Year 2018 is really special to EUSA because we got our 46th member country. After the vote at the General Assembly in Madrid it was decided that Kosovo is the newest member of our University sport family. Although students from Kosovo participated at EUSA events before, in Coimbra we will see for the first time that their Universities are not under EUSA flag. Last year, Alvin Karaqi won the gold, one the first medals for a University based in Kosovo.

- The quality of EUSA events is very high. Of course it’s University sports and sadly it’s not spread and developed so much in every country like for example in France, Germany, Portugal or another big country. As long as the European Federation of Karate is supporting EUSA Karate events, it will always be a big challenge for every competitor to win there.

Sometimes it is hard to be the only representative of your University because the success of all students that study in Kosovo is on your shoulders. But, experienced athlete as Alvin was stronger than the pressure and returned home the gold.

- Of course it was hard! The quality of the Championship was very high and I fought good representatives. I had 5 intense fights with good and intelligent fighters and every fight could go either way. So, I’m very happy for winning gold.

Another important thing is that this success did two important things for the entire University sport scene in Kosovo. First, it put Kosovo on the map of university sport and second, it showed that the country has potential.

- This means a lot for the entire sport scene in Kosovo and not just the University sports department. Thanks to the hard work of the Kosovo University Sports Federation and their President Prof. Musa Selimi, the help of EUSA and especially Mr. Besim Aliti and the Kosovo Karate Federation President Mr. Ismet Krasniqi we started a new era of sports in July 2017 in Kosovo. Now a lot of athletes who are and will studying will have an opportunity to train (without interruptions), represent their country and University and of course meet new people and students from other countries and universities. Sport is University of Prishtina´s biggest Ambassador.

Unfortunately, Alvin will not be able to represent University of Prishtina at the European Universities events, but other athletes inspired by him will do their best to brand universities from Kosovo as the sport based universities.