This week, Santa Fe will, for the first time, host the National Technological University Sports Games. More than 2,000 students, lecturers, and staff from thirty regional faculties will arrive next week from twelve provinces and will be staying at the Villa Suramericana, which will resume its normal activities just a few days after the Games have ended. From Tuesday 6th, the city of Santa Fe will host the first edition of the Games.
All 30 of the UTN’s regional faculties, spread across twelve provinces, will take part. Each will bring around 60 students, meaning there will be 1,800 competitors and more than 2,000 people in total, including those accompanying the delegations and working on the organisation.
For the Dean of UTN Santa Fe, Alejandro Toffolo, having the Village available was what made it possible to bring the Games to the city for the first time. “We put forward the idea; they listened to us and made it feasible for us to go ahead. Having the Village at our disposal enabled us to organise the Games in Santa Fe,” he said.
For the first time, in Santa Fe
Until now, organising an event of this nature required using venues such as those in Chapadmalal or Embalse, which are equipped to welcome and accommodate large groups. This time, the 30 delegations will be able to stay together throughout the week at the Village and travel from there to the competition venues. The Games will last six days and feature events across various venues in the city. Football and volleyball will be among the disciplines.
“It’s always lovely to hear the different accents and see the different cultures coming together,” said Toffolo, speaking of a week that also serves as an opportunity for students from across the country to get to know one another and share experiences beyond the competition.
The organisers have also drawn on some of the experience gained from the South American Games. The UTN is working alongside the provincial government, the city council and teams that took part in Santa Fe 2026 to sort out accommodation, transport and all the logistics involved in moving more than 2,000 people over six days.
In addition, a meeting of the UTN’s Governing Council will be held in Santa Fe that week, attended by the university’s deans.
The Villa fills up again
The arrival of the UTN will not be the first use to which the Villa is put after the Games. More than 3,000 pupils from schools across the 19 departments have already stayed there to take part in the provincial rounds of ‘Santa Fe en Movimiento’.
The provincial government’s spokesperson, Virginia Coudannes, pointed out that this continuity is part of what was intended when the facilities for the South American Games were planned.
“The South American Games have come to an end, but we are continuing to build on the legacy left by the sports and urban infrastructure projects, as well as the South American Villages,” she said.
Within just a few weeks, the same facilities will have hosted South American athletes, secondary school pupils from across the province and university students from 12 Argentine provinces.
“We were Argentina’s sporting capital, and this legacy keeps that spirit alive. Although the Games flame has gone out, its fire still burns in Santa Fe, the ‘Invincible Province’,” said Coudannes.
For Toffolo, as well as being able to host the Games in Santa Fe, there is something that will be difficult to quantify in numbers: for six days, students from the 30 regional faculties will be staying in the same place, competing, meeting up and getting to know fellow students who are studying the same degree or belong to the same university, hundreds or thousands of kilometres away. The Village, which until a few days ago was home to the South American athletes, is thus once again filling up with young people. This time, they will be arriving from different corners of Argentina, wearing their faculties’ shirts.
