On 9 and 10 September 2022, an ICSD congress took place in the Austrian city of Vienna. On behalf of the BDC, our president Jan Van den Braembussche went to Vienna together with director of top-level sport Lieven Kind to defend the interests of our athletes and national teams.
They were quite long days. It starts just after breakfast around 09:30, then the congress runs over 2 days until around 20:00 to 21:00. Many proposals and motions were discussed and voted on.
Important points for athletes are as follows :
- Sailing will be officially included in the Deaflympic sports programme from 2029.
- Chess will be removed from Winter Deaflympics sports programme and programmed at Summer Deaflympics from 2029. After all, Winter Deaflympics is a sporting event held on snow and ice, in accordance with the IOC Olympic Charter.
- Water polo received no support to return to the Deaflympics programme due to lack of sufficient activities such as a World Cup or a TD.
Events for the coming years were also proposed as follows :
1) Summer Deaflympics 2025 : Congress was very impressed with clear presentation by Japanese delegation. These next Deaflympics will take place in Tokyo from 15 to 26 November 2025. The sports infrastructure is the same as those used during Olympic and Paralympic Games held last year. The ICSD Congress agreed to Tokyo and, naturally, the Deaflympic flag was then handed over by the ICSD board to the proud Japanese delegation.
2) Winter Deaflympics 2023: Austria has offered to take on this organisation, but it still depends on the local elections at the end of September 2022. Should it go ahead, it will take place in January 2024 in Innsbruck.
3) Winter Deaflympics 2025: South Korea has also applied to host the Winter Deaflympics 2027.
4) Summer Deaflympics 2029: Spain and Greece have both indicated their desire to host Deaflympics 2029. They are still exploring and more will be known at the first-ever congress in 2023.
5) World Deaf Youth Games: Another new development is that there will be a World Deaf Youth Games. 1st edition will be held in Sao Paulo in Brazil. Taipei in Taiwan is considering doing 2nd edition in 2027.
Then on Saturday afternoon, board elections for a 2022-2025 term began. For the position of President, there were 4 candidates: current President Gustavo Perrazollo de Araujo from Brazil, Dmitry Rebrov from Russia (= CEO of ICSD), Adam Kosa from Hungary and Grigor Grigoryan from Armenia. After the 1st round, we already had one winner : Adam Kosa got 37 votes, Dmitry Rebrov 11 votes, Gustavo Perrazollo 10 votes and Grigor Grigoryan got none. Hungarian Adam Kosa is hereby elected the 13th President of ICSD. A candidate with more than 30 votes is directly elected (50%+1 rule).
Mr Yutaka Osugi from Japan was elected as Vice-President World Sports. He defeated with 47 votes Mr Ralph Fernandez from USA who got only 10 votes.
Mr David Lanesman was the only candidate for Vice-President Youth Sports, but unfortunately he received 33 votes against, as a result he has to leave the ICSD board.
Directors were elected as follows (max 4) :
- Alexandra Polivanchuk from Sweden,
- Jaroslaw Janiec from Poland,
- Mark Kusiak from Canada
- Pier Alessandro Samueli from Italy
Furthermore, Björn Roine (Norway, ex-president EDSO) and Kang Chen (Taipeh, ex-president ICSD) were also elected to the Ethics Commission.
Conclusion after this congress :
We returned home with a happy face after this Congress. There has been a significant change in governance and we are hopeful that a new direction will be worked on. So there is clearly new energy blowing through ICSD.
What does continue to bother us at the ICSD Congress: the manner of approach could be much better. Motions and proposals are insufficiently prepared. Also, agenda items should be clearly justified in advance. A lot of information can be shared in advance. So clearly there is still a lot of work to be done on transparency! Voting is also still done on paper... it would be better to do this electronically in the future (great time-saver and much more efficient!).
Of course, we are also very curious about the next 3 months when the new ICSD board will already have to make important decisions.
We will keep you posted on further developments within the world of deaf sports!
They were quite long days. It starts just after breakfast around 09:30, then the congress runs over 2 days until around 20:00 to 21:00. Many proposals and motions were discussed and voted on.
Important points for athletes are as follows :
- Sailing will be officially included in the Deaflympic sports programme from 2029.
- Chess will be removed from Winter Deaflympics sports programme and programmed at Summer Deaflympics from 2029. After all, Winter Deaflympics is a sporting event held on snow and ice, in accordance with the IOC Olympic Charter.
- Water polo received no support to return to the Deaflympics programme due to lack of sufficient activities such as a World Cup or a TD.
Events for the coming years were also proposed as follows :
1) Summer Deaflympics 2025 : Congress was very impressed with clear presentation by Japanese delegation. These next Deaflympics will take place in Tokyo from 15 to 26 November 2025. The sports infrastructure is the same as those used during Olympic and Paralympic Games held last year. The ICSD Congress agreed to Tokyo and, naturally, the Deaflympic flag was then handed over by the ICSD board to the proud Japanese delegation.
2) Winter Deaflympics 2023: Austria has offered to take on this organisation, but it still depends on the local elections at the end of September 2022. Should it go ahead, it will take place in January 2024 in Innsbruck.
3) Winter Deaflympics 2025: South Korea has also applied to host the Winter Deaflympics 2027.
4) Summer Deaflympics 2029: Spain and Greece have both indicated their desire to host Deaflympics 2029. They are still exploring and more will be known at the first-ever congress in 2023.
5) World Deaf Youth Games: Another new development is that there will be a World Deaf Youth Games. 1st edition will be held in Sao Paulo in Brazil. Taipei in Taiwan is considering doing 2nd edition in 2027.
Then on Saturday afternoon, board elections for a 2022-2025 term began. For the position of President, there were 4 candidates: current President Gustavo Perrazollo de Araujo from Brazil, Dmitry Rebrov from Russia (= CEO of ICSD), Adam Kosa from Hungary and Grigor Grigoryan from Armenia. After the 1st round, we already had one winner : Adam Kosa got 37 votes, Dmitry Rebrov 11 votes, Gustavo Perrazollo 10 votes and Grigor Grigoryan got none. Hungarian Adam Kosa is hereby elected the 13th President of ICSD. A candidate with more than 30 votes is directly elected (50%+1 rule).
Mr Yutaka Osugi from Japan was elected as Vice-President World Sports. He defeated with 47 votes Mr Ralph Fernandez from USA who got only 10 votes.
Mr David Lanesman was the only candidate for Vice-President Youth Sports, but unfortunately he received 33 votes against, as a result he has to leave the ICSD board.
Directors were elected as follows (max 4) :
- Alexandra Polivanchuk from Sweden,
- Jaroslaw Janiec from Poland,
- Mark Kusiak from Canada
- Pier Alessandro Samueli from Italy
Furthermore, Björn Roine (Norway, ex-president EDSO) and Kang Chen (Taipeh, ex-president ICSD) were also elected to the Ethics Commission.
Conclusion after this congress :
We returned home with a happy face after this Congress. There has been a significant change in governance and we are hopeful that a new direction will be worked on. So there is clearly new energy blowing through ICSD.
What does continue to bother us at the ICSD Congress: the manner of approach could be much better. Motions and proposals are insufficiently prepared. Also, agenda items should be clearly justified in advance. A lot of information can be shared in advance. So clearly there is still a lot of work to be done on transparency! Voting is also still done on paper... it would be better to do this electronically in the future (great time-saver and much more efficient!).
Of course, we are also very curious about the next 3 months when the new ICSD board will already have to make important decisions.
We will keep you posted on further developments within the world of deaf sports!
