Presidential Newsletter

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 6th 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.
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 22nd 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.
OPEN WATER
The European Open Water Swimming Cup completed its final leg on
October 3rd and 4th 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 28.62 to rank first; Szekelyi, the silver in 55 minutes 49.09
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.
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.
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 9th and 10th,
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.
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 2017.
The Danish Delegation who were successful in securing the 2017 European
Short Course Championships for Copenhagen
(Photo: Giorgio Scala, Deepbluemedia)
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 2018.
Water Polo Meeting
The draw for the European Water Polo Championships took place at the
City Hall, Belgrade on October 4th. The Men’s Championships, which will
be staged at the Kombank Arena from January 10th-23rd, 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.
Meetings
It has been a busy period for Paulo Frischknecht, LEN Director. On
September 3rd and 4th, 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.
Between August 31st and September 3rd, 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 10th and 11th in Vienna ahead of
the LEN Congress. A further site visit was held on September 21st and
22nd 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 2016. This
was then followed by a further visit to Kranj to discuss the candidature for
the European Masters Swimming Championships in 2018.
On October 2nd and 3rd, 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 4th, 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 26th-28th 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 1975-85. She died on August 27th and LEN extends its
condolences to members of her family.
Paolo Barelli
President