Panamerican Championship to be held in Brazil

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The International Korfball Federation has announced that the First Panamerican Championship will be held from January 31-February 2, 2014 in Americana, Sao Paulo State, Brazil. The event will be organized in collaboration with the FCERJ and FCESP, the korfball state associations of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

The event will be the first official championship in korfball ever organized in Latin America. Invitations have been sent to all members on the continent. Since the event will serve as a qualification event for the 2015 World Championship in Belgium, it is expected that the leading korfball nations of the continent will take part, including the United States of America, Brazil, and Argentina. If Colombia manages to establish its national organization soon, it also plans to take part in this important event.

Korfball moves forward with rule changes

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The Council of the International Korfball Federation has announced a series of rule changes as part of the continual improvement to further develop the world’s only mixed team sport. The changed rules come into effect on 1 September 2013.

The most striking change is to allow competition rules to prescribe that players may re-enter the game after having been substituted. The rule change should allow teams to better protect their athletes against injuries in intensive tournaments. The rule change has been designed such that there is no interruption in the game, and furthermore such that the all-round skills character of the game is maintained: players will have to play in both attack and defence at least once before they can be taken out.

In the coming days, the Council will be also announcing new rules for beach korfball, which allows the game to be played on a smaller court similar in size to a beach volleyball court.

The Council is also working to launch a fourth discipline of the game. Besides (indoor) korfball (8vs8), there is currently outdoor korfball (played on grass or artificial turf) (8vs8) and beach korfball (3vs3 or 4vs4). The council is preparing the launch of a small game, probably 4vs4, later this year.

This text was issued today in an IKF Press Release.

Changes in the Rules of Korfball to take effect from 1 Sept 2013

Explanation of the Changes in Playing Rules to come into effect on1 September 2013

The World Games korfball program online

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The World Games korfball program is online.

Of course you may follow the korfball event during the World Games in Cali, Colombia through the IKF online scoring software system directly attached to the jury table in the korfball venue in Cali.

Follow the link: Korfball in the World Games 2013 in Cali

As well there is a free of charge app available to follow this and all other international korfball events on your smartphone: World Korfball for Android.

Marmara University Sport Club Turkish champion

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The Marmara University Sport Club is the 2013 national club champion in Turkey.

The World Games korfball venue nearby ready

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The Mundialista Coliseum in Cali, venue for the korfball tournament at The World Games is nearby ready. The schedule foresees completion of the venue by the end of this week.

31 July the korfball tournament starts.

Worldwide Korfball Match on the International Youth Korfball Day

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This year the Hungarian Korfball Association decided (besides to another project) to organize a Worldwide Korfball Match on 15 June. The idea that originally came from Miklós Turchányi was simple: everybody could participate by organizing some kind of a korfball contest/match, where the teams were called Korfs and Balls. We collected the results on a special Sportwavez.com website dedicated to the event, where participants could easily register and upload their scores. Based on these scores, the website calculated the overall worldwide score in real time.

After an intensive campaign that ran for 3 weeks mostly on Facebook, 20 countries (and 97 individuals on Facebook) joined the event: in alphabetic order, they were Australia, Brazil, Belarus, Catalunya, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Hong Kong China, Hungary, Nepal, Netherlands, Romania, Scotland, Slovakia, Sweden, Taiwan, UK, USA, Zambia, Zimbabwe. It is one third of all members of the International Korfball Federation, and we had participants from all the continents (except from Antarctica). We were happy to see the results from North- and South America, and never before there were so many korfball activities in Africa.

The final result was 899 : 827 for the Balls team(s), which means 1726 goals scored worldwide.

The top scoring countries were:

Catalunya: 413 goals

Hungary: 309 goals

Germany: 175 goals

Taiwan: 166 goals

Sweden: 113 goals

Nepal: 105 goals

Slovakia: 96 goals

Zambia: 73 goals

Hong-Kong China: 56 goals

Romania: 48 goals

Brazil: 41 goals

Ghana: 33 goals

Greece: 26 goals

The Netherlands: 20 goals

UK: 19 goals

USA: 19 goals

Australia: 14 goals

We were happy to see a very enthusiastic participation from smaller korfball countries, while the bigger ones showed less interest in this project. It shows that such events can be used as promotion events in the developing korfball countries.

We organized this event with a bottom-up approach, meaning that we didn’t ask countries to participate, but we provided an easy-to use and fun environment where all interested individuals, clubs and national federations could participate. I think it is a method to be utilized also in the future: we have to provide a framework that the countries can fill with their own activities. It means flexibility from the organizers’ side, and more emphasis on activities that the korfball countries would really like to be involved in.

Finally, something about the technical background of the event:

The website on Sportwavez.com (http://sportwavez.com/seasons/worldwide-korfball-worldwide-korfball-match) provided an easy-to use online tool to post all results in real time, with a professional look, tailored to the event.

The Facebook event: (http://www.facebook.com/events/563413473709807) was the fastest and most effective way to create a campaign among korfballers around the world.

 

Bandor Nagy

Youth Development Weekend in Australia

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Year of the Youth – Development Weekend Australia June 8th & 9th

To celebrate Korfball’s International Year of the Youth a Youth Development Weekend was held in conjunction with the National Club Championships in Melbourne. The weekend saw over 40 players aged 21 or under participate in trainings and games from 4 States in Australia and a group from Christchurch New Zealand.

Some of the highlights for the weekend were:

  1. The development group playing against a legends team consisting of previous Australian Team players and coaches along with some players from the Netherlands and Belgium.
  2. The awarding of the Korfball Youth Leadership Awards at the tournament dinner where we had recipients in all the three levels. There were xxx Bronze, xxx Silver and xxx Gold.
  3. The match between the combined Australian youth development group and the Christchurch NZ youth development group. This game was played on a full size court at a high standard.

 

Mark Zilm
President Korfball Australia

 

Pictures and more information about the weekend can be found in the June newsletter.

Korfball Australia YOY News – June 2013

 

 

IKF Europa Cup 2014 contract signed

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Saturday 22 June 2013 the IKF Europa Cup (IKF ECup) contract was signed. The 48th edition of the IKF ECup will take place in Papendrecht, The Netherlands between Wednesday 15 and Saturday 18 January 2014. Twelve club teams from all over Europe will participate in this annual 4-day event in January.

On the left Jan Fransoo, IKF President. In the middle Martin Dekker, President PKC and Local Organiser. On the right Rob Meijer, KNKV President.

Live webcasting – Youth korfball

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Saturday 22 June the YouTube Korfball Channel  – ikfchannel – will show youth korfball amongst others in LIVE webcasting.

In the city of Dordrecht,The Netherlands, this Saturday the KNKV organises the finals in the outdoor competition. The Local Organising Committee of the clubs in Dordrecht, the city council of Dordrecht  and the KNKV support related to the Year of the Youth 2013 the webcasting project.

The following matches will go live to the world (all starting times are in Amsterdam time zone):

Youth till 13 years; starting 1100 AM : Oranje Wit C1 – Achilles C1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msBdh32l2tA

Youth till 16 years; starting 1330 PM : DeetosSnel B1 – GroenGeel B1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkYFEY9ghMs

Youth till 19 years; starting 1700 PM :  DSC A1 – Fortuna/MHIR A1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maKwTdq3IwY

Seniors; starting 1900 PM :  PKC/Hagero – Blauw Wit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1CrATpZ014

 

 

Celebration of the International Youth Korfball Day in Scotland

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A short report on Scotland’s activities on 15th June for the Year of the Youth celebrations

Over 500 children in Scotland have been introduced to korfball in the last six weeks as part of Scotland’s Year of the Youth project, which culminated in Dundee on Saturday with the inaugural Scottish Schools Open championship.

29 participants from six schools enjoyed skills training and a number of short-form games as Scotland played its part in the largest korfball match in history- the Korfs beat the Balls, 39 – 19.

A three-way round robin was then played for the main prize of the afternoon- the Scottish Schools Open shield- which was won by Lawhead Primary from St Andrews. Lawhead beat both Birkhill Primary and a Rest of Scotland team en route to the trophy. The coach of the winning team, fittingly, was among the first people to bring korfball to Scotland over twenty years ago.

A taster session was also held in Glasgow on Friday, and there are plans for further such sessions in Glasgow and Edinburgh.  Scotland’s youth development is set to continue well beyond the Year of the Youth!

Type of Activity:  A six week programme of taster sessions in schools, culminating in the first ever Scottish Schools Open championship.

Number of Participants:  Over 500 children attended taster and training sessions over the six week period, over 300 of whom were new to the sport. 29 children competed in the Scottish Schools Open competition.

Number of Spectators: Around 20

Winner: Lawhead Primary School (based in St Andrews, Fife); the Korfs (39-19)