One medal and many great moments

In taekwondo poomsae (sequences of movements), Linda Räkköläinen (in the picture) from the University of Turku won silver, which was a great achievement. In Freestyle, Räkköläinen reached a fifth place. In poomsae, the other Finnish taekwondoin, Frans Salmi, made his way to the quarter-finals.

The futsal team of Tampere University almost took everyone by surprise at the Championships. After winning the ‘group of death’, the Tampere team advanced to the bronze-medal match but lost to the reigning champion, Rey Juan Carlos University from Spain, after the penalty shoot-out. The strong contribution of the Finns was complemented by the sixth place of the University of Jyväskylä, which was competing for the first time.

On the football field, the University of Jyväskylä came close to advancing to the semifinals, but the French qualified from the challenging group by just a point. The final ranking was not determined, as the University Fan Noli, which had been behaving inappropriately throughout the Games, was disqualified and the final ranking match was not played.

In beach volleyball, all the pairs made it to the higher rounds. The best ranking was achieved by Noora Huhtala and Venla Väärälä, who advanced to the eleventh place. The thirteenth place went to Saara Piippo and Veda Mansikkaviita and the Manninen brothers Vili and Veikka. Annika Waris and Minttu Junno finished fifteenth.

For the first time, a Finnish badminton team participated in the Games. The team from the University of Turku finished second in the preliminary round and just barely missed out on the medal rounds. In singles, Juuso Kuoppala fought his way to the quarter-finals. Kuoppala, who lost the quarter-final 2–0, played steadily for the first half of both games, but the end halves of the games were difficult for him. Emilia Ojala did great and made it among the best 16 – just as she did in doubles with her partner Johanna Kelavuori.

In addition to exciting sports, the Games offered many great moments. For an event of 5,000 athletes, the Games were fairly well organised and there were plenty of accompanying activities. Hosting the Championships in two locations was somewhat inconvenient for the competing teams, but fortunately, the next EUSA Games will be held in one place, in Salerno, Italy, in 2026. In 2025, student athletes will be competing for European championship medals in single sports.