Europe Triathlon

ETU – committed to development !

So far this year we have seen some examples of how the ETU Development Committee has invested time, money and resources by running development camps and by holding training courses for Technical Officials. The year started out way back in Frankfurt with a workshop for event organisers. Gone are the days when a Local Organising Committee simply put a race on. Now the LOC has greater responsibility to the athletes, officials, sponsors and public as well, of course, as to our sport. The areas covered at this important workshop were:

• AFL (Administration, Finance, Legal) & Communication around ETU events
• Event standards in ETU events
• Contingency planning and risk management
• Triathlon is one sport

It was good to see that those event organisers later delivered top class events to the calendar.

So, we have seen the result of the work of ETU Development but how on earth do we get to that point of delivery? Well, not easy as you might well understand. This is not a committee that meets in posh and expensive locations, spends ten minutes discussing a small agenda and then has a 5 star meal. No, this is a committee relying upon the hard work and dedication of a number of volunteers from several countries who all bring to the committee their own unique and varied experiences. Together they form a powerful team within the ETU structure.

Who are the members then?

Development Committee

Here we are joined by ETU President Renato Bertrandi, Zita Csovelyak, Senior Manager - ITU Development ITU, Kathleen Smet, Secretary General, ETU, Alicia Garcia, EU Treasurer and Željko Bijuk who is the ETU Development Co-Ordinator

As you can see, the committee has representation from around our region and is team led by Bernard Saint Jean, the current CEO for the French Triathlon Federation. He found time from his very busy schedule to take us inside the workings of the committee.

Q. Bernard, can you tell me a bit about what “development” means for ETU?

A. Well, regarding what we call “development”, ITU has been providing support for approximately 12 years now. A sport development programme has been in place and it goes as they say “from grass roots to a high performance level”.  We follow exactly what it says on the ITU website: “a number of sport development initiatives that address the needs of young and elite athletes, particularly focusing on those from emerging and developing federations”.  The strategy is to help National Federations within the European Triathlon Union to build a national “athlete development pipeline” to reach performance. It is in priority addressed to athletes, Technical Officials and Coaches and strives to get competitive excellence at all levels of the sport.

Q. You say “a number of initiatives”. Could do describe some of them?

A. Sure. With regard to Coaches or Technical Officials we have a program of courses in place and National Federations can apply to have those courses held in their own country, or can send delegates to take part abroad and get the valuable experience, knowledge and qualifications. These courses all meet the strict ITU requirements, are regularly reviewed by ITU with us and set the standards in our sport.
With regard to triathletes, ETU development camps are organized every year and we fund a selected number of athletes to attend these camps. We would like to explain to the national Federations that they can also provide funding for their own athletes to come and participate. This year we have seen this happen and the benefit is tremendous; junior athletes start, at this young age, to create their own networks and learn so much from each other within the framework of our development camps. To conduct and optimize these actions ITU decided back in 2010 to employ what we call a “Continental development coordinator” on each continent.

Q. That is ITU strategy and action. Could you tell us what is the ETU role on the scale of development?

A. A few years ago, approximately in 2011 and 2012, coinciding with the appointment of Renato Bertrandi as our President, we proposed to ITU that our continental confederation should play a new role. We wanted to install the ETU Continental Confederation for Europe as a “go between” ITU and National Federations.  We considered that if the actions and initiatives of ITU were welcome, they cannot answer all the needs of National Federations considering the big differences of level of development. We wanted to assist European National Federations to create and develop their own skills.  We also wanted to ask them about their needs, to listen to them as they explained their situation, to offer them our expertise and to decide all together about actions we could put in place every year in each country to develop numbers of members, races, camps…etc..

Our goal is to make our National Federations the strongest and to increase ETU (and ITU) membership all over Europe.

Q. How do you organize that ETU strategy?

A. We have every year around € 160.000 (€120.000 coming from ITU and €40.000 from ETU) to distribute to National Federations.  At the end of October, having built and agreed our plan for the next year, we circulate the ETU plan and ask individual National Federations to send us projects. At the same time we send them an evaluation questionnaire and ask them to get their own appreciation of the development projects for which a subsidy has been approved the year before. We feel that this feedback is essential to ensure the best use of resources.  We have a day meeting at the end of November to consider proposed projects and to agree on how we award grants. Early in December we inform National Federations about our decision and their grants. We also propose to them a meeting “face to face” at the occasion of the ETU Presidents Assembly, which takes place at the end of January.

Q. What are your feelings about that new ETU Role ?

A. I am happy only because “we did it” !  Our values are ‘proximity and trust” and it works quite well. I would like to thank ITU for their confidence and the money they let us work with every year. I would also like to thank the ETU President and the board for the same reasons. And I’d like to use this opportunity to remind National Federations that the road or challenge to develop a new sport is a long one; that it never ends but with cooperation the journey gets easier.

2014 has been a successful year for our sport. 2015 is almost upon us and with the Inaugural European Games in Baku, looks like being even more exciting.

We all look forwards to seeing you – being with you – being ETU !