The Bahrain Olympic Academy of the Bahrain Olympic Committee (BOC) organized a pair of symposiums on sports on Wednesday at its premises in Juffair with representatives of national sports federations in attendance.
Speaking at the opening symposium on “sports competitions planning”, World renowned coaching educator and applied sport scientist Istvan Balyi emphasized ways of bringing up plans and programmes within national sports federations.
The Canadian, who is acknowledged worldwide as the expert in long term athlete development and the periodization of training plans, noted the importance of competitions calendar in boosting the athletes levels.
He also stressed the significance of taking appropriate breaks to achieve the desired development of athletes, in addition to setting up an appropriate number of matches in order to contribute to the development of their capabilities.
“The competition system could either develop or decrease the athletes’ abilities,” said Balyi, who referred to the British Tennis Association expertise, which injected nearly 80 million pounds in 30 years to develop the game, and that only two players are in the top 20 of the world’s best players and the reason is the competition system.
“In tennis, a 12-year-old player must play nearly 200 games a year. He has the experience and the ability. Roger Federer, who has experience and is ranked internationally, plays almost 90 games despite his long experience to maintain his fitness,” added Balyi, as he pointed out that the development is through training and not just matches.
Balyi also called to pay more attention to the age groups and develop a suitable system of competitions to put them in shape, and not only focus on the men’s teams. He referred to the South African Volleyball Federation as an example, a union that made a bold decision to focus on age groups and suspended the senior men’s and women’s activities as well as allocating a large budget that target age groups over many years for development.
He said the schedule of competitions must be set by experts and technicians. The schedule of competitions should be available to the coaches well before the start of competitions until they set up their plans according to the schedule of the competitions. He noted the importance of taking into account the appropriate spaces leading to sports excellence and not to make continuous change on the schedule.
This conference, which was open to all general secretaries and heads of competitions committees, aimed to develop their skills and abilities while organizing sports events.
The academy also had a second seminar, titled ‘sports regulations’, where BOC legal consultant Dr Salah Khedr talked about the rights and duties of players when signing contracts.
He also referred to all related legal aspects to educate the players, on one hand, and the administrators, on the other, to avoid legal violations or disputes in this regard.
He reviewed the most significant regulations, namely the Olympic Charter and the International Paralympic Charter – in accordance with the regulations of the Bahrain Olympic Committee and the Bahrain Paralympic Committee – as violating these charters and regulations leads to sanctions on the Olympic committees and sports federations.
Also present at the symposium were BOC secretary general Abdulrahman Askar, as well as chairman of the BOC’s Athletes Commission, and representatives of national sports federations.?