Host eyes top-three finish at Summer Universiade in Gwangju

As the clock ticks down on the major international multisport competition for university athletes in South Korea this summer, the host country counts on Olympic medalists for strong performances.

The countdown will reach 50 on Thursday for the 2015 Summer Universiade in Gwangju, a metropolitan city located some 330 kilometers south of Seoul. The competition will go on from July 3 to 14.

Gwangju is the third South Korean host of the Universiade, after Muju and Jeonju, both in North Jeolla Province, co-hosted the winter edition in 1997, and Daegu held the summer event in 2003.

Athletics, swimming, artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, basketball, diving, volleyball, water polo, judo, football, table tennis, tennis and fencing will be the compulsory sports.

Golf, badminton, shooting, baseball, archery, rowing, taekwondo and handball will be the optional sports.

South Korea will field its largest-ever Summer Universiade delegation with 525 athletes and officials in all 21 sports. The Korean Olympic Committee has stated that the host country will aim to claim at least 25 gold medals to rank the top three in the medal standings.

The team will feature such Olympic gold medalists as Yang Hak-seon, who won the men's vault gold in artistic gymnastics in 2012, and Ki Bo-bae, who swept up two archery titles in 2012, and Lee Yong-dae, the mixed doubles gold medalist in badminton in 2008.

Rhythmic gymnast Son Yeon-jae hasn't won an Olympic medal yet but she has been one of the country's most visible athletes in recent years. She finished fifth in individual all-around at the London Games, the best finish by a South Korean ever, and then became the first South Korean rhythmic gymnast to win an Asiad gold last fall.

Some 170 countries will send about 20,000 athletes and officials to Gwangju and its neighboring venue cities. Gwangju has built 37 venues and 32 training facilities for the occasion.

Athletes aged between 17 and 28 who are enrolled in universities or graduate schools, or who have graduated in the past 12 months, are eligible.

You Byong-jin, president of the Korea University Sports Board, will be the head of the South Korean delegation. You, also president of Myongji University in Seoul, previously led the country at the 1999 Summer Universiade in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.

North Korea will also participate with a 108-member delegation represented in athletics, diving, artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, table tennis, judo, women's football and handball.

North Korea also took part in the last Universiade held in South Korea, the 2003 summer competition in Daegu.

The event's slogan will be "Light Up Tomorrow," derived from the name of the host city, which literally means the "city of light."

Organizers say they've tried to minimize costs and preserve the environment by refurbishing the majority of their competition venues. Only the venues for swimming, gymnastics and archery have been newly built. (Yonhap)