me because it hurt so much, but it was a really great experience and we had a great time. The best thing about the World Uni Games is that it's in a village so, different from the World Championships where we all stay in hotels and we're very pampered I guess. Whereas the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games and obviously the World Uni Games are all in a village so it's a lot more social but it also prepares us for next year for going to the Olympics. Eric Sheppard, a cyclist who finished 28th in the road race event, agreed the experience was well worth it. I definitely recommend the experience of going to the World Uni Games, I think it's good fun. There's obviously the sporting aspect, the multi-sport aspect, you meet lots of people from other countries. Rod Warnecke, the Sport Development Manager at Melbourne University Sport, says the uni Games provide a stepping stone for many elite athletes towards higher levels of competition. The World University Games are every second year, unlike the Olympics or Commonwealth Games which are every four, and there's also a series of World University Championships which intersperse those World University Games years. So there's plenty of opportunities for elite student athletes from across the world to represent their country. The games are no doubt a fantastic stepping stone for Australia's up and coming elite athletes. Many of them that have represented Australia at these games have already represented Australia in junior or senior competition. There's also a large number that are on the cusp of making that step into representing Australia at senior sporting level. Marcus Memmolo, who competed in Tae Kwon Do, says the event was a good test for where he's at. Qualifiers for the Olympics are coming up next month and so a lot of competitors, including a couple from Australia, use this as a stepping stone. Without doubt one of the best trips I've ever done and just the magnitude of the whole event the fact that they'd built so many stadiums and a train station and everything there for us was just mind blowing when I got there.