No medals, no athletes: Africa’s struggle continues at FISU Winter World University Games
The 32nd FISU Winter World University Games in Turin, Italy, brought together more than 1,500 student-athletes from 53 nations, all competing for university sporting glory. The event, widely regarded as the highest level of winter sports competition for university students, featured everything from alpine skiing and snowboard cross to curling and ice hockey.
But as the athletes took to the slopes, rinks, and tracks, a glaring absence was felt once again: Africa was missing.
For more than six decades, the FISU Winter Games have been a stage for budding winter sports talent. Yet, a continent of 1.4 billion people, rich in sporting talent and home to some of the world’s finest athletes in track, field, and team sports, had almost no representation.
This was neither a case of temporary absence nor lack of interest, it is a result of deep-rooted historical, geographical, and infrastructural challenges that have sidelined Africa from winter sports for decades.
A continent left behind: Africa’s near nonexistence in the FISU Winter Games
Winter sports have traditionally been dominated by countries with cold climates, where snow and ice are an integral part of daily life for several months of the year. Europe, North America, and parts of Asia naturally produce a steady stream of winter sports athletes.
Africa, by contrast, is home to some of the hottest climates on Earth, with deserts, tropical rainforests, and savannahs, none of which are suitable for skiing, snowboarding, or ice hockey.
This geographical reality has left the continent almost completely excluded from winter sports at the professional and university levels. A look at the numbers paints a stark picture of the imbalance between continents in the FISU Winter Games.
The numbers speak loudly
Since its inception in 1960, the FISU Winter World University Games have been largely dominated by athletes from Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Africa’s presence has been so minuscule that it barely registers in overall statistics.
Across all editions of the event, the continent has produced only 10 athletes, a shocking 0.04% of all participants.
To put this in perspective, one European country alone, such as Switzerland or Norway, often sends more athletes to a single edition of the Winter Games than Africa has in its entire history.
Europe dominates the event, producing 15,984 athletes, which accounts for 64.61% of all participants. Asia follows with 5,547 athletes, representing 22.42% of all participants. This is lower than Europe’s number but still accounts for more than one in five athletes at the games.
The Americas contribute 2,868 athletes, making up 11.59% of total participants. This number is largely driven by Canada and the United States, two countries where winter sports are not only well-funded but also deeply embedded in national sports culture. Their cold climates and history of international competition provide a strong foundation for sustained participation. The contrast between North and South America is clear, while Canada and the U.S. send large delegations, South American countries such as Argentina and Chile send only a few athletes, if any at all.
Oceania, despite its small population and limited natural winter conditions, has 329 athletes, which accounts for 1.33% of all participants. This is 30 times the number of African athletes despite Oceania being made up of far fewer countries.
The lack of participation for Africa extends beyond athletes, the number of African officials involved in the games is equally dismal.
Only 15 officials from the continent have ever been involved in the FISU Winter Games, accounting for just 0.06% of total officials. This means that for every 1,000 officials overseeing the event, only 0.6 are from Africa. Meanwhile, Europe dominates again, with 8,279 officials (63.07% of all officials), ensuring that it remains the central decision-making force in winter sports governance.
Asia follows with 3,280 officials (13.26%), and the Americas contribute 1,403 officials (5.67%). Oceania has 150 officials, a figure ten times larger than Africa’s total representation.
The Trailblazers
African Timeline – FISU Winter Games by Olamide O. Abe
The first recorded African participation dates back to 2003, 43 years after the start of the game, when Marta Jekot of South Africa competed in snowboarding in Tarvisio, Italy.
Her participation set the beginning of Africa’s involvement in the event, with the hope of her pioneering the start of inclusivity for the much-maligned continent.
In 2005, two athletes from Africa took part, with Sarah Ben Mansour from Morocco and Leyti Seck from Senegal competing in Alpine skiing at the Innsbruck event in Austria. For Senegal, he was aiming to fill in the shoes of compatriot Lamine Gueye, who became the first black African to compete at the Olympic Winter Games in Sarajevo in 1984.
Leyti Seck later competed in other winter sports events beyond the FISU Winter Games, including the Winter Olympics. Morocco’s participation in 2005 was also the first time the country sent an athlete to this competition. However, the country did not maintain a continuous presence, missing out in the next five future editions of the games.
Between 2005 and 2011, Africa was completely absent from the event. This long gap reflects the difficulty of maintaining regular participation. The return of African athletes came in 2011 when South Africa sent Kim Falconer and Lejeanne Marais to compete in figure skating at the Erzurum edition in Turkey, what was a shift from the previous focus on Alpine skiing and snowboarding, making them the first African figure skaters to participate in the event.
Kim Falconer competed again in 2013 at the Trentino edition in Italy, becoming the first African athlete to return for another edition of the games. Lejeanne Marais also returned to the competition as Africa’s sole athlete in 2015 to compete in figure skating at the Strbske Pleso/Osrblie and Granada edition.
With long gaps between appearances, Morocco returned to the games after 12 years, sending two Alpine skiers, Adam Lamhamedi and Sami Lamhamedi. The Lamhamedi brothers had been involved in competitive skiing for years, with Adam establishing himself as one of the most accomplished winter sports athletes to ever represent an African country.
Adam Lamhamedi began competing professionally in 2010, seven years before his FISU Winter Games appearance and his talent was evident early on when he was selected to compete at the inaugural Winter Youth Olympics in 2012 in Innsbruck, Austria.
During that competition, he won the gold medal in the super-G event, making him the first athlete representing an African nation to win a medal at any Winter Olympic event and by the end of that year, he was ranked first in Canada for giant slalom and second in slalom.
Unlike most African athletes who had previously taken part in the games, the Lamhamedis had a structured development path in skiing, having been born and raised in Canada, which had allowed them to compete at the highest level for several years before joining the FISU Winter Games.
Joining Morocco in the FISU Winter Games in 2017, Uganda also made its first-ever appearance, represented by Brolin Mawejje in snowboarding. Like the Lamhamedis, Mawejje did not train in his home country either, as Uganda has no winter sports facilities. Instead, he developed his skills in Boston, United States, where he moved to as a 12-year-old.
Since then, Africa has not had a single representative in the FISU Winter Games. The continent was completely absent from the Krasnoyarsk 2019 edition in Russia, the Lucerne 2021 edition in Switzerland, the Lake Placid 2023 edition in the United States, and most recently, the Turin 2025 edition in Italy.
The harsh reality: Zero medals
Looking beyond the number of athletes, Africa’s lack of medal success is even more striking. The continent has never won a single medal, whether gold, silver or bronze, in the history of the FISU Winter Games. Europe, in contrast, has won nearly 2,900 medals, Asia has collected over 1,000, and the Americas have earned 268. Even Oceania, with its 329 athletes, has managed to win 6 medals, while Africa remains at zero.
If broken down further, this means that on average, every 5 or 6 European athletes win a medal, while in Africa, not a single athlete has ever reached the podium.
The games have long been dominated by a core group of nations with strong winter sports traditions. Austria, France, Japan, and the Soviet Union established early success, with Austria winning eight medals in 1960 and steadily increasing to 35 by 1972, while the Soviet Union surged from five medals in 1960 to 50 by 1968.
As the competition expanded, Russia continued its predecessor’s dominance after their dissolution, winning its first medal in 1993 and accumulating 573 medals by 2019 before being banned from competing at the games after their invasion of Ukraine. China, initially absent from the early years too, won its first medal in 1983 and rapidly climbed the rankings, reaching 220 medals by 2025.
The numbers tell a clear story: Despite the expansion of the games, which started with 151 athletes from 15 countries competing in 13 sport disciplines to over 1500 athletes from 53 countries now competing in 96 disciplines, it is still largely controlled by nations with the infrastructure, investment, and climate to support year-round training, leaving the global south at the bottom of the rankings.
