LEN can look back upon another brilliant year both in terms of having truly outstanding events and enjoying financial success – as it was presented and agreed at the LEN Congress held in St. Petersburg today.
With two of its most important events having taken place in the summer of 2018, the LEN Family had plenty fond memories to recall from the previous season while President Paolo Barelli presented the annual activity report.
Mr Barelli underlined that both the European Aquatics Championships in Glasgow – staged as part of the new multi-sport event – and the water polo Europeans in Barcelona went beyond the expectations in all fields including attendance, TV viewing figures and incomes. The traditional meets in all the disciplines including the water polo Champions League Final Eight in Genoa, the stages of the Open Water Cup and the 2018 editions of the junior championships were all up to the usual high standards, just as the athletes’ performances.
The President highlighted that “In just few years LEN has moved from limited financial resources to being able to provide significant support to its National Federations and Athletes.â€
This was mirrored by the Treasurer’s Report as Tamas Gyarfas shared encouraging numbers with the delegates. The LEN Treasurer said that alone in last year LEN transferred 1.46 million to the NFs and the best athletes. As he added: “Even though we paid 300 thousand Euros more in travel contribution and prize money compared to 2016, we could sill settle for a larger surplus than two years ago.â€
Paolo Barelli outlined the most important points of the LEN Bureau’s strategy for the coming years. Those are, among others, to continue to provide economic support for participating teams at the European Championships, to provide both technical and organisational assistance to members, to co-operate more strongly with the host cities and organising committees of the LEN events in order to create sports events of the highest possible level and to improve technologies including data handling, TV graphics, TV coverage, live streaming and promotion through social networks.
The President also recalled the significant success of LEN’s Learn-to-Swim, Prevent Drowning project which received a solid backing from the European Union as well. “We wish to offer further assistance to the member federations to promote and implement this new initiative†he said.
Mr Barelli also insisted that LEN would continue to be dedicated to its athletes, engage with all federations and stakeholders, support its media and commercial partners in their endeavours and work towards making aquatics the continent’s favourite sport.
The delegates approved both the activity and the financial reports unanimously then they could listen to special presentations by LEN Partners Malmsten and Myrtha Pools.
Hosts of the upcoming major events, like Kazan (2019 junior Europeans in swimming and diving this summer), Glasgow (short-course Europeans in December) and Budapest (2020 Europeans in all disciplines) all shared some key information and offered insights of their preparations as they are getting ready to welcome the LEN Family in their respective cities.
Press Release from LEN, photos courtesy of Deepbluemedia/Giorgio Scala
