Presidential Newsletter

Transcription

1 Presidential Newsletter In this month s newsletter, we reflect on recent events and also look to the future. Looking backwards, we report on the Presidential meetings during September and October, the LEN Congress, the on-going water polo championships and the end of the season Open Water Championships. Moving forwards, we look to the coming European Short Course Championships, the European Sports Championships and the January European Water Polo Championships. October 2015 Issue 5 LEN is tasked with two major championships within the space of six weeks, namely the events in Netanya and Belgrade, and is also planning both the European Championships in London and the Champions League Water Polo finals just a few months later. It promises to be both a busy and fulfilling period. SWIMMING The big event to which everyone is looking forward is the 18 th European Short Course Championships which are to be held between December 2 nd and 6 th at the Wingate Institute, Netanya, Israel. The Wingate Institute, which was originally established in 1957 on the south of Netanya as a sports training facility, now houses a state-of-the art pool. The pool, which is 3 metres deep and has 10 lanes, has proved to be a fast pool and has accompanying warm up facilities. The 50 metres pool will be re-configured so as to offer a 25 metres racing length for the Championship with a stand for 2,500 seats for spectators to the north side of the facility.

2 The Netanya Pool which will host the 2015 European Short Course Championships A record entry of 47 countries means that this will be the most well represented short course event ever in Europe. In all, there will be approximately 700 swimmers attending the event. Following on from the success of the European Short Course Championships in Herning in 2013, Netanya 2015 will represent another step in the development of swimming as a discipline. For the first time, events will be held over 5 days with heats starting at 9.30 a.m. and semi-finals and finals at 5.30 p.m. The final members of the teams do not have to be submitted until the November 22 nd deadline but we already know that many of Europe s star names will be competing. The breaststroker, Adam Peaty, from Great Britain; Sarah Sjostrom, the Swedish butterfly and freestyle swimmer; Ruta Meilutyte, the Lithuanian Olympic gold medallist, Katinka Hosszu, Hungary, the LEN European Female Swimmer of the Year; and Federica Pellegrini, Italy will attend. Israel, the hosts, will be well represented on their home soil. Their leading swimmers will include Jonatan Kopelev, Yan Yakov Tourmarkin, Gal Nevo and Amit Ivri who will all be very competitive in their events.

3 OPEN WATER The European Open Water Swimming Cup completed its final leg on October 3 rd and 4 th in Larnaca, Cyprus. Once again, the events were held over 5k and 10k. The men s events were dominated by 20 year old Italian, Dario Verani, and Hungarian, Daniel Szekelyi with both swimmers winning a gold and a silver medal. Verani took the 5k time trial in 55 minutes to rank first; Szekelyi, the silver in 55 minutes seconds. The position was reversed in the 10k with 20 year old, Szekelyi, taking the gold in 1 hour 54 minutes 3.65 seconds just 30.9 seconds ahead of Verani. There was also some terrific swimming in the women s events and, here again, Givilia Gabrielleschi from Italy and Svenja Zihsler, Germany, both won a gold and a silver each. 19 year old Gabrielleschi won the gold in the 5k event in 59 minutes 5.06 seconds which was 39.1 seconds ahead of Zihsler. Zihsler turned the tables in the 10k but there was only a finger nail in it with the 21 year old German clocking 2 hours 2minute 50.2 seconds and Gabrielleschi, just two tenths of a second behind. WATER POLO LEN Champions League This year s Champions League will consist of 10 rounds of preliminaries with six teams going through to meet in the Final Six competition in Budapest next May. The draw for the preliminaries pitched CNA Barceloneta, ZF Eger, Olympiacos Piraeus and Spandau 04 together with two qualifying round teams in Group A and Pro Recco, Jug Dubrovnik, Partizan Belgrade and Galatasaray Istanbul with two qualifiers in Group B. The first matches took place during the first weekend in September. The Preliminary Round package will include live television coverage for all games in the preliminaries, a dedicated web site with live scores, specific branding at events and better media services.

4 Day 1 of the Preliminaries has now also been held. In Group A, Jadran Carine Herceg Novi lost at home to Primorje Erste Bank Rijeka, 11-9 after the match was 9-9 in the third quarter. Eger and Olympiacos battled to an 8-8 draw and 2014 Champions, Barceloneta defeated Spandau 04 Berlin 9-7 in Barcelona. In Group B, champions, Pro Recco defeated Galatasaray 15-4, Partizan Belgrade, another perennial winner of the competition received an early setback, losing 14-9 at home to Szolnoki and A Hid-OSC Budapest also went down at home 9-7 to Jug Dubvrovnik. MEETINGS President s Meetings Paolo Barelli, the LEN President, has travelled extensively over the last two months in support of LEN. Among other meetings, he has visited the LEN office in Nyon on several occasions in order to support the new staff and to discuss the development of the office including the relationships with local Swiss authorities. Similarly, he has attended a number of meetings on the European Sports Championship project. These include meetings in Losanna with the European Athletics Association, meetings in Birmingham and, then, in Paris for the European Sports Championships Board. Finally, he also attended meetings in Glasgow and Edinburgh (due to be home to the Synchro and Diving Championships) at which the decision to include gymnastics in the European Sports Championship was agreed. The concept of the European Sports Championships 2018 (Swimming, Diving and Synchronised Swimming) is that of a multi-sports event which will include 7 sports (6 of these in Glasgow and Edinburgh with athletics in Berlin) to be held in the same period in a coordinated calendar and with the same television/media umbrella.

5 At the end of October, the President and David Sparkes, General Secretary of LEN, visited Edinburgh to look at the diving and synchro facilities at the Royal Commonwealth Pool. The pool will be a supporting host to Glasgow for the 2018 European Swimming Championships. The President and Secretary then travelled on to Glasgow to sign the long form of the contract for the coming championships. LEN Congress Among many items at a successful LEN Congress on October 9 th and 10 th, it was unanimously agreed among the countries attending that no federation in Europe would have a relationship with any organisation not working under the jurisdiction of FINA and that both LEN and the federations would continue to work with FINA around the world. The LEN President met the FINA President and Executive Director to present a report on the LEN Congress and to hand FINA a letter of support accordingly. The President s speech at the LEN Congress in Vienna (Photo: Giorgio Scala, Deepbluemedia) During the Congress the LEN President announced that there will be financial benefits for those teams and swimmers competing at the European Short Course Swimming Championships in Netanya, Israel, next month.

6 Total prize money for the Championships will be 220,000 euros, the outcomes being based on FINA points scoring. In addition, there will be contributions to the federations in support of their teams to the sum of 280,000 euros. LEN s ever improving financial position has enabled Paolo Barelli to make this announcement. The Congress was very well organised by the Austrian Swimming Federation and our thanks go Dr Stefan Opatril for his support. LEN Bureau Meeting The LEN Bureau meeting in Vienna in October allocated several key events. The 2017 European Short Course Championships will be held in Copenhagen following a joint bid from the Danish Swimming Federation and Sport Event Denmark. The event will be held in a newly constructed pool, the Royal Arena, which will be completed in The Danish Delegation who were successful in securing the 2017 European Short Course Championships for Copenhagen (Photo: Giorgio Scala, Deepbluemedia)

7 The European Junior Synchronised Swimming Championships will be held in Belgrade; the European Junior Men s Water Polo was allocated to Malta and the 2018 European Junior Swimming and Diving Championships to Helsinki. Tampere, Finland, will be the host to the European Junior Synchronised Swimming Championships in 2019 with the swimming and diving going to Kazan. The 2020 European Junior Diving Championships will be hosted by Aberdeen at the new 50m pool built at the Aberdeen Sports Village. Finally, the European Masters Swimming Championships will be held in Kranj and Bled in Slovenia in Water Polo Meeting The draw for the European Water Polo Championships took place at the City Hall, Belgrade on October 4 th. The Men s Championships, which will be staged at the Kombank Arena from January 10 th -23 rd, will consist of 7 teams which took part in 2014 plus 8 qualifiers. Group A will be made up of Montenegro, Spain, Netherlands (Q) and Slovakia (Q); Group B, Serbia, Croatia, France(Q) and Malta(Q); Group C, Italy, Romania, Germany (Q) and Georgia (Q); and finally, Group D, Hungary, Greece, Russia (Q) and Turkey (Q) (Q indicates that countries qualified through the Qualifications, Round ll which were held in Netanya, Chalons-en-Champagne, Gzira and Astrakhan). The Women s Championships will see two groups with Group A being comprised of Netherlands, Hungary, Russia, Greece(Q), Portugal(Q) and Turkey (Q) and Group B, Spain, Serbia, Italy, Germany (Q), France(Q) and Croatia(Q). The qualifying groups were held in Krefeld and Rio Maior. For Malta, Belgrade will be its first European Championship Men s Finals and similarly, Turkey has qualified for the women s event for the first time. In all, there will be 100 games and the organisers are seeking some 400 volunteers for the event.

8 Meetings It has been a busy period for Paulo Frischknecht, LEN Director. September 3 rd and 4 th, he attended the FITS (the Financial Integrity and Transparency in Sport) Forum in Geneva. On September 16th, there was a Press Commission Liaison Meeting in Nyon with Per Rune Ekes, LEN Bureau member. Paulo was part of the LEN officers meeting on September 18th at Geneva Airport. The other attendees included the President, Tamas Gyarfas, Treasurer, and David Sparkes, General Secretary. Paulo was also involved in many administrative meetings related to the office move in Switzerland. On Between August 31 st and September 3 rd, Marco Birri, LEN Sports and Office Manager, and David Rouger, LEN Marketing and TV Manager, held a series of site meetings with organisers of the European Short Course Championships in Netanya. Following these meetings, a further meeting was held between Marco Birri and the 8 nations who were attending the European Union Nations tournament. The purpose was to discuss how LEN could help in better developing water polo in the so-called European small countries. A site visit was also held on September 10 th and 11 th in Vienna ahead of the LEN Congress. A further site visit was held on September 21 st and 22 nd in London, attended by Marco Birri and David Rouger prior to the 2016 European Swimming Championships at the London Aquatic Centre. Marco Birri, along with LEN Masters Technical Committee chairman, Simon Rothwell, and secretary, Hans-Peter Sick, made a site visit to Rijeka, Croatia for the European Junior Championships Synchronised Swimming and Diving Championship to be held in Rijeka in This was then followed by a further visit to Kranj to discuss the candidature for the European Masters Swimming Championships in 2018.

9 On October 2 nd and 3 rd, Marco Birri and David Rouger made a site visit to Belgrade to discuss details of the coming European Water Polo Championships. The following day, on October 4 th, Marco was joined by Gianni Lonzi, LEN Technical Committee Water Polo President and Paolo Barelli for the draw for the Championships. The final site visit took place on October 26 th -28 th in Netanya for the European Short Course Championships. Attendees included Marco Birri and Soren Korbo, the LEN Technical Committee Chairman, Walter Bolognani, LEN Web Manager and also the timing representative from Microplus. Monique Berlioux The Fédération Française de Natation announced the death of Monique Berlioux at the age of 91 years. Monique competed for France in the women s 100m backstroke at the 1948 Olympics where she finished sixth in the semi-finals in 1 minute 20.2 seconds. However, she was much better known as the Executive Director of the International Olympic Committee from She died on August 27 th and LEN extends its condolences to members of her family. Paolo Barelli President