Wim Koch, director of the Student Sports Center, and also head coach van student volleyball club Hajraa and a former top volleyball player, says that every year more than two hundred Erasmus students have sports cards. At the beginning of this academic year 163 international students and staff members, who had been in Eindhoven for more than three months, bought sports cards. Last year 9,400 sports cards were issued altogether. Now, at the beginning of the academic year, the Sports Center has already issued as many as 5,000.

The Italian Luca Bellodi from the Department of Electrical Engineering has played soccer since he was five. He is also into karate and he plays indoor soccer as well with a team of friends at an internal competition. Bellodi trains twice a week at Pusphaira and joins the competition on Sunday. Bellodi: “The Sports Center is great. You can try all kinds of sports activities, some of which I didn’t know before, like ‘slagbal’ and hockey on grass.”

Lose energy
At the squash courts we meet Firat Gelbal, a Master student of Business Information Systems and his friend Mehmet Cubuk, a Master student of Computer Science Engineering. Both are from Turkey. Gelbal: “I started last February with squash. I play it three or four times a week. It’s quite fun. I don’t like to jog by myself or to swim. I prefer group sports. You can chat. We also organize small tournaments. I took some lessons. And they were quite helpful.”

Cubuk: “Squash is great fun.” Gelbal: “He likes competition. He likes to organize tournaments and to win them.” Cubuk: “This year I do not have many courses and in the evening and weekend everybody is free. I have a lot of time to play sports. It’s a good way to lose your energy. When I don’t sport I feel agitated.”

Gelbal: “We play tennis, we do some fitness, boxing, swimming. Cubuk: “Football, basketball, I like running sometimes at the cardio-fitness machines. Gelbal: “And we like to dance at Footloose in the Bunker. I like Salsa very much.” Cubuk: “Yesterday we went tap dancing for the first time. If we can find affordable second-hand shoes we will go again. It would be great if the dance lessons were at the Sports Center as well.” Gelbal explains his broad interest in sports: “I like to enjoy life in Eindhoven.”

Gelbal thinks the sports facilities at the TU/e are pretty good. “We can do whatever we want and that is very nice.” He thinks the price for a sports card is good, but he is used to a free sports card at other universities. At most of the universities it is included in the tuition. “But I’m not complaining about the sports card.” Cubuk: “It would be great if the Sports Center were open on Sundays. There is not much to do in Eindhoven on a Sunday, so it would be nice if I could go to the Sports Center.”

Brand new gym
Hamed Abooie, a student of Information Technology from Iran, is in the middle of a body-building training with two friends from Iran who study information Technology as well. “I think the facilities at the gym are very good. Everything is brand new. The swimming pool is also very new and good.” Arash Abtahi: “I play indoor soccer, I swim and train four times a week in body building.” Shanin Hemati, the third body builder, says that he works out four times a week in order to compensate for the brain activity with physical exercise. “And of course to stay in shape.” He thinks sports is a good way to come in contact with other, mostly international, students as well./.