European Fencing Championship Junior and Cadet started with a press-conferen
The press-conference to mark the opening of the Cadet European Championship was given by Stanislav Pozdnyakov, President of the European Fencing Confederation and First Vice-President of the Olympic Committee of Russia, Mikhail Dremov, Counselor-minister of Sports of the Russian Federation and Director of the Southern Federal Centre for Sports Training, Andrei Mokriansky, Chief of Department for organisation of the most relevant events for the Ministry of Physical Education and Sport of the Karasnodar Region, Alexander Mikhailov, President of the Russian Fencing Federation, and Serguei Pilosyan, Director of the Department of Physical Education and Sport of the Sochi's government.
Stanislav Pozdnyakov opened the press-conference.
‘It is always a great pleasure for me to come to Sochi, he said and especially as today we have a special occasion -we are hosting the European Fencing Championship among juniors and cadets. On the eve of this event, during the European Fencing Confederation Executive Committee meeting we were delighted to confirm that everything was ready in Sochi to host these championships. In total, 865 athletes from 38 countries of the world. It is a great honour for us and we hope we can build on this experience in the future.
One more important event will happen today — we are launching the new website of the European Fencing Confederation. The task to create a new easy-to-use website for the EFC was on my election agenda, and I am very happy announce that has been realised today. This work took one year and we hope this website will meet all the modern requirements both visually and in the services it provides. We did our best to take into account all the requirements for sporting websites and to follow best practice. One of the tasks we set for ourselves was to create an accessible and easy-to-use product where athletes, coaches, journalists and fans could easily find the information they need. It contains all the necessary information: schedules, news and results and also is strongly linked to all our social networks. Our hope is that this will also be a space to display the stunning visual nature of our sport with large sections dedicated to photos and videos.
I would like to thank all those who took part in the creation of this website. These are the members of the EFC working group: Pascal Tesch(Project Manager), Ana Valero-Collantes and Etienne Van Cann. It is important to notice that our work with the site is not finished with its launch, we will continue its development.
One of our proud traditions is live TV-coverage of the final part of the European Fencing Championship, alongside live-streaming organised by the EFC of the direct elimination covering rounds taking place on the 4 coloured pistes and starting from round last-32. Coverage is provided by Teleiskusstvo company, a long-time partner of the EFC. Broadcasts are available on the EFC website and the Fencing-time YouTube Channel — who provide us with our online-results and graphics for TV-coverage.
The floor was then given to Alexander Mikhailov, President of the Russian Fencing Federation.
‘The Iceberg Skating Palace has impressed me with its size, equipment and comfort. Not all World Championships are held in such excellent facilities. I would hope, that the standard of facility on display here today means that in the future we could be in consideration for organising a Senior World Championship here.
The European Fencing Championship Junior and Cadet is a large-scale and long tournament. Was it hard to organise? Yes, of course. Both for the region and the RFF. We haven't organised such competitions before but I believe that this is only the first step and that we'll organising many other successful competitions in Sochi in the future..
