SportAccord Week in Gold Coast 08/05/2019

This years SportAccord is being held on the sunny beach of the Gold Coast, Australia. Unfortunately we have meetings from sunrise to sunset so sunbathing on the beach will not be one of the items on the agenda. 

After traveling for 48 hours to arrive including 15 hours of flight delays, I was finally able to check in and get a good nights sleep. Ready for a full week of meetings. 

We started this Monday morning with the IMGA (International Master Games Association) annual general meeting. The important parts for DanceSport in this meeting was the progress of the European Masters Games in Torino, Italy from the 27th of July until the 4th of August. DanceSport will be participating on the 2nd & 3rd of August. This proves to be a very exciting event for all our Senior competitors. 

The next World Master Games which our Senior competitors have the possibility to compete in will be held in Kansai, Japan from the 14th-30th of May 2021. In the meantime there will be the Pan American Master Games in Rio de Janeiro from the 4th-13th of September 2020 for our athletes from the Americas.  

Our next Annual General meeting was the ARISF (Association of IOC Recognised International Sports Federations). 

The ARISF president Mr. Raffaele Chiulli within his President's report addressed the issue that we all are facing that this generation of young people have so many options on their time. Whether being Social Media or Gaming. This has created a big problem for all sports as young people are less and less physically active. One of ARISF’s strategies has been to remind our youth that “How you compete is even more important than if you win or lose”. To remember that it is the journey and all of the things you learn and experience through sport that is what you take with you later on in life. 

Kaveh Mehrabi who heads the IOC's athletes programmes did a presentation about the different athletes projects which the IOC has been working on. All of these projects can be found on the website under www.olympic.org/athlete365.  

One of their new projects has been Refugees/Migration projects. This is important for them to make sure both refugees and migrants alike have the same opportunities to participate in sport as everyone else. 

One Key message which the IOC representatives mentioned several times throughout all meetings today was “Non-Discrimination”. They want to make sure that all athletes have the opportunity to participate with equality and with no political discrimination. Specifically mentioning the unfortunate injuries that happened in India where which Pakistanian athletes were targeted. Political fractions and differences should be kept out of sport. This was the message.  

There were also many other brief meetings throughout the day and also at the official dinner to promote and inform other Federations and IOC members about out fantastic sport. One of which was Ban Ki-Moon, the former UN Secretary General. It was a pleasure to see him so interested in sport.

More tomorrow.

Regards,
Ashli