UB is no stranger to the World University Games. The university was a host to the games in July 1993, providing the venues for track and field, diving, tennis and volleyball, and housing the games’ 5,000 participants in the Ellicott Complex. And UB Stadium was built specially for the games and remains one of the World University Games’ most recognizable legacies.

The games are returning, in a fashion, to UB Stadium on Dec. 19 as the torch rally for the Lake Placid 2023 FISU World University Games makes a stop on the North Campus as part of a 15-stop tour that culminates in Lake Placid with the FISU Games’ first carbon-free cauldron lighting.

Members of the UB community are invited to attend the free event in UB Stadium.

The festivities are set to begin at 10 a.m., with Victor E. Bull; Vickie Mitchell, head coach of the UB men’s and women’s track and field and cross-country teams, and an athlete from the 1993 games; and UB men’s basketball player Curtis Jones, a sophomore health and human services major, serving as torch bearers for an in-stadium torch run around the track. Speaking at the event will be Jon Lundin, head of communications and media for the games; President Satish K. Tripathi; Assemblymember Karen McMahon; and Mitchell.

The 2023 FISU games, taking place Jan. 12-22, are expected to bring together 1,500 collegiate athletes from 600 universities in 50 countries to participate in Alpine skiing, biathlon, cross-country skiing, curling, freestyle and freeski, figure skating, ice hockey, Nordic combined, speed skating, short track speed skating, snowboarding and ski jumping.

For the first time, the FISU flame is being carried in a sustainable torch, with no actual combustion or flame present. Instead, in keeping with the Lake Placid 2023 FISU Games’ mission of sustainability as part of its Save Winter campaign, LED lights in the torch produce a brightly illuminated FISU flame in a carbon-free presentation.

In 1993, Buffalo was the first — and only U.S. city to date — to host the World University Games, which were held July 8-18. According to the UB Archives, 5,000 athletes from more than 120 nations vied for medals in 12 sports, including track and field, volleyball, soccer, water polo and, for the first time at the World University Games, baseball.