News

The VII International Congress of Canoeing Coaches in Spain is getting closer. The most important canoe congress will be held in Catoria, Spain, between 26th and 28th October 2018 and European Canoe Association is partner of the organising committee.

This will be the seventh edition of the congress, which  primarily focuses on sprint canoeing but this year’s congress brings a novelty – a congress for canoe slalom coaches as well. Around three hundred participants are expected to come to Galicia this October.

 

Presenters and experts from different European countries will share their experience and knowledge on different topics from canoe sprint and canoe slalom. Organisers announce participation of experts from Spain, Hungary, France, Great Britain, Ukraine, Italy, Slovenia and more. Besides these presentations attendees will be able to take part in different workshops that are planned for the weekend.

 

Among those who will be presenting in Catoira is Jean Michel Prono, chairman of ICF’s Canoe Slalom Committee. Before the congress he spoke a bit about his presentation and evolution of video system in use at canoe slalom competitions.

 

JMP: This was organiser’s initiative and it is a great initiative joining two Olympic disciplines in a congress. This is not only good to promote slalom better which has never been well presented at international congress. And secondly everybody could take something from another canoeing discipline. Some of the presentations may inspire the other discipline´s participants as long as they could attend. Probably we will have them simultaneously, but anyway - even the informal conversation between participants will be good. For me it is a very, very good initiative and it is in the Olympic spirit.   

 

JMP: The previous seminars we have been organising regularly after every season had two goals. First it was time to meet, exchange and work on the future evolution and every time we tried to have presentations, something that could enrich knowledge of coaches and team leaders. I think this was quite successful, but this one is new and will give another focus on the discipline. Personally I am very proud to have the opportunity to present the evolution of judging and the technology support. This might even inspire the other discipline.

 

JMP: My presentation will be explaining why the discipline has been searching in direction of dealing quicker and better with the results management. And for doing this what was the factor which was the judging and transmission of judging. This has led us to video judging and different ways of inputting the penalties. The idea is to show from what observation we have been starting thinking in making evolution and that has probably also changed the discipline in some way.

 

JMP: Yes, absolutely. You could see now. We are not using the paperwork anymore. We have freed the judges, we have now judges with different attitude, they are focused on observation, and they have time for a break from a very long concentration. And we could already see the affect of somebody only dedicated to the observation on the course and not to do some writing, alternating with the observation. We feel already the change. The other aspect of that is that we deliver the results, and you may have appreciated this as a media officer, faster. And I would say, we do sometimes still have some small issues, in a more fair way. So that was the main change.

 

JMP: We could already see an advantage of the system of the simultaneity of the penalty call, is how we could transmit this to the public. Now on TV you have the graphic giving you the penalty with the gate number, so it is quite comfortable, but on the bank for those people who come to see the sport, we have to provide them the information.

 

At the moment no, because we are just initiating a forum of athletes and coaches, together for the first time. The idea was to start brainstorming, we plan to open the platform where all the community, all people could contribute. We still need to define the different items we want to put on this platform, but the idea is to organise a wide consultation and at the end make some statistics and give the line for the Olympic cycle. We want to include athletes, media, officials, organisers, equipment providers... If they all participate on the same brainstorming network we may have a chance to find a global direction where people look. It is very difficult, when you gather 30 people, you have 30 different opinions, but the idea of this platform is to define, design the tendency.