Korfball Congress gives boost to youth competitions and development of korfball4

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More international youth competitions and the introduction of other disciplines; those were the main focus in the discussion on the second day of the IKF World Korfball Congress.

The IKF Competitions Committee proposed a new age structure and extension for international youth competition. While currently the IKF organizes World Championships for U23, and Continental Championships U21, it was decided to align those. Given the rapid developments of players, the U23 and senior championships show so much overlap in team composition, that there Congress showed wide support for replacing the U23 World Championship by and U21 World Championship. In 2016, the last IKF U23 World Championship will be held. Further, in younger age groups there are currently no championships, although the IKF patronizes a long traditions of World Cups for U19 and U16. While the patronizing will remain, the IKF will start with an official U19 World Championship, and with Continental Championships for the U17 and U15 age groups. The formats and starting years will be set by each of the continents. It was agreed that the U15 Championships should have more of a festival nature. Further, the European continent, having the the strongest competitions, intends to open up its U17 and U15 events to team from other continents by invitation.

The second major topic for which the IKF Council received wide support was to develop a new korfball discipline, provisionally denoted as korfball4. This compact format, primarily targeted at outdoor hardcourt competitions, but being defined so flexibly that it can be played both indoor and outdoor, should open up new markets for attracting people to korfball. Extensive ideas for positioning, branding, and rules were brought forward by the delegates that embraced the new initiative. The IKF Council will now form a task force that is expected to develop the concept before the middle of next year, with the first events held in 2015.

At the day’s conclusion, the IKF shared its recent initiatives in the areas of communication and social media. For the latter, a new social media strategy will deliver extended multimedia content as from early 2015.

Dr Jan Fransoo, IKF President, – @korfballpres – spoke in his final words to the Congress of a very successful congress and he thanked all delegates for their valuable contributions: “Your support gives the IKF Council even more inspiration on the way we go”.

1st day World Korfball Congress

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The first day of the IKF World Korfball Congress In Lisbon, Portugal was opened with speeches from the president of our host the FPC, Mr Mario Almeida, Mr Guerreiro, Secretary of State for Sports and Dr Jan Fransoo, IKF President in front of around 60 special guests, IKF delegates and committee members.

The sessions were on;

  1. The IKF Year of the Youth 2013
  2. Refereeing
  3. Development and Education
  4. Equal gender policy.

There was great interest in the subjects and many interesting new suggestions from the audience were added to the ideas and plans presented.

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.

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.

Detlef Dülfer new President of German Korfball Association DTB-TK

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Former German national team player Detlef Dülfer has been elected as President of the German Korfball Association DTB-TK. Past President Ute Wickerhauser remain on board and continues in the position as Vice-President.

The German Korfball Association is in fact a technical committee (TK) as part of the German Gymnastics Association DTB. Dülfer and his team will lead the efforts of the German Korfball Community to grow towards a membership of 10,000 by 2020, while simultaneously increasing the standard of the national team.

 

Year of the Youth promotion in Catalonia

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The Catalan Korfball Federation is quite active with youth in the Year of the Youth 2013. Follow the link: https://twitter.com/korfbalkids?refsrc=email