FIS News In Brief - September 18, Week 4
Topic of Safeguarding warmly welcomed at 16th Youth and Children’s Seminar
High interest in the Youth & Children's Seminar 2018 -
FIS
During the 51st FIS Congress in Costa Navarino, the FIS Congress adopted the FIS Safe Sport Policy. The Policy is designed to address Safeguarding from harassment and abuse and help National Associations implement their policies. To provide more information about this important topic, the 16th FIS Youth and Children’s Seminar held during the FIS Autumn Meetings in Zürich focused on the theme of Safeguarding with the theme “Athlete Wellbeing – Safe Sport for All”.
Following the welcome by FIS Secretary General Sarah Lewis who highlighted the importance of FIS and all National Associations having the necessary policy and procedures in place to handle any incidents that may arise, FIS Lead Welfare Officer and Vice Chair of the FIS Medical Committee, Jenny Shute, presented the past, present and possible future implications of harassment in sport. In the presentation, Shute focused on how Safeguarding policies can be implemented and gave best practices of how other sports are introducing the policies into their environments.
A panel discussion with guests Susan Greinig (IOC Medical Programmes Manager and Toolkit co-author) Kirsty Burrows (IOC Safeguarding Toolkit co-author) ,Hannah Kearney (FIS Athlete Commission and Council Member), Jenny Shute and Anne Tiivas OBE (Director of Safe Sport International) was held. Lead by Clare Barrell (International Relations Adviser to UK Sport), the panellists fielded many questions from the active participants. Using their knowledge and experience helpful advice was provided to audience on these various topics.
Keynote speaker Anne Tiivas OBE took the podium in the second half of the programme. Looking at the key question of „How can we prevent harassment and abuse?”she provided a number of practical steps that have been used throughout the sports world. These included implementing education programmes, being open to feedback and listening, implementing a Safeguarding Policy and recognising that the problem does not have one source.
Following Tiivas, the adviser responsible for work against sexual harassment and abuse in the Norwegian Olympic Paralympic Committee and Norwegian Confederation of Sports, Håvard Øvregård, looked into the question „What to do if we have a case?“. To answer the question Håvard shared various cases which he had encountered in Norway and what steps were taken to solve the cases. The aim of this was to provide the audience real life scenarios and best practices.
To round out this year’s seminar information was provided on FIS’s project Get Into Snow Sports(GISS). Conducted in cooperation with FIS, the Chinese Ski Association FIS Academy and the World Academy of Sport, Get Into Snow Sports is designed to help the country reach its goal of 300 million skiers and snowboarders by the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games and has launched the pilot phase last week during the World Winter Sport Expo 2018 in Beijing.
All presentaitons, information on the guest speakers and the full programme of the Seminar can be viewed and downloaded by clicking here.
Roller skiers started the Beijing City Marathon
The biggest city marathon in China, the Beijing Marathon, took place with a starting field of more than 30,000 runners. The race was also started by 100 roller skiers in colourful costumes, who paced the race for the first 4 km. The arrangement reflects Chinese commitment to promote the Cross-Country Skiing and Winter Sports in China.
Beijing has hosted its city marathon 38 times and there are almost 1,000 marathons across China during the year. It was, however, the first time that roller skiers were leading a marathon. Beijing Marathon is the only marathon event broadcast live on the biggest sports TV channel in China - CCTV5 with and at least 50 million viewers watched it.
FIS Development Camp in Rasnov (ROU)
A successful edition of the FIS Summer Camp for Ski Jumping and Nordic Combined took place from the 9th to 14th September in Rasnov (ROU).
Athletes coming from eight different nations, Bulgaria, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Korea, Slovakia and Ukraine, in addition to the host country Romania, took part, supported by their own coaches and experts provided through the FIS Development Programme. An interesting training and competition programme was on schedule and thanks to the support of the Romanian Ski Association, athletes and coaches had the best conditions to improve their performance. The full capacity of the Ski jumping centre in Rasnov, with its K15, K 35, K64 and K90 hill was used.
During the camp, coaches and teams were supported on daily base by expert coaches who gave useful advice and suggestions how to progress. Specific sessions were dedicated to technical improvement in both Ski Jumping and Roller Skiing.
At the end of the week, a compact competition programme was the highlight of the FIS Camp activities. One FIS Carpat Cup on the K 60 hill and two FIS Cup events for men and ladies were organised under the coordination of the Romanian Ski Federation.
The next FIS Development Camp for Ski Jumping and Nordic Combined will take place in December.
Successful SJ and NC Obmen meeting in Venice
The annual meeting of Ski Jumping and Nordic Combined obmen was held in Venice (ITA). The chairman of the FIS Ski Jumping Sub-Committee for Officials, Rules and Control Ueli Forrer opened the conference. The agenda consisted of a series of items connected to the work of jumping judges, technical delegates (TD) and assistant technical delegates (TDA).
The obmen discussed the TD evaluation procedure, possible changes of the rules, reports of the judges' work during the past season and nominations for new season including nominations for the World Championships in Seefeld (AUT) 2019, the Junior World Championships in Lahti (FIN) 2019, the Ski Flying World Championships in Planica (SLO) 2020, the Youth Olympic Games in Lausanne (SUI) 2020, the Junior World Championships in Oberwiesenthal (GER) 2020, further seminars for judges and TD's.
The next obmen meeting will be in Ljubno (Slovenia).
