Stien Verlinden and Greg Smale are among the five newly elected members of the Board of Directors of the European Canoe Association.
Belgium's Verlinden is an International Canoe Federation Canoe Marathon Committee member and Great Britain's Greg Smale is the ICF Canoe Polo Committee Chair, with both given four-year mandates by ECA.
Vitor Felix, Peter Karai, and Christian Jacobsen were also elected as Board members at the 17th Ordinary Congress of the ECA held in Budapest over the weekend.
Delegates also elected a new Vice President Moira Aston, who became the first woman to hold this position at the European governing body, founded in 1993.
Aston, who is also the Chief Executive of Canoeing Ireland and a Board member of the Olympic Federation of Ireland, will join Karai as the ECA representative on the ICF Board.
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“We have a dream team to conduct our projects. I am very happy as one of my objectives was also to have more gender equity within the European Canoe Association,” ECA President Jean Zoungrana said.
“Now, with a female Vice-President, it is a good signal for our community that we need to move forward and have more gender equity in our bodies.”
The Congress confirmed that ECA will be named Paddle Europe, with date yet to be determined, to align with the ICF’s rebrand as Paddle Worldwide next year.
Official European events in 2025 will remain under the ECA banner.
The meeting in Budapest also saw ICF Canoe Marathon Chair Ruud Heijselaar's time as a Board member finish along with Jovana Stanojevic.
Heijselaar will remain the ECA Canoe Marathon Technical Committee Chair and Stanojevic, who stepped down as a Board member after being appointed ECA Sport and Event Manager, will also be the ECA Canoe Sprint Technical Committee Chair.
The continental body also thanked former ECA Secretary General Branko Lovric and long-time Vice-President Miroslav Haviar for their outstanding contributions to the sport before appointing them as Honorary Board members.
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