After the successful first floorball tournament in the Special Olympics World Winter Games 2013 played in Korea, the aims are now set on receiving the official World Games (WG) status of floorball in the near future.
Floorball was for the first time included as a demonstration sport in the Special Olympics World Winter Games played in PyeongChang & Gangneung, January 29th to February 5th 2013 and the tournament was played with eight teams. For the future World Games the aims are set higher and the goal is to play a tournament with over 20 teams with floorball included as an official WG sport.
– Receiving the official Special Olympics World Games status is the next goal for floorball. This does not happen instantly, but I believe that many of the Special Olympics Directors were really impressed by the demonstration tournament. I was also very impressed with the work done by the Korean Floorball Federation, who fully supported us, says Mariusz Damentko, Sports Director of Special Olympics Europa and Eurasia.
The Special Olympics World Winter Games are multi-sport events for athletes with intellectual disability. Around 2 300 athletes from 112 countries participated in the 2013 WG.
Floorball is the youngest sport within the Special Olympics, but already quite popular. At the moment there are approximately 17 countries with floorball on their program. To receive the official World Games status, there needs to be 24 countries playing the sport. Other requirements that needs to be fulfilled is having a Sport Resource Team (SRT) in place and an existing cooperation with the International governing body.
– We have an established a Floorball Resource Team with members from both the Special Olympics and the IFF and we do have a good cooperation with the international governing body, so the only thing currently missing from the list is some more countries with floorball registered on their programme, Steen Houman, the chair of the Floorball Resource Team, explains.
The next Special Olympics World Winter Games will be played in Austria 2017.
– Before that Special Olympics International Sports Rules Committee can change the status of floorball into an official sport at their next meeting in January 2014. Then floorball has to be accepted by SOI Board Directors in spring 2014. Until that, we need to lobby the Special Olympics Programs to add floorball in their programmes and also report the activity in the census reports, Damentko further informs.
Special Olympics Floorball is still more popular within Europe, but the next step is to develop the sport also in the Middle East, North Africa, Latin America and Asia-Pacific.
– We met with Special Olympics Sport Programme directors from different countries and regions during the World Games and many regional Directors were really eager to add floorball as one of their sports. There is a huge potential to grow the sport also outside Europe and this needs to be utilised, Merita Bruun, IFF SRT representative adds.
Korea represented Asia the the World Games 2013, here together with team Ireland
More photos from the 2013 Special Olympics World Games on IFF Flickr
More on Special Olympics www.specialolympics.org
