2009 Summer Universiade

Bid cities
City	Country
Belgrade	Serbia
Monterrey	Mexico
Poznań	Poland

The bidding process for the 2009 Summer Universiade games began in early 2004. Together with Belgrade another two cities bid for the event – Monterrey in Mexico and Poznań in Poland. Working in Belgrade's favour were the various major sporting events the city was awarded to host in the upcoming 2005, 2006 and 2007 such as EuroBasket 2005, the 2005 European Volleyball Championship, the 2006 European Water Polo Championship, and the European Youth Olympic Festival 2007. Furthermore, the city launched two unsuccessful candidate bids to organize the Summer Olympic Games: for the 1992 Summer Olympics Belgrade was eliminated in the third round of International Olympic Committee voting, with the games going to Barcelona. The 1996 Summer Olympics ultimately went to Atlanta.[1][2]

On 10 January 2005 in Innsbruck, Austria, Belgrade was announced as the host of the 2009 Summer Universiade. The ceremony of the host city announcement was attended by the now deceased Belgrade mayor Nenad Bogdanović.

Srba – 2009 Summer Universiade mascot

The mascot of the 2009 Summer Universiade is a sparrow bird. The organisers chose the sparrow not only because of its symbolic ties to the host city but also because it represents a fast, dynamic and skillful bird, attributes needed for those competing at Universiade. The mascot received a new more modern look in 2009 and a competition began to name the Belgrade sparrow. The three final names for the sparrow were published in the Serbian media in April 2009, with the finalists being Srba, Cvrle and Dživdžan. The final voting was left to the 10,000 Universiade volunteers who overwhelmingly chose the name Srba.[3]

The 2009 Summer Universiade took place in 69 venues across Belgrade and near bycities Inđija, Novi Sad, Obrenovac, Pančevo, Smederevo, Vršac and Zrenjanin.[4] Obrenovac hosted the water polo and volleyball competition, Inđija, Pančevo and Vršac the basketball, Novi Sad the athletics and volleyball, while Zrenjanin hosted the swimming competition. The venue for each sport can be found on the official website of the 2009 Summer Universiade in Belgrade.

The opening and closing ceremonies took place at the Belgrade Arena, with a capacity of 20,000. A range of sports halls have undergone intense reconstruction to meet standards for the Universiade games. A number of venues were also newly constructed.

• 
  Belgrade Arena
• 
  Red Star Stadium
• 
  Belgrade Fair
• 
  SRC Tašmajdan
• 
  SPENS (Novi Sad)
• 
  Millennium Center (Vršac)

• Belgrade Arena — ceremonies, basketball, gymnastics
• Stadion Crvena Zvezda — athletics
• Partizan Stadium — football (final)
• Tašmajdan Sports Centre Pool — swimming, diving
• Tašmajdan Sports Centre Tennis Court — tennis
• Belgrade Fair — judo, fencing, taekwondo
• Železnik Hall — basketball
• Železnik Stadium — football
• New Belgrade Sports Hall — basketball
• Dvorana Sumice — basketball
• FK Obilić Stadium — football
• Omladinski Stadium — football
• Lokomotiva Stadion — football
• Voždovac Stadium — football
• FK Srem Stadium — football
• FK Teleoptik Stadium — football
• FK Makiš Stadium — football
• SRK Banjica — water polo

• Archery ()
• Athletics ()
• Basketball ()
• Diving ()
• Fencing ()
• Football ()
• Gymnastics ()
• Judo ()
• Swimming ()
• Table tennis ()
• Taekwondo ()
• Tennis ()
• Volleyball ()
• Water polo ()