IKF World Korfball Congress and General Meeting

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Friday 25, Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 October 2013 around 50 delegates and IKF Council members are in Lisbon, Portugal for the bi-annual IKF World Korfball Congress and General Meeting. The Portuguese Korfball Federation (FPC) hosts this event.

Friday and Saturday are scheduled for the IKF Congress with sessions on competitions, new korfball formats, refereeing, changes in age groups, the international korfball calendar, communications, media, social media, equal gender, the Year of the Youth. Further the IKF President, Dr Jan Fransoo, and the FPC President, Mr. Mario Almeida, will sign the contract for the next IKF European Korfball Championship in 2014 in Portugal. A Portuguese Secretary of State will give a speech to all delegates on Friday afternoon to honor the IKF Congress.

Sunday morning 27 October is reserved for the IKF General Meeting. All 59 IKF member countries are invited. Based on the countries present in Lisbon from all over the world over 85% of all voting rights will be present in the General Meeting. The General Meeting is the last part of the official program.

New website for korfball coaches

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After last IKF Level IV “High Performance Coach” course was held from 27th August – 1st September 2013, the new website for korfball coaches was launched at www.ikf.org/coachingkorfball .

The website is created to share content about the training and coaching of korfball, so all coaches are invited to log in and share information about their training exercises. At the same time they can find information about coaching materials, courses, etc.

To participate in “Coaching Korfball” website requires logging in including personal information, therefore it will allow IKF to create a database recruiting information from persons involved in coaching at all levels: from P.E. Teachers need to find exercises for their trainings to regular korfball coaches in different parts of the world.

“Coaching Korfball” website contains different sections to feed the background of coaches formation. In the section Training exercises, you may find exercises for trainings at different levels; to IKF Education where there is information about courses and clinics. At the same time there are some other sections as Rules and Promotional , where registered coaches and P.E. Teachers can find materials to show the very basics of korfball.

The IKF Level IV “High Performance Coach” course is ready to start 27th August

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Everything is ready for the start of first edition of for IKF Level IV “High Performance Coach” course during the week from  27th August to 1st September 2013. The city of Dordrecht and the great accommodation of DeetosSnel will host the first stage of a course that will be developed during the period August – December 2013.

During this first stage attendants will receive the instruction designed by Program Manager Mr Ben Crum. The “korfball guru” has designed a program of topics that will be developed by the best assortment of tutors and coaches possible, in order to implement the theory contained at his last “IKF Guide to korfball coaching” successful book.

Coaches and tutors appointed to run the different topics will be from in and out the korfball sphere. As korfball instructors, some names appointed to run the different topics are:

–       Jan Sjouke van den Bos (Coach Dutch National team 1999-2013)
–       Gert-Jan Kraaijeveld (Assistant Coach Dutch National team 2009-2013)
–       Wim Scholtmeijer (Coach Dutch National U21/U23 team period 2010-2013 and new Coach senior National Team)
–       Daniel de Rudder (Coach Belgium National team 1984 -1990 and Coach of National Teams of South-Africa, Poland and Turkey in different periods) and
–       Wim Bakker (Coach at Koog Zaandijk. Dutch Indoor Champion 2008, 2010 and IKF Europa Cup Champion 2009)

At the same time, there are other non-korfball lecturers involved to support the program of the IKF Level IV “High Performance Coach” course; tutors Raymond Verheijen and Peter Beek, are expected to deliver and outside vision about their main topics respectively: “Sport physiology and Physical Conditioning” and “Neurology and motor learning”.

Tutor Raymond Verheijen is well known in the football world as a founder of UK Football Academy and Dutch Football Academy, but also as assistant coach and physical trainer specialist performing in National Teams of The Netherlands, South-Korea, Russia or Wales but also at club level with Glasgow Rangers, Barcelona or Chelsea.

On the other hand, Peter Beek is developing a long career already as researcher in “Neurology and motor learning”. He is professor in “human movement sciences” at Department of Motor Behavior, Faculty of Human Movement Sciences, VU University Amsterdam

In order to follow this program starting next 27th August, KNKV TOP 6 Program supports the scholarship entry fee of a number of coaches who have been appointed by the different national organizations according to the terms of the TOP 6 Program:

  Country Attendants M/F National Team Current league team/Country
1 ENG Dave Buckland M Head Coach Seniors   England Tornadoes  /ENG
2 GER Detlef Dulfer M Coach U16 Germany Albatros / GER
3 CZE Ivo Kracik M Head Coach Seniors   Czech Republic Ceske Bujedovice /   CZE
4 CAT Rosendo Garcia M Coach U23 Catalonia CEVG / CAT
5 CAT David Rua M Coach U19 Catalonia CK Montcada / CAT
6 RUS Sergey Nizovsky M Head Coach Seniors   Russia
7 HK Warman Cheng M Head Coach Hong-Kong
8 POR Joana Faria F Coach U19 Portugal  Benfica 2nd   Div/POR
9 TAI Inglish Huang M Head Coach Nat. Team   Chinese Taipei
10 POR Jorge Alves M Head Coach Seniors   Brazil
11 CZE David Schwarz M Coach Czech Republic   Academy Korfball School Decin   / CZE

After the Stage 1 will be celebrated during last week of August , attendants will follow Stage 2 of 15 weeks of on-line lessons during the period September – December 2013, and finally the learning program will finish with Stage 3 during next Challenge Tournament in Rotterdam.

Opening ceremony World Games 2013

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The opening ceremony of the 9th World Games in Cali, Colombia took place in front of 35,000 spectators in the sold-out stadium on the evening of 25 July, another 40,000 watching the event on a large screen outside the stadium, and hundreds of thousands of Caleños celebrating the opening of the event in the streets. It’s the 1st time this multi-sport event is held on the South American continent.

The 4,500 athletes and officials coming from 101 countries from all over the world will participate in competitions in 31 sports till August 4th.

The korfball event will start July 31st and the finals will be played August 4th

Closing ceremony of Universiade

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The Universiade is an International multi-sport event, organized for university athletes by the International University Sports Federation (FISU). The name is a combination of the words “University” and “olympiad”. The Universiade is often referred to in English as the World University Games.

The closing ceremony of the 27th Summer Universiade was a spectacular finale to 12 days of competitions where 11,800 athletes representing 160 countries participated in a comprehensive sports program of 27 different sports.

The FISU Flag was presented to the Organising Committee of the next Summer Universiade which will be held in 2015 in the South Korean city of Gwangju.  However in 2017 the host will be Taipei and IKF are aiming to have the sport of korfball included in the program for this event.

IKF are in the process of applying for inclusion into the program of recognised FISU sports and will be busy over the coming months to do everything possible to have the sport of korfball included in the 2017 Universiade program in Taipei.  Taipei is also the host of the 1st IKF Asian University Korfball Championship (AUKC) which is scheduled from Wednesday 14 to Sunday 18 August 2013 in the Gymnasium of National Taipei University of Education.  Eight teams from five Asian countries have entered this event which is a culmination of lots of hard work from the Chinese Taipei Korfball Association and many years of promotion and development in the Asian region.

Round Table Conference on Gender Equality

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KAZAN – The FISU Gender Equality Committee held a ‘round table’ conference on July 16th at the Main International Centre, Kazan Russia, drawing about 60 people representing different delegations and organizations.

It was a majority of women from all parts of the world at the conference, but there were a number of men present who are involved with FISU.

A number of gender equality issues were highlighted within the sporting culture and the FISU structure itself and Helen Searle (Special delegate for equal opportunity for IKF) did a presentation of the sport of korfball as an example of a sport promoting all the values of equal opportunity that FISU are aiming to achieve.

The Gender Equality Committee seeks to improve equality and equity in all sports, in particular in university sports, which includes athletes, delegation and board members and officials.

27th Summer Universiade in Kazan

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Helen Searle, IKF’s Special Delegate for Equal Opportunity is currently in Kazan, Russia representing IKF at the 27th Summer Universiade which runs from July 6 to July 17.

These Games are held every two years and showcase the finest athletes in the world that are studying in Universities. The athletes will compete in 27 individual and team sports spread over many amazing new sports facilities in the city of Kazan where 20,000 volunteers are working daily to help the games be a big success.

The opening ceremony held in the new Kazan Arena Stadium was filled to capacity with 45,000 people and a spectacular show was displayed by the Russian organising committee for all the athletes and the public together for in amazing ceremony featuring modern technology combined with Russian traditional culture.

In conjunction with the games Helen’s main focus will be to participate in a conference organised by FISU (International University Sports Federation) and speak about korfball and how its fundamental principles promote equality in sport. Ideas and programs will be shared between conference delegates with the focus on gender equality in our global sporting community.

Helen is pictured here with Uni, the kitten of the winged snow leopard. Uni has been chosen as the mascot for the Kazan 2013 Summer Universiade. The winged snow leopard is the national symbol of the Republic of Tatarstan.

USA Year of Youth Match

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IMG_20130615_101004_589On Saturday, June 15, 2013, the USA held a youth in korfball event in California. We had middle school, high school and a couple college students come out to the even. We began with an introduction to korfball followed by some training. We ended the event with a White vs Blue korfball match. The match was very exciting to watch. At the half, the blue team was up 4-2. This deficit did not deter the white team a bit as they battled back and took over the second half. At the end of regulation, the score was tied at 9-9. Both teams went back and forth in golden goal, however, J. Vaiz was able to score the final goal leading the Blue team to it’s first California Youth in Korfball victory.IMG_20130615_101105_863

USA Participating in Year of Youth Korfball event

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The USA will be a part of the Year in Youth Korfball event. We will have a training session followed by korfball matches in California on Saturday June 16, 2013.