The International Canoe Federation’s (ICF) Paracanoe research team presented key findings at the International Paralympic Committee’s (IPC) Vista Conference in Girona, Spain ahead of the sports Paralympic next year in Rio.
This was the seventh occasion for the IPC’s Vista conference that is focused bringing together the world’s leading sports scientists and researchers with expertise in para-sport.
A record 260 delegates attended this year’s VISTA conference, which was officially opened by IPC President Sir Philip Craven, Girona’s Deputy Mayor Isabel Marados and Pere Vila, President of Diputació de Girona
In his opening remarks, Sir Philip stressed the importance of engaging youngsters in para-sport at all levels.
“Youngsters are the future of the Movement however, they face multiple challenges engaging and then staying involved in para-sport,” he said.
“The key to getting young people to engage in para-sport are schools. Sport is life’s great educator and the sooner we can get youngsters playing para-sport and learning key skills and realising they can be good at something, the better life will be.
“Another key area is for all para-sports to continue to ensure that athlete classification systems are the fairest they can be. If they are, then fair competition, which is what potential athletes always seek, will be assured.”
The second topic in particular was the focus of the ICF team’s research when Dr. Anna Bjerkefors and Johanna Rosen (far left) addressed the conference.
They were accompanied by (left to right) Julie Gray, ICF Head of Classification, John Edwards, Chair of the ICF Paracanoe committee, Alba Roldan, Andrea Waters and Carme Ardell.
Edwards followed with a presentation on the process of achieving an evidence-based classification system at the International Federation Heads of Classification meeting.
Paracanoeing continue to build momentum with full integration into the ICF Cano Sprint World Championships and continually increasing global appeal ahead of the sport introduction to the Paralympic Games next year.
