Day One in Bangkok 17/04/2018

This was the highlight meeting of the day and produced the following  

Kit McConnell, the Sports Director of the IOC, gave the first speech, emphasising as his key message that the partnership between the IOC and the IWGA was of the upmost importance to the IOC. In his own words: “The IOC sees the partnership with The World Games as a constant dialogue, not only an event which the IOC attends every four years." 

This is important for the WDSF as our participation in The World Games brings us closer to the IOC in more ways than one.

• At the 2017 edition of The World Games, there were only 10 out of the 31 sports which were sold out at thegate - and Dancesport was one of them!

• World Anti-Doping Administration President & IOC member Sir Craig Reedie gave a presentation about the development of anti-doping efforts and the fact that 30 million received from the IOC and governmental support dollars have been invested to research and testing.

• Our President Lukas Hinder’s position as IWGA Treasurer and member of the executive is of great benefit to WDSF. His reports were unanimously approved, without any questions raised. This reflects the professionalism of Lukas in this forum. He even managed to add a photo of one of our top Standard couples onto the screen during his presentation. 

• A presentation was made by the next host city for The World Games 2021, Birmingham, Alabama, USA. It looked very exciting and all athletes who will be participating can look forward to this event.

• It was confirmed that Dancesport will again be part of The World Games 2021. This cannot be taken for granted, nor does it happen automatically, as there were many other federations and disciplines that were pushing to get in. Some of them even asked openly during the meeting. The fact that DanceSport disciplines will again be on the program will give us just the right momentum so we can show what we can contribute prior to the 2024 Olympic Games in California, USA.

• Lukas Hinder was re-elected for another four-year term as IWGA Treasurer with a record 35 out of the 37 votes.

The WDSF delegation made up of Lukas Hinder, Jean-Laurent Bourquin, Guillaume Felli and myself attended other general meetings today: the one of the Association of IOC Recognised International Sports Federations (ARISF), of the International Masters Games Association (IMGA) as well as the joint IWGA, IMGA & AIMS Dinner.

Lukas also attended an Executive Committee meeting of the IWGA.

After a long day, I will give myself permission to go to sleep.

Goodnight from Bangkok,

Ashli