World Rowing Forum Looks to Future Challenges

The second World Rowing Forum in Istanbul, Turkey wrapped up three days of speakers with an address from the President of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games Organising Committee, Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki.

Mrs. Angelopoulos described how to make the Olympic Games attractive for spectators, media, television and sponsors and talked about the compromises necessary to make this happen. She pointed to the role of the media describing the care given to the 20,000 journalists that were at the Olympic Games.

This addressed the Forum’s theme of; competing for the future ? attracting new generations to rowing. Under this umbrella the Forum followed four strands; sports medicine, senior coaches, junior coaches and events organisation.

FISA’s events commission member John Hedger said the message that had come from the events organisation side was the desire for rowing to continue in the long term. ?We very strongly felt that there is a sense of urgency that the sport needs to develop,? said Hedger. ?The feedback from the speakers is that TV and media are at the centre and rowing has to act now to make rowing more universally appealing.?

Chair of FISA’s competitive rowing commission, John Boultbee summarised the senior coaches strand by describing how coaches often think only in the short term ? how to make their crews go fast this year and the next. ?But we need to think beyond, to five, ten, twenty years time.?

Boultbee added that the sport must change. ?We need to be attractive to young people.?

Youth commission member for FISA Debbie De Angelis summarised by saying they had been challenged this weekend.

?We see contradictions between long term athlete development versus the timing for talent identification,? said De Angelis. ?We need to look at the continued development of our athletes and the opportunities to build sport bridges, to look at resources outside of rowing, to partnership with other sports.?

Over the next few days www.worldrowing.com will bring you summary reports of the speakers who presented at the World Rowing Forum. Keep an eye out for:
– Competing for the future
– Adaptive rowing and the Paralympic Games
– USA’s Olympic gold medal winning coach, Mike Teti
– Scientific research into rowing