ICF President Jose Perurena Lopez today arrived in Brandenburg to officially open the 2011 ICF Junior Canoe Sprint World Championships; this is the President’s first official engagement after being elected IOC Member earlier in the month. Competing at these World Championships are over 650 athletes from 64 countries, representing for the very first time, all five continents. The event which will be held from 29 – 31 July 2011 is of great importance to the International Canoe Federation because it is where new talented paddlers are discovered, it also serves as a transition for several athletes who will take the leap from Juniors to Seniors level after the competition ends.

En route to the competition venue, Jose Perurena reiterated the importance of the Junior World Championships saying,

These Championships have a high level importance for the ICF because it is here where the direction of the sport is best evidenced.” He further explained, “Our young athletes are the future of our sport, we want to see high level performances because then we know that the future of the sport is secure.

Even though there are many young athletes in Brandenburg with the ambition to qualify for London 2012, the President said that the reality is that their possibilities rest on the qualifications for Rio 2016. He however acknowledged that there will be a few paddlers that will go to the Canoe Sprint World Championships in Szeged, and then on to London 2012.

A very important feature of these Junior Canoe Sprint World Championships is the ICF’s Talent Identification Programme (TIP), for the first time paddlers from this programme will compete at a World Championships. The TIP was started 20 years ago and is managed by Csaba Szanto, former ICF Technical Director and current ICF Expert. The overall goal of the programme is to provide all canoeing athletes, no matter the status of their National Federation, the possibility to participate at a World Championships. The ICF covers the flight and accommodation costs of these athletes to attend World Championships and by doing this offers them the possibility to qualify for the Olympic Games.

Of the ICF’s Talent Identification Programme, Jose Perurena said,

I am very happy with this collaboration between the ICF, Olympic Solidarity, and the more developed canoeing National Federations of Germany, Hungary, Spain etc.; it is my hope that we can formalize these collaborations so that our paddlers from developing canoeing nations can always have the possibility to train with high level athletes from developed canoeing countries, because it is the only real possibility for them to develop into elite athletes.” Asked what he thought about the overall strategy of the ICF’s TIP, and what the key determining factor of its success is, he said, “The real measure of success will be on the water this weekend, our goal is to have a good number of our paddlers on the TIP qualify for the Semi-Finals.

Also present at the Junior Canoe Sprint World Championsips are the ICF Vice Presidents, Istvan Vaskuti, Richard Fox and Joao Tomasini and ICF Board Members and this weekend’s competition juries, K.H. Chua, Victor Ruiz and Irina Siraeva.