Bratislava hosted the Congress of the European Canoe Association, where vice-president, secretary general and two board of directors members were voted. Miroslav Haviar was re-elected as the ECA Vice-president.
Only a week after the Canoe Slalom, Extreme slalom and wildwater sprint canoeing World Championships was held in Bratislava, the Slovak capital was once again in the spotlight of canoeing community. The ECA congress which was supposed to be held in spring and was postponed to early October due to the pandemic gave names of the new/old canoeing officials who will help shape the European Canoeing in the next four years.
Slovak Miroslav Haviar will continue his work as the vice-president of European Canoe Association. Likewise, Branko Lovrić (CRO) was re-elected to the position of the Secretary General of the ECA. Lovrić was also elected as the ECA representative in the Board of directors of the International Canoe Federation. There he will join ECA president Albert Woods OBE and two board members whose terms end in two years – Jovana Stanojević (SRB) and Andrej Jelenc (SLO). Evelina Petrova (BUL) was re-appointed as the auditor.
There were two positions open for the ECA Board of Directors members. Hungarian Peter Karai was re-elected to this position, while Ruud Heijselaar from the Netherlands received more votes than Elena Iskhakova (RUS) and Eva Lindmark (SWE) to occupy the second vacant seat in the Board. Heijselaar replaced his compatriot Elly Mueller, who was named honorary member of the ECA Board of Directors and received special recognition for her longstanding contribution to canoeing and ECA.
The delegates confirmed the proposed changes to the ECA Statutes, but were against the proposals of the British Canoeing regarding the additional changes to the document.
The representatives of ECA informed the delegates on the development and status of canoeing within the multi-sport sporting events. Next year Munich will host the Multisport European Championships and for the first time Canoe Sprint and Paracanoe will be a part of this competition. The sprint races are scheduled between 18 and 21 August 2022.Thenext great news is the programme of the 2023 European Games. For the first time in history canoe slalom and extreme slalom will be a part of the programme, and now the organisers of the European Games in Krakow also showed interest in building the venue to host the sprint events too. However, due to the limitations it seems the course will only allow the distances up to 500 metres. In 2023 Canoe Sprint will be also a part of the European Youth Summer Olympic Festival in Slovenia.
4.10.2021
