This event in Lund, Sweden holds a very special place as it is the first ever FISU World University Championship to be held. 126 participants from seven countries took part in this historic event.
At the time, handball had been an Olympic sport in the discipline of field handball (introduced at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin). It was only kept in the 1936 edition, later making an appearance at the 1952 Olympics as a demonstration sport.
Matches were being played across neighbouring cities of Halmstad, Malmo, Halsingborg and Kristianstad as Sweden and Germany topped their respective groups and playing in the first WUC final, which ended in favour of the hosts 14-11.
“All leaders met an evening at a very charming Swedish inn on the plain a couple of miles outside Lund to discuss among other things the future of the tournament, Spain offered to look into the possibilities of arranging the next tournament in 1965– in case of failure, Germany and Romania would in turn take over. Everyone had wished that the tournament would become permanent in the future and that it would be given a permanent place on the FISU program.” – Lars Wass, secretary of the Swedish University Sports Federation (SAIF) during the 1963 WUC.
Hosting handball in Lund in 1963 became a catalyst for the thriving FISU World University Championship schedule we see bi-annually today.