Wednesday, January 2, 2008
From Sport Insider
Boxing: Academy Project Takes Step Forward As IOC Backs AIBA
The International Boxing Association (AIBA) will on Friday finalise a Selection Committee as its plan to establish a series of boxing academies around the world edges closer to fruition. The AIBA last month opened the bidding process for the groundbreaking project, which will see a state-of-the-art academy established on each continent. The AIBA has set a January 15 deadline for receiving a letter of intent and a May 2 deadline for receiving the bidding files. The final candidate cities will be announced on May 30, site visits will take place in June, and the winning bids will be announced in Beijing this coming August.
In a detailed outline of the Academy project on the AIBA's official website, www.aiba.org , the Federation states that the concept is to create centres of excellence to include comprehensive training facilities, education and development programmes and amenities for full and part-time living. The academies will support the development of coaches, ring physicians and sport managers as well as athletes. “AIBA needs a specific and comprehensive development plan,” read a statement from the AIBA. “The Academy will identify and produce new generations of boxers and officials.” To access an outline of the project, click here .
The academies development came just days after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Baord announced it would release all of the remaining money earmarked for the AIBA. The funds had initially been frozen, but following a number of reforms under AIBA President Dr. Ching-Kuo Wu, a series of improvements have been made to the Federation's judging system. The IOC Executive Board approved a final AIBA fund release of US$415,000 having previously released $300,000 in November 2006 and $400,000 in April earlier this year. AIBA's reform process was launched in November 2006 following the election of Dr. Wu (pictured) as President.
Table Tennis: ITTF President Knocks Back Dominance Worries
International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) President Adham Sharara has refuted claims that China 's dominance of the sport will hinder its future development. This year will see China host table tennis' World Championships in Guangzhou from February 24 to March 2 before the main event of the Olympic Games gets underway on August 13. Looking ahead, Sharara has insisted that Chinese athletes' dominance of the sport will not lead to interest in it decreasing around the globe.
“No, I am not afraid because everything happens in cycles,” said Sharara. “We will have new rules that may shake things around and perhaps bring new players into the forefront. In the early 1980s China was omni-present and dominated totally, then the Swedes were able to change things. Perhaps we could see some new developments in the future.” Sharara feels that the ITTF's junior development programme is set to be key as the sport of table tennis looks to grow in the next decade. “In this era if you do not promote, your product it will go unnoticed,” he said. “But once you get attention, then you must have a good product to sustain the interest. I am counting very much on our Global Junior Programme to help push our sport forward over the next decade.”
With China set to be at the forefront of the sport throughout 2008, the ITTF President feels that now is the ideal time for other countries to step forward and challenge the current status quo. Sharara added: “Before the Olympic Games we have what I think will be a superb World Championship in Guangzhou . I am sure it will set a new standard for future World Championships. We have all this, plus the 17 Pro Tour events and the ever-growing World Junior Circuit. It will be a very exciting year. I think it is good for table tennis. In the past the ‘underdog' would go and challenge the best in their own territory. Now it seems this is not the approach. So, it's good to have many events in the country that dominates the sport so others can see what the top level is all about and how to counter it.”
Football: Jordaan Hails World Cup Progress
Danny Jordaan, CEO of the 2010 Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup Organising Committee (OC), has used the dawn of the new year to fire back at the critics of South Africa 's preparations for the tournament. Last year began with persistent reports that world football's governing body was preparing contingency plans to move the tournament - rumours that were emphatically refuted. Worries remain over whether the OC's grand plans for stadia development for the World Cup will bear fruition. However, Jordaan (pictured) insists that development remains on course and the stadia will be ready.
“The year began amid doubts over whether the six new stadia would be completed on time but, as the year ends, magnificent structures are rising from the earth at Soccer City , Durban , Cape Town , Port Elizabeth , Polokwane and Mbombela,” Jordaan told FIFA.com . “Four of the six construction projects are running ahead of schedule and, while disciplined project management is still required, most doubts have been eased, as the SA construction industry delivers again.”
Strike action at stadia construction sites was another issue that caused concern in 2007. Jordaan believes that this issue has been resolved, but is aware that more challenges will be faced in 2008. “Our progress in 2007 is now a matter of record, but more major challenges lie ahead in 2008 and beyond, and the Local Organising Committee, working in conjunction with FIFA, government and the nine host cities, is committed to sustaining the momentum,” he said. “We have ended the year on a high note with the successful hosting of a magnificent Preliminary Draw and now, with strike issues resolved, we shall start the new year by tackling the main challenge of stadia construction.”
Jordaan feels that the tournament, the first to be staged in Africa, is already having a major impression on the sport throughout the continent with more than two years before the first ball is kicked on June 11, 2010 in Johannesburg . “Where once this continent grappled with issues of investment, and specifically investment in the sports industry, we are now witnessing a change in perception and increasingly the 2010 FIFA World Cup is being viewed as a platform for the ascendancy of African football,” he added.
Motorcycling: FIM Links Up With AMA To Confirm Supercross Championship
The Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) has linked up with the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) to create the Monster Energy (sponsor) AMA Supercross. The 2008 championship will, for the first time, combine both the AMA-sanctioned Supercross Series and the FIM-sanctioned World Supercross GP programmes into a single, consolidated championship and will crown one supercross champion. The championship schedule will start this coming Saturday at Angel Stadium in Anaheim , California , and a further 16 stops will take place, almost every weekend, across North America .
All but one of the stops will be in the United States , and the championship will conclude on May 3, at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas . There will be one stop in Canada at the Canada Rogers (sponsor) Centre in Toronto , but according to the FIM, The 2009 calendar will include two races outside the United States . Since 2002, the AMA Supercross Series and the FIM World Supercross GP have run alongside each other, with two separate titles awarded each year. However, all of the races will now count towards one single world championship.
FIM President Vito Ippolito said: “I have no doubt that the Monster Energy AMA Supercross, an FIM World Championship, will be an exciting and thrilling World Championship that will continue to grow season after season. It has all the potential to become a truly ‘big sport' on the world sports scene in the years to come with rounds outside the United States . I am truly satisfied that the good co-operation between the FIM, the AMA and Live Nation has lead to the integration of supercross into a unique and exclusive World Championship. This will prove to be beneficial for all parties concerned and especially for supercross fans in the United States and all over the world.”
Athletics: IAAF Show To Target Runners Of All Abilities
The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has announced the launch of a magazine show that aims to target road runners of all levels. The ‘Running World Show' will visit more than 50 countries and air throughout 2008 with 50 weekly episodes covering a variety of topics from lifestyle to competition updates and runner profiles, meeting the world's greatest runners and reliving the world's greatest road races. The show is targeted at runners, their families and fans and is intended to link the entire road running world from elite performers to the club runner to the everyday jogger.
The TV magazine, which was officially launched this autumn at SportelMonaco, has Fox as its commercial partner in a deal that will run through 2008 with an option to continue for further years. “Road running is the most populous, diverse branch of our sport, its number of participants and competition structure making it unique,” said IAAF President Lamine Diack. “What other major sport offers recreational participants the possibility to compete alongside elite performers as occurs at the world's major city road races. The average footballer can't play with Ronaldo, but the average jogger can toe the start line with (Paula) Radcliffe.”
Diack (pictured) added: “The IAAF wishes to strengthen its connections with and further help to promote this mass movement. The Running Road Show is a dynamic new tool for achieving this goal by offering attractive TV to the road running community, by providing vital year-round TV coverage.”
Badminton: BWF Keen On Umpire Development In New Regions
The Badminton World Federation (BWF) has revealed it is to focus on the recruitment and training of officials in Africa, Pan America and Oceania over the next 12 months. The BWF is aiming to build on the success of the inaugural year of Super Series badminton, and Anne Smillie, the new Chair of the Sport Committee believes there is a need for a greater spread of officials across the globe. “We have identified three regions where we need more officials,” she said. “To that end BWF will be organising two umpires' training seminars in each of Africa, Oceania and Pan America . We have an abundance of umpires in Europe and Asia but we do not yet have a single certified umpire in Africa, which means there will not be an African umpire at the Olympics in Beijing next August. We want to change that and have an African qualified to officiate at the 2012 Games in London .”
Smillie added: “We are also focusing in increasing the number of qualified referees. With that in mind, we will hold two referees' seminars, one during the Thomas and Uber (sponsor) Cup in Jakarta, Indonesia, in May and one during the Super Series events in October. The next piece in the jigsaw will be a training course for potential event organisers. If we want the best players performing in our tournaments around the world, then we need the best organisers to ensure the events run to the high standards expected of us. So a training course for event organisers will be offered in the second half of 2008. Ideally we would bring together two or three event managers at one Super Series or major BWF event and get them involved so that they can learn from their more experienced colleagues.”
Cricket: Speed Highlights Rise of Twenty20
International Cricket Council (ICC) CEO Malcolm Speed has pinpointed the rise of the Twenty20 format of the game as the key development of 2007. In a year which saw the World Cup take place in the West Indies, it was the inaugural World Twenty20 event in South Africa that captured the imagination of the cricketing public. The shortened form of the traditional one-day game saw national teams bat out 20 overs apiece and India beat Pakistan by five runs in a thrilling final to lift the trophy in Johannesburg .
“In many ways, 2007 will be remembered as a year of limited overs cricket, in particular the emergence of the inaugural ICC World Twenty20 tournament, and the interest that this format of the game has sparked across the cricketing world, particularly in India and Pakistan after one of the greatest finals in ICC history in September,” Speed (pictured) told the ICC's official website, www.icc-cricket.yahoo.com .
The World Cup took place in March-April, but it proved to be a tournament that was remembered more for issues other than the on-pitch action. There was criticism over ticket prices and the length of the event, while Australia 's victory over Sri Lanka in the final was played out in farcical circumstances in the near darkness of Bridgetown 's Kensington Oval. The death of Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer also overshadowed the tournament, but Speed insists that the success of the World Twenty20 later in the year proved that the ICC had learned from its mistakes.
He said: “After everything that the Caribbean nations have contributed to cricket over the years, it was entirely appropriate that the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 should be held in the West Indies . Staged across nine different countries with all that entails, the event ran into problems, which have been well documented and acknowledged. Suffice to say we have learned from the mistakes of that tournament although every time we stage a World Cup there will be challenges to face and barriers to overcome.”
Speed added: “An indication of our willingness to learn quickly from the event in the Caribbean came at the ICC World Twenty20 in South Africa , where a short tournament, with cheap, accessible ticket prices, in a setting designed to create non-stop entertainment for fans on and off the field, provided some incredible matches for the enthralled public. Players, spectators, television viewers, sponsors and officials all seem to have bought into the concept and it is certainly a format of the game that is here to stay, running as an addition to - not instead of - Test and ODI (one day international) cricket.”
Surfing: ISA Receives Scholarship Applications
The International Surfing Association (ISA) has received applications from 20 different countries for the 2008 ISA Individual Scholarship Programme. The ISA will ultimately hand out 20 scholarships worth $1,200, which will support the development of young surfers around the world while “encouraging the importance of education,” according to the ISA. Applications have been received from Peru, Japan, Canada, Ecuador, Spain, Barbados, Bulgaria, Argentina, Guatemala, South Africa, Costa Rica, Chile, Great Britain, Holland, Colombia, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Hawaii, United States and Uruguay.
The ISA Scholarship Selection Subcommittee, which includes ISA Executive Committee members, are currently evaluating the applications, which incorporate submitted school report cards, letters of recommendation and personal essays. The ISA Individual Scholarship Programme was launched last year, with five scholarships granted to Lungani Memani (South Africa), Imani Wilmot (Jamaica), Diego Vargas (Ecuador), Juninho Urcia (Peru) and Guillermo Satt (Chile). For 2008, the ISA has partnered with Quiksilver Foundation, Billabong and Reef Redemption, allowing the Association to push through a four-fold expansion of the programme. The 20 successful applicants will be announced later this month.
The ISA has also announced its calendar of competitions for 2008, with the highlights of the year being three major events. From March 28 to April 6 the ISA World Master Surfing Championship will take place in Punta Rocas , Peru . Then from May 24 to June 1, the Quiksilver (sponsor) ISA World Junior Surfing Championship will be held in Capbreton , France . The final major event of the year will be the 2008 ISA World Surfing Games in Portugal , with the top men, women, bodyboarders and longboarders competing from October 11-19.
Paralympic: Manchester To Host 2008 World Cup
The 2008 Paralympic World Cup will be held in Manchester , England , it has been confirmed. The event, which will be aired by the BBC in the UK and will run from May 7-11, will be hosted by the British Paralympic Association. The annual World Cup is sanctioned by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and the International Wheelchair Basketball Federation (IWBF), and is supported by UK Sport, Manchester City Council and the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA). The schedule of athletics, swimming, track cycling and wheelchair basketball is specifically designed to closely replicate conditions expected at the Paralympic Games in Beijing next year.
Three of the city's competition venues will be used during the event, building upon the legacy of the 2002 Commonwealth Games. More than 300 of the world's best Paralympic athletes from 47 countries competed for 143 medals in four sports at last year's Paralympic World Cup. “This year's Paralympic World Cup in Manchester will be again an exciting sport event on the international sporting calendar,” said IPC President Sir Philip Craven (pictured). “With the countdown to the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games well underway, the competition this year promises again to be of high standard as well as a good test for all competitors.”
Chess: FIDE Accepts New Member And Looks To Future
The Federation Internationale Des Echecs (FIDE) Presidential Board Meeting (PBM) was recently held in Singapore , where Gabon was accepted as FIDE's 162nd Member. Singapore was also the destination for the first PBM under President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov 12 years ago. With the Asean Chess Academy hosting the event, the President's Report focused on FIDE's future development opportunities, with the Board receiving a report specifically looking into the subject from FIDE Development Chief Executive David Kaplan. Training will be a future priority, according to Kaplan, with plans to expand the trainers manual project to offer the appropriate tools for developing future stars.
Kaplan also plans are to increase marketing activities and the presence of FIDE and chess on the Internet, as well as introduce a Chess Palaces programme so that a number of new chess centres can be established in various parts of the world. The PBM also heard that chess has been earmarked to have a significant part of the World Mind Sports Games in Beijing in October 2008, where invited players and teams will play blitz and rapid games, together with Bridge, Chinese Chess, Go and Draughts (Checkers). FIDE has also appointed General Secretary Ignatius Leong as Calendar Administrator to co-ordinate the FIDE timetable for its events.
Modern Pentathlon: UIPM Given Event Progress Reports
Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne (UIPM) delegates were given progress reports on a number of upcoming competitions on the calendar during the recent UIPM Congress in Cape Town , South Africa . Presentations by a number of Local Organising Committees were given, with the next World Senior Championships in Budapest ( Hungary ) in May, the 2008 World Masters Championships in September in Ukraine and the 2008 UIPM Election Congress in Guatemala in November all coming under the spotlight. UIPM President Klaus Schormann welcomed delegates from all six UIPM Continental Confederations to Cape Town , and he gave an update on the UIPM's activities throughout the past year, with particular focus on the Union 's participation at SportAccord.
Schormann added that more than 10 nations will be sending applications to become new Members of the UIPM in the near future, while UIPM Vice-Presidents Ivar Sisniega, Kui-Sung Choi and John Helmick reported verbally to Congress on their respective areas. The Congress approved the international calendar and budget for 2008, as well as deciding to continue testing the combined shoot/run format until the end of this year. The Congress came just days after the UIPM Executive Board meeting, where hosting rights to a number of future events were awarded.
Pending the submission of all the completed bid documents, the 2009 World Cup Final will be held in Rio de Janeiro , Brazil , while the 2009 World Junior Championships will be held in Kaohsiung , Taiwan and the 2009 Biathle World Championships will take place in Monaco . Budapest will host the 2010 World Junior Championships after hosting the World Senior Championships this year, and Great Britain and Hungary will host stages of the 2010 World Cup.
People In Motion: Elections, Appointments & Moves
Mun Baek Woon has been appointed Coach of the Fédération Internationale de Tir a l'Arc (FITA) Middle East Archery Centre (MEAC) in Cairo , Egypt . The 42-year-old, who took up his post on New Year's Day, replaces Kim Joeng-Ho, who is leaving the FITA MEAC to join the Turkish Archery Team.
The Federation Internationale Des Echecs (FIDE) has appointed General Secretary Ignatius Leong as Calendar Administrator to co-ordinate the FIDE timetable for world, continental and other major events.