The 1st General Information Meeting of the World Games 2017 for International Federations’ Competition Managers took place in Wroclaw on November 20-22.

 

IFMA and muaythai was represented at the meeting by the EMF Secretary General and the President of the Polish Muaythai Federation, Rafal Szlachta and IFMA Head Technical Delegate and President of the Russian Muaythai Federation Dmitry Putilin.

 

The meeting was opened with the welcoming word of IWGA President, José Perurena in which he expressed a wish to hold nothing but the best World Games in the history of the Games. President Perurena outlined the course for close cooperation with the International Olympic Committee. Former IWGA President, Ron Froehlich also delivered a welcome address in which he noted that the spirit of fair play was the essence of the IWGA community and called for the unity of all member federations towards ensuring its presence throughout the event.

 

Deputy Mayor of the City of Wroclaw then welcomed all the guests with the promise to render all the relevant assistance in the organisation of the event and expressed his gratitude for Wroclaw being given the honour to host such a notable and large scsale multi-sport games.

 

Day 1 of the meeting kicked off by IWGA CEO, Joachim Gossow who delivered his introduction into the General Points of The World Games. Mr. Gossow emphasised such issues as the International Federation Passport and the requirements towards the IFs as for its issuance.  The Sports Programme and Communication matters before and during the event were also highlighted in his speech. Mr. Gossow’s special focus was on the efficient cooperation between participants and the organiser on all levels. He then highlighted the importance of  idea of The World Games giving back to society and commended the IFMA Sport Is Your Gang campaign, for which SportAccord awarded the Spirit of Sport Award and called on all other IFs to look to IFMA’s social campaign as a good model of the social engagement from an international federation.

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The LOC representative then made presentations on other important logistical matters such as venues, transportation, accommodation, flights and catering. Sports Manager, Grzegorz Pyzalka made an introduction into the Anti-Doping policies and medical services which will be provided at the venue.

 

The state-of-the-art technologies in broadcasting and highlighting the event were introduced by Piotr Loj. It is the first time in the sports history when the 360 degree camera will be used to let viewers to experience a full immersion and heart of the action POV of their favourite sports.

 

The head of the LOC, Piotr Przygonski gave his word of honour and promised to apply all his experience gained at the previous international events to make the 2017 edition of the World Games the best ever.

 

A very interesting lecture was given by Prof. Brian Nook, Commission Chair of the Federation Internationale De Chiropractique Du Sport (FICS) where he introduced a chiropractic approach to treating injuries and prevention techniques. Prof. Nook has shown the great extent of proficiency FICS therapists should meet to be allowed to work at Olympic events. Prof. Nook has demonstrated an interesting statistical chart with the most frequent injuries FICS therapists have to deal with.

 

Hermann Kewitz, IWGA Press Officer made a presentation on the Press and Media and its requirements for the World Games 2017. Mr. Kewitz made a special emphasis on the necessity for all federations to promote the World Games events at all available social media and made a comparison of social webpage of the World Games 2017 and again drew participants’ attention to the leading example of IFMA and its successful outreach via Facebook.

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Following the various presentations were the on-site visits. For the sport of muaythai, Dmitry Putilin and Rafal Szlachta performed a full inspection of the Orbita arena.

 

Day 2 of the meeting was opened by Thomas Kutzke, representative of Swiss Timing and his presentation on the cooperation of Swiss Timing with many individual international sports federations as well as with the IOC. Mr. Kutzke explained the registration procedure for synchronization of all the results of the competition. Among the scope of services there are web graphics, feeds to public scoreboards, info systems available on smart phones and many other technological means for time measurement.

 

After a short break all the IF representatives had the opportunity to for private meetings with the local organizers to discuss specific matters concerning their particular disciplines.

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