GAISF VOTE: IDBF YES!

27 April 27 2007 - A jubilant Alan van Caubergh called directly from the GAISF AGA meeting in Beijing this morning with excellent news: the AGA voted Yes to the IDBF´s application for GAISF membership.

Thanks to the hard work from within the IDBF community, spearheaded by Mike Haslam, and the positive vote by delegates from fellow sports federations the IDBF is now part of the fellowship of international sports federations banded together in the GAISF:

"The General Association of International Sports Federations groups together international sports federations and various other associations to:

• - defend world-wide sport,
• - become better informed and to inform,
• - to co-operate together and to co-ordinate their activities." (source GAISF website)

In addition to international recognition of dragon boat sport as a full-fledged international sport, represented by its own federation dedicated solely to the sport, it is hoped that this will usher in a new era of cooperation and respect between the dragon boat and canoe sports. The sports are, as the IDBF has shown since its founding in 1991, unequivocally separate but equal.

While there are no material advantages in joining the GAISF, it is seen as a stepping-stone to IOC acceptance as an Olympic Federation.

More news will be forthcoming once the team returns from Beijing.