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Great Wheelchair Dance Sport Finale in the Netherlands
The year 2001 was a very successful one for Wheelchair Dance Sport. It saw competitions in Poland, Russia and the Netherlands. There can be no doubt about it, though, that the European Championships 2001 in Wheelchair Dance Sport were the highlight of the season. This tournament was carried out in Papendal, Netherlands, on 12 and 13 October.
It presented a great opportunity for a get together of European athletes, coaches and officials. David Simon joined forces with Cor v. d. Stroet, Corrie van Hugten and Ondine de Hullu to form Dutch Dance Events, the European Championship Organizing Committee. In this particular case, the Dutch National Paralympic Committee (NEBAS) took the backseat to David Simon’s Dutch Dance Events and the Stichting Rolstoeldansen Nederland. The European Wheelchair Dance Sport Championships were integrated into an able-bodied dance event, the ‘Holland Masters’. Apart from contests in Wheelchair Dance Sport the tournament thus featured two competitions for able-bodied athletes, namely the IDSF International Open Standard and Latin and the Open Professional Standard and Latin. On the whole, 52 athletes from nine countries took part in the Wheelchair Dance Sport competition. A total of 80 starts were registered. As new participant countries Malta and the Ukraine entered athletes at this event.
Among the spectators and participants of the classifiers’ training seminar, which was held in conjunction with the tournament, were two small delegations from Brazil and Chinese Taipei. They expressed their anticipation of the World Championships in Poland in 2002 and their excitement about organizing Wheelchair Dance Sport competitions in their own countries in the near future.
The venue itself, the Nationaal Sportcentrum Papendal, was a very pleasant facility with a warm atmosphere that allowed athletes and officials from all nations to mingle and get to know each other. This opened new channels of communication. In conjunction with the Championships, seminars and meetings were held to train classifiers and to facilitate conferences of adjudicators, team leaders as well as of the Wheelchair Dance Sport Committee.
Many thanks to all organizers and NPCs for their support and to all athletes for their participation. The results of the Championships are available on the IPC website: www.paralympic.org.
Dr. Gertrude Krombholz,
Chairperson Wheelchair Dance Sport
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Wheelchair Dance Sport Committee Opens New Channels of Communication
This year the Wheelchair Dance Sport Committee had set out to intensify the cooperation between existing members of the IPC family and to win new nations for the sport. Also, the gap between the NPCs and the world of dance, i.e. the International Dance Sport Federation
(IDSF) and the World Dance And Dance Sport Council (WD&DSC) was to be bridged. To this end, 72 NPCs were informed about the dance organizations in their countries and the dance federations were informed about the work of the
NPCs. All have a lot in common and can learn and profit from each other’s knowledge and expertise. Concepts for training dance instructors and adjudicators, for instance, can be utilized for able-bodied dance as well as wheelchair dance sport.
Considerable progress was made in contacting and co-operating with countries at the IDSF’s General Assembly in
Lausanne, Switzerland, which Grethe Andersen from Norway attended as representative of the Wheelchair Dance Sport Committee. Further steps towards convergence between able-bodied and disabled dance sport were taken together with the WD&DSC in
Blackpool, Great Britain. Here Japanese National and Vice Chairperson Nobuko Yotsumoto presented a speech for the Wheelchair Dance Sport Committee. Both organizations were very interested in the development of Wheelchair Dance Sport and promised to support the Movement in any possible way. It is crucial that the NPCs cooperate with these dance organizations in their countries.
From now on Wheelchair Dance Sport representatives of the
NPCs, a post which has already been instituted in many
NPCs, will provide the direct link between athletes in their countries and the Wheelchair Dance Sport Committee. All NPCs are urged to create such a position in their framework in order to help improve the flow of communication between the Committee and the active participants in Wheelchair Dance Sport. Thank you,
NPCs, for your cooperation!
The IPC Strategic Congress in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the EPC Conference in
Pula, Croatia, and the EPC General Assembly in Dublin, Ireland, served the Committee Chairperson Dr. Gertrude Krombholz of Germany as forums for the establishment of contacts with new countries and the strengthening of existing relations. Other Committee members, too, took advantage of the congresses, workshops and seminars they attended in order to reach out and lobby for their sport.
Dr. Gertrude Krombholz
Chairperson Wheelchair Dance Sport
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