World Games 2013 Day 2: Belgium strong in key match against Chinese Taipei

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Great Britain – The Netherlands 19-39 (9-21)

The English coach had a tough time to get his team in shape for the games against the World Champion after yesterday. On the other hand a match without any expectations is an opportunity to start aiming for a better performance.
The Dutch team did its best to entertain the public with spectacular moves and pretty well succeeded in catching the attention.

Chinese Taipei – Belgium 21-26 (10-11)

The game that was announced as the clash of the day showed everything spectators can wish to experience in the first half. Tight defending, struggle for the rebounds from both sides and a magnificent buzzer shot to end after the first 25 minutes.

When the Belgians secured their defence Taipei had trouble finding the right solution. Belgian attackers had the best momentum creating a goal difference that was unlikely to be threatened.

Portugal – Czech Republic 21–18 (12-10)

A quick start from Portugal and immediate answers from the Czechs! Are we in for a high score? However, the tempo dropped and both teams suffered from bad shooting.
There were again a lot of spectators on day 2 to watch a nice game. The teams stayed close together till just before the end when Portugal managed to create a safe gap.

Russia – Germany 15-19 (5-14)

A nervous game resulting in a score that went up slowly because both teams were aware that the loser is definitely out of the search for glory! A comfortable lead however allowed Germany to control the game after the break.
As the Russians still believed in a miracle and the Germans forgot to build good attacks and acted too nervously, everything remained possible. At the end it seemed that the Russians woke up too late!
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World Games Day 1: Netherlands and Belgium win big

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Belgium – Russia 30-15 (14-9)

The opening game brought no surprise. Slow starting from both teams resulted in 14-9 at half time.
Accurate shooting from the Belgians took away all hope for the Russians to bother their opponents.

Chinese Taipei – Germany 22-15 (10-8)

The absolutely magnificent new sport hall was sold out. Taipei made a tremendous start opening a six goal lead sentencing Germany to a difficult struggle to catch up.
With the Germans missing too many scoring chances Taipei controlled the game till the end.

The Netherlands – Portugal 38-18 (22-10)

Much animation when the president of Colombia is escorted to watch the beginning of this match. The crowd enjoys some beautiful actions. This is necessary the score difference is too important

Great Britain – Czech Republic 17-18 (11-6)

This proved to be the most exciting game of the day and the Czechs could not believe how they managed to win. Britain was the better team for most of the match and still led by five goals with 14 minutes left. Suddenly their scoring dried up and the Czechs scored three times in the last minute to snatch an incredible victory.
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Colombian President Santos visits korfball competition

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Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos visited today the korfball competition at the World Games in Cali. Santos, who was unable to attend the Opening Ceremony of the World Games, picked korfball as the event to attend in a short visit to Cali. Media attention was extensive, with dozens of national TV and Radio stations covering the visit. President Santos assisted Colombian national team player Camilo in doing a running-in shot in the middle of the court, and he greeted the players of the Netherlands and Portugal before their match. He stayed for a short additional period to watch the beginning of the match before proceeding to a press conference.

The World Games 2013 Opening: a smile of every face

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With the opening ceremony of the World Games last night, the second largest event in the Olympic Movement has reached Latin America. In his opening address, Colombian Vice-President Garzon mentioned that Latin America needs to regain its position on the international sporting stage, having lost a lot over the pas several decades. while this may be true on the field, off the field the citizen of Cali – the Caleños – have embraced and welcomed the 45000 athletes and many of their guests and fans with great enthusiasm. On our way to the stadium last night, literally every single face of the hundreds of thousands of people in the street was lined with a smile. not just a smile of happiness, which the event brings to a city in transformation, but also an enormous smile of pride that Colombia and Cali have made the bold move of bidding for and winning the right to host these World Games.

Of course, preparations have been characterized by many stereotypic Latin characteristics, and even while the Games have now started, many challenges remaikn on the organizational and facilities side, in lign with similar experiences of the IOC in Brazil and the Commonwealth Games in India a few years ago. Organizing an event in Cali has turned out to be a daunting task for many of the International Federations that are the acting partners of the World Games.

For korfball, in any case, the event has been a challenge due to the fact that we do not yet have a local federation of any particular strength. yet the Games seems to have brought the energy to get this going, and make Colombia our third strong foothold in Latin America, with Brazil and Argentina. I do hope that soon at one of the major korfball events we will be able to witness the very same Latin smiles, as our sport has all characteristics to be as successful on this continent as it has been in Asia over the past decade.

Jan Fransoo, IKF President

 

 

 

 

 

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.

Czech team on intense preparation programme

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Directly after the Extra Czech league final in May, players from the the Czech Republic’s top clubs were selected for the Czech national korfball team and began preparaing for the World Games in Cali.

Former international player Ivo Kracik is now coach of the team, which has a schedule of five weekend training camps, consisting of 15 training sessions and 10 friendly matches. Two of the camps will take place in the Netherlands, where the Czech team will play matches against local clubs and the German national team. One of the training weekends in Czech will also host the Dutch U21 national korfball team.

Playing so many preparation matches, against so many different opponents, will be a first for the Czech squad, which Ivo Kracik hopes will give his players more self-confidence and improve their performance in their early World Games matches.

Czech national squad members include a mix of experienced and young promising players. One of the players, Klara Zabojova, will play in her third World Games, while team mate Denisa Kolarova is only 16 years old and playing in her first big event.

Coach Kracik says the goal for the team is to return to Europe as number three, though concedes that winning the bronze medal will be a tough task.

The Czech team’s participation in Cali is thanks to financial support from the Czech national Olympic committee (COV) and Ministry of Education and Sports.

COV has put in place a four year support programme leading up to the World Games of 2017 in Wroclaw, which is near the Czech Republic border, and which COV expects will attract considerable interest from the Czech sporting public.

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.

European Bowl moved to Netherlands

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IKF Europe and the IKF Competitions Committee have decided to move the location of the European Bowl tournament, originally scheduled to be held in Turkey from 18-20 October, to Papendrecht (NED). Local organizational problems have driven the IKF to take this emergency measure. IKF will remain in discussion with the Turkish Korfball Association on the hosting of next year’s IKF U21 European Championship.

The European Bowl is a qualification event for next year’s IKF European Championship. It is played in two groups. The first group played its tournament in Slovakia last month. From that event, Slovakia, Serbia, and Scotland qualified. In the event in Papendrecht, the likely participants include: France, Turkey, Wales, Greece, Romania, Ireland and Bulgaria.

The dates for the event will remain identical. The measure is extraordinary, as the IKF will directly make use of the facilities of the largest korfball club in the world, PKC Papendrecht, who have been very supportive in making their facilities and volunteers available. The IKF very much appreciates the cooperative attitude of PKC at this short notice. PKC Papendrecht, under the responsibility of the Royal Netherlands Korfball Association KNKV, are also the host of next year’s IKF Europa Cup Final.