The newly elected President of the FIE, Alisher Usmanov from Russia, took office at beginning of the year. Since then our elected representatives (Sunil Sabharwal, Executive Committee and Sam Cheris - Legal; Derek Cotton - Arbitrage; Dan DeChaine - Technical commissions, respectively) have been busy with a number of initiatives. Additionally, Seth Kelsey was invited as one of 6 athletes for a special session of the Rules commission to provide expert opinion on some proposed rule changes.
Mr Usmanov has provided substantial finding from his own resources to the FIE - with his Swiss Franc 5 MM contribution earlier this year. Together with the cca $ 9 MM the FIE received from the IOC for the next quadrennial, it now has reserves of $ 10 MM and finds itself in a strong financial position.
One of the priorities has been an attempt to get 2 additional fencing events included in the program of the London 2012 Olympics. As it is well-known - since the introduction of Women's Saber in Athens and the subsequent achievement of parity between Female and Male athletes in Beijing - the FIE has been rotating the team events to comply with the 10-event limitation set by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Our representative on the EC, Sunil Sabharwal, has been working closely with the President and Secretary General, Maxim Paramonov, on this topic leveraging his long standing relationships with the IOC.
Significant work has been undertaken by all the commissions in evaluating the proposals submitted by the national federations for the FIE Congress to be held in Palermo, Italy later on in November this year. The proposals have ranged from significant proposed rule changes, such as changing the blockage time in Saber to administrative ones, such as the number of General Assemblies and Congresses required by the FIE in a quadrennial. The proposals have recently been commented on by the respective Commissions, and will now be heading to the Executive Committee for final discussion and recommendation to the Congress. At this point, it is uncertain which proposals would be supported by the EC, and in any event final decisions will not be taken until the FIE Congress.
Finally, there is a substantial effort underway to reform the competition calendar starting with the 2010-2011 season. This is very much in progress but it is quite certain that the number of FIE competitions will be reduced significantly. The Executive Committee's recommendation is to have 5 World Cups (held together with the Team Competitions), and 3 Grand Prix's each season in addition to the Zonal and the World Championships - arriving at a total of 10 international FIE senior events a year. The number of FIE tournaments that can be hosted by a federation will be limited, and the tournaments will be spread geographically as long as there are interested and qualified applicants. The number of junior competitions will also be reduced but the details have not yet been elaborated upon.
On the Panam front, in addition to the on-going championships, a General Assembly is taking place in El Salvador where the dates and locations of next year's zonal events will be decided well as a development plan will be discussed.
One of the most exciting developments of the year is that the USFA has been given the privilege to host a Panam Coach's Clinic. At the time of going to press, more than 60 coaches from over 20 Panam countries have registered for the week-long course that will take place in Colorado Springs. The funding for the course is coming from the Pan American Sports Organization and the US Olympic Committee. Fencing is one of only 2 Olympic sports whose Panam coaching clinic is being held in the United States and we should truly be proud of being able to bring this prestigious event home.
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