NEWS

ITU Development outlines goals for closer National Federation collaboration and funding

By Doug Gray | 06 Sep, 2019
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During the occasion of the 2019 Grand Finals, the ITU Development Team gathered National Federations in Lausanne to discuss the next steps for the National Federation Survey, the forthcoming Athlete Education Hub and the routes to apply for Olympic Solidarity funding.

Following its pilot in 2017, the results of the 2018 World Triathlon National Federation Survey were collated and shared with the respondents in May of this year. The objective is to better understand the successes and problems that every faces enabling ITU Development to better advise and support them in their long and short-term goals. After a 68% response rate to the pilot, the first official survey saw that figure climb to 83%. The aim is to reach 100% by 2021.

“Thomas Bach spoke at Congress of the need for good governance from ITU, and we need to expect that from our National Federations,” said ITU President Marisol Casado. “NFs expect reliability from their athletes, if they are not on time for races there can be no medals. It is only right that we should be able to expect that from our National Federations too.”

As part of their subsequent classification categorisation from one to five, a key part of which is the hosting of a National Championships, NFs were reminded that any ITU-sanctioned event can be proposed as such, allowing those without the experience or infrastructure to host an event the opportunity to hit a key target in their development.

From a coaches’ and athletes’ perspective, the ITU Education Hub now provides online content for coaches in five languages other than English and; Spanish, with plans for Chinese, French, Arabic and Romanian to be made available. The next KTF-ITU Coaching education programme will be held in November with 72 candidates from 5 continents, while the Athlete’s Hub is in progress and will have the collaboration and input of Vicent Beltran, Francesco Fissore and Emma Carney.

National Federations were also invited to present their applications for the ASICS World Triathlon Team development funding for the 2020 season from their Continental Confederation by November 1st with formal agreements to be signed at December’s Executive Board meeting in Madrid.

The IOC’s Cynthia Amami delivered a keynote speech on the process for applying to the Olympic Solidarity Fund, which has a budget of $509m for the current every Olympic cycle. Amami explained the funds’ goals for helping NOC’s achieve the IOC agenda goals, as well as the application process for the Scholarships Tokyo 2020 programme that offers technical and financial assistance to athletes from NOCs with the greatest needs, contributing to monthly costs of training and travel costs.

There will also be Youth Olympic Games support, with the Dakar 2022 athlete identification in its initial phase. Of the 1564 Tokyo 2020 scholarships awarded so far, 19 have been to triathletes, with funds also available for ITU coaching and NOC administration programmes.