Dear all,
Following the SportAccord Convention in Quebec, Canada, I received the
following message from FAI Secretary General (transmation below) :
/"Lors du Congrès SportAccord auquel j'ai participé à fin mai à Québec,
j'ai représenté la FAI à une réunion spécifiquement consacrée au projet
des SportAccord World Artistic Games.
Ce ne sont malheureusement pas de très bonnes nouvelles que nous avons
reçues. Les discussions conduites par SportAccord avec deux villes-hôtes
potentielles en Chine n'ont pas encore donné les résultats attendus, en
particulier en raison de
problèmes d'infrastructures et de budget. Vu la situation, SportAccord a
entamé des discussions avec d'autres villes potentielles en Asie, en
Europe et en Amérique du Nord.
Il est désormais clair que les World Artistic Games n'auront pas lieu en
2012. La probabilité que la première édition soit organisée en 2013
paraît faible. Par contre, les prochaines "fenêtres" les plus probables
semblent être mars-avril ou
septembre-octobre 2014. Un prochain point d'information aura lieu dans
le courant de l'automne 2012, probablement en novembre lors du prochain
Forum des Fédérations Internationales ici à Lausanne."
//"During the SportAccord Convention in Quebec, Canada,, I represented
FAI at a meeting dedicated to the SportAccord World Artistic Games.
Unfortunately we didn't get very good news. The discussion conducted by
SportAccord with the Chinese potential hosts did not produce the
expected results, particularly due to infrastructure and budget
problems. In view of these difficulties,
SportAccord initiated further negociations with other potential host
cities in Asia, Europe and North America.
It is therefore clear that the World Artistic Games will not take place
during 2012. The probability that the first edition takes place during
2013 appears to be remote. However, the most probable subsequent time
windows appear to be March/April or
September/October, 2014. Another information meeting will take place in
Autumn, 2012, probably during November at the forthcoming International
Sporting Federations Forum in Lausanne."
/This means that the World Artistic Games will most certainly be shifted
by approximately one year. Due to the delay, we can expect some of the
already selected competitors to drop out, so it is necessary to re-think
the whole competitors selection so
as:
- Not penalize those competitors who entered the selection contests this
year, and
- Still offer a panel of the World's top pilots.
What we have to consider :
- Should the event take place by late 2013 or Spring 2014, it still
remains that the whole selection will have to be completed before the
2013-2014 Winter competition season as the final registration process
through the FAI office will begin approximately
six months before the event, so we should have the whole WArtGames
competitors panel complete by the end of the 2012-2013 Winter
competition season, in practice in time for the April, 2013 CIAM Bureau
meeting.
A positive result, at least, is that it offers the whole 2012-2013
Winter for AMA to set up a proper selection method for the two expected
North American competitors.
What to do now is open to discussion and I am looking forward to your
input. As said, we can expect at least some of the already selected
competitors to be unavailable (or with a degraded competitive level), so
obviously some additional
AeroMusicals F6B contests taking place by the end of this year or until
approximately March, 2013 will be required to fill up the voids. A
positive consequence is that, unlike at the beginning of this year, we
have time to plan everything and correctly
publicize these contests even if, at this point, we still cannot
mention the World Artistic Games as such. I remember that Jiri Havel
suggested holding a World Cup-like tour, this may be an idea to work out.
So please, I am looking for your input on how to handle things in view
of still having, in one year time, the best possible panel of
AeroMusicals competitors without penalizing those who made the effort
and expenses to qualify already and will still be
willing to compete at the World Artistic Games.
Guy R.
