Junior (youth) World Champs looking for new home

[Ian_S]

Just seen on the FITA website that the Youth Archery Championships (which I know as the Junior and Cadet World Championships) due to be held in India (New Delhi) in October are now looking for a new home.

FITA Council has decided to withdraw the Youth Archery Championships from New Delhi, India. The Indian Association was unable to hold the event in New Delhi due to the excessive inflation of hotel rates in New Delhi. Although the federation tried all options including proposing an alternative venue, the options proposed did not fulfil the requirements of FITA.

We thank the Indian Archery Association for their efforts in holding the event and regret that they were unable to host the event based on factors beyond their control.

FITA has now opened the bid for Member Associations to host the Youth World Championships in the same time period of mid October 2008. Candidatures should be received by 15 February 2008 and a decision will be taken by the Executive Committee on 17 February. Since the time for organising the event is very short only Member Associations with enough experience in organising Major International Archery Events should express their interest.

So lets hope a new location is found. If it wasn't for the fact that it's October, I'd say that the UK should offer But I think somewhere like America or Australia might be a better bet.

[magic Squares]

MMM Dubai would be nice to.
Let's hope they find a venue.
But there doesn't seem much time.

[Ian_S]

Originally Posted by magic Squares

MMM Dubai would be nice to.
Let's hope they find a venue.
But there doesn't seem much time.

yes, Dubai would be very nice - I'd offer my services to go as a helper
I guess there might be some venues and hotels available in Beijing as well by that time...

But on a more serious note, the latest FITA INFO Newsletter has the "Youth Archery World Championships" down for both 2008 and 2009 (with date and location TBC). Plus the European Junior Championships are now showing as 2010. So it looks to me as though FITA are already planning for the Junior Worlds to slip a year. This would be really unfair on all those juniors for whom 2008 is the last year they can compete in this event.

I also notice that the Archery World Cup final is down for October with location TBC. I wonder if there is any chance they could link the two together and hold them in the same place.

[Ian_S]

Just seen on the FITA website that they have managed to find a country willing to host the Championship after India had to be abandoned. It's been awarded to Turkey and will be held in Antalya, from the 6 – 11 October 2008. There is also mention of the "Youth Olympics" taking place in 2010. Here's the words from the website:

After the decision by Council to withdraw the event from India, the bid was opened and four member associations have shown interest to host the event. These four were Namibia, Poland, Mexico and Turkey. After an evaluation the Executive Committee forwarded the recommendation to FITA Council to award the event to Antalya, Turkey. FITA Council approved this recommendation.

The event will be held on a field part of the beautiful Kamelya hotel complex in the Manavgat touristy area, and not on the regular Antalya World Cup field, since this one would be too small to accommodate the archers entered for such an event. However the experienced team organizing the event will be the same, which was important knowing the short time to prepare for the event.

This will be the last time the Youth World Championships will be held in even years. For the 2009 edition, qualifier for the next Youth Olympic Games, an announcement will be made in the next two weeks.