More than 2,000 athletes will gather for the 30^th edition of the Winter Universiade, due to begin on January 21 2021, when the International University Sports Federation (FISU) flag will be hoisted and the cauldron will be ignited at the Europaplatz in the Swiss city.

Lucerne will be the event hub and home to the Athletes' Village, with competition taking place at sports venues across Central Switzerland.

Among the number 500-related facts provided by the Organising Committee is that it takes 500 seconds by bus to travel from Lucerne's regional ice centre to the Chapel Bridge.

"Lucerne is cosy and compact, meaning one can easily take short bus rides to main venues like Universiade Park and the ice centre," the FISU website states.

"Start counting: one, two... five hundred and you've arrived."

Five-hundred ice hockey sticks is said to be the distance from and to the Sursee ice rink via the Martigny Platz, the town hall and the parish church, and it is claimed that it takes 500 seconds on foot to get from the Bossard Arena in Zug to the old town, along the lake.

The Bossard Arena will be home to the men's ice hockey competition during Lucerne 2021, as well as the women's finals and semi-finals.

It is also stated that the distance from the curling venue in Engelberg - Sporting Park - to Benedictine Monastery Engelberg, one of the village's most famous tourist attractions, is 500 metres, and that the distance from Biathlon Arena Lenzerheide to Lake Heidsee is 500 times the height of the "Nordic House".

Lucerne 2021 will mark the return of the world's largest winter multi-sport event for students to the Swiss Alps for the first time since Villars 1962.

It will see competition held in 10 sporting disciplines, contested across seven venues.