Tuesday, 28 July 2009. Today the ICF President Jose Perurena and Secretary General Simon Toulson met with the International Va’a Federation’s President Charles Villerierme and his advisor, Mr Marcel Venot in a very friendly and cooperative atmosphere to discuss how the two International Federations could collaborate on mutual projects.
The key objective of the meeting was to see how the two Federations could work together to push for the inclusion of Canoeing into the 2016 Paralympic Games. The Va’a boats have been identified as excellent for single blade races for disabled paddlers alongside conventional Kayaks.
Charles Villierme, Va’a President, said, “From the first Va’a World Championships in 1984, the thenICF 1st Vice President remarked how the ICF could easily work with Va’a. Today, I will push hard to have a close relationship with the ICF, in particular, working to have disabled paddlers in the 2016 Paralympic Games and also to work together to develop more Va’a and canoeing activities inOceania and the South Pacific.”
The ICF and the IVF are well underway to complete a global agreement for long term cooperation. The other topics discussed included the technical requirements pertaining to the sports, rules and regulations, different ocean racing formats, V1/V2 boats without rudders and using officials for competitions.
Talking about the overall meeting, the ICF President, Jose Perurena commented, “The meeting was held in a positive atmosphere with a 100% collaboration which is positive and complimentary for both IFs. Agreements to work together for disabled paddling and other mutual topics are encouraging.”
ICF and IVF will now work on finalising the agreement and start to work on achieving some of the objectives set out in the meeting.
For more information about Va’a paddling, click here.
Check back on the ICF website for further updates www.canoeicf.com
