FINA President Maglione: "We will make Aquatics Bigger and Stronger"
FINA President Maglione: "We will make Aquatics Bigger and Stronger"
November 1, 2012 MOSCOW - The 2nd FINA World Aquatics Convention drew to a close, successfully bringing together the entire Aquatics community and reinforcing the ties between all players - partners, manufacturers, coaches, athletes and national federations - to bring the development of FINA's sports to new heights.
A number of crucial topics pertaining to the Aquatics movement was discussed on this last day: national priorities for elite sport, financial realities of high-level sport, global markets and new technologies, new trends in coaching and team management.
What they said about the Convention:
Peter Hurzeler, Head of Omega Timing and speaker at the Convention: "This event is a good benefit for all the federations, it's a fantastic and important event to know what's going on in the sport. In my talk, I explained that swimming is the only sport where the athlete can stop his time."
The audience was surprised, realising it is a noteworthy difference. Hurzeler added: "We have a fantastic relation with the sport of swimming because for me it is one of the best organised international federations. Together with FINA, we did a lot of new things; if you're looking at swimming competitions on TV, everybody understands, it's straightforward."
Pierre Lafontaine, Swimming Canada's CEO and National Coach, also speaker at the Convention, said: "One of the thing we could improve is regarding the Gold Medal clinic: for next time, we could have various parts - discussions with successful, top-level coaches but also coaches from countries where swimming is being developed. It would be useful because not all countries have the same needs and means to develop the sport."
"Moreover, I was really impressed by the speakers' commitment in their presentation and the quality of the content," he added.
Ibrahim Wallee and Williams Kyei from the Ghana Swimming Association also shared their opinion on the event: "For us as an association this is one of the best kind of world events we have ever seen. We would like to see more African countries participating; swimming is not developed so much in Africa, especially Western Africa. We feel it is an opportunity for everybody to come and learn, get to know the possibilities available for developing swimming in our country, such as the IOC Solidarity programmes."
At the end of the day, FINA Executive Director Cornel Marculescu spoke about what we have learned from the Convention and we could activate in order to move forward the development of Aquatics worldwide.
"We will activate internally with our various programmes and externally, with our partners from all sides. We will also continue to support financially the participation of National Federations to all FINA events. We want to show the world how big is our Sport and help in the best possible way our Stars," he continued.
Mr. Marculescu also explained that world-class performance at FINA sporting events revolves around four clusters: sponsors and suppliers, broadcasters and media, host cities and Olympic family.
"From now on, the FINA Gold Medal Swimming Coaches Clinic is part of the FINA World Aquatics Convention and we will continue to strengthen this new event."
During his closing speech, FINA President Dr. Julio C. Malgione said: "Throughout our time here, we have covered several topics, we got a deep understanding of the challenges we must overcome to grow on the national, regional and international levels."
"Within FINA, we are fortunate to have incredible athletes, committed coaches, determined National Federations and long-time partners. Thank you all for being here and we will continue to make Aquatics bigger and stronger!" he concluded.
FINA Executive Director Cornel Marculescu Address at 2012 FINA World Aquatics Convention
MOSCOW, RUSSIA--As part of closing remarks at the 2012 FINA World Aquatics Convention, FINA Executive Director Cornel Marculescu indicated that a coaches conference will be part of future editions of the convention. The 2nd FINA World Aquatics Convention was Tuesday through today (October 30-November 1, 2012) in Moscow.
FINA Aquatics Conference: Reports from Moscow
October 31, 2012 MOSCOW - Day 2 started with two streams of presentations, addressing a wide range of topics: the media and aquatics, latest developments in pool design, new ideas for the five FINA sports, upcoming courses for athletes, coaches and administrators, benefits for host cities and organising committees to stage FINA events.
The newly launched, three-day event is becoming a focal point for the entire Aquatics community - the FINA Family, National Federations, partners, manufacturers, athletes and coaches, bidders and organisers of FINA events, media etc. - to exchange ideas and find new ways to develop the Sport worldwide. Some shared their thoughts on the Convention:
Sam Ramsamy, FINA Vice President (RSA): "The concept of the Convention is superb; the networking sessions in my view are very crucial, relevant and we need to keep that."
Matthew Dunn, FINA Bureau (AUS): "It's a brilliant way for people to be able to connect all the elements of the Aquatic family, particularly the National Federations. The sponsors have a hard performance element and really bring them in together and really understand where the value lies in the sport and business of swimming."
James Hickman, Global Sports Marketing Manager at Speedo International: "One of the best things at this Convention for us is that the coaches are involved. Speedo right now is in a phase of looking to the future and so are the coaches; they've just had an Olympics and they're thinking what to do next. So we're actually in tune in terms of a business where all the coaches are out. The other good thing for us as a FINA partner is the opportunity to meet the organisers of future FINA events."
Dr Trevor Tiffany, Myrtha Pools USA: "This is a wonderful Convention for us because we meet all the swimming federations from around the world. This one especially, FINA brought coaches from around the world here and the coaches are one of our best supporters."
Ismail Farhaan, Maldives' National Head coach: "The information we got at the Gold Medal clinic was very helpful and important for us, so it is very useful for coaches, especially the ones in developing countries. Coming to this Convention, we knew there would be a lot of opportunities to learn how to improve our sport."
Hasim Onat Yildirim, Executive Director of the Istanbul 2012 Organising Committee: "We are happy to be here, we have a chance to promote our event and it's a good opportunity to get to know all the people in Aquatics, share information and this contributes a lot."
Sergi Pujalte, Managing Director BCN 2013: "It is very useful for us to be here; this is a networking opportunity that is very important to us. We can inform people about the future FINA World Championships in Barcelona."
Gordon Orr, Windsor/Detroit bidding committee: "Any time you are bidding on a sporting event, you need to find out not only more about the organisation itself but the people that attend it. And what we have found is that FINA is a first-class organisation, whereby people have been very supportive and embracing the fact that a city like Windsor, Ontario, is very interested in furthering their mission of 'Water is Our World' and we want to move that forward."
