Federation Focus: World Urban Games Begin Friday

World Urban Games

BMX and roller freestyle will kick off the inaugural World Urban Games in Budapest on Friday.

The goal of the World Urban Games is to promote new sports and disciplines. The Games can also be seen as a catalyst to help showcase sports that might have Olympic aspirations.

Three days of free competition will include Parkour, BMX Freestyle, Roller freestyle, Breaking, 3x3 Basketball, and Flying Disc.

Competition sports include emerging Olympic events 3x3 basketball and BMX freestyle park, both of which will debut at Tokyo 2020.

Breaking -- also known as breakdancing -- will be a competition sport ahead of its Olympic debut for Paris 2024.

The Games will also include competitions without medals as showcase events. Laser run---which is part of modern pentathlon, along with Indoor rowing will be showcased in Budapest.

Powered by the GAISF, or the Global Association of International Sports Federations, the Games will host 22 events with the goal of gender equality. For each sport the prize money is equal for both men and women.

Eurosport will broadcast the finals of BMX freestyle, 3×3 basketball and breaking tomore than 50 countries in 21 languages.

"We are constantly looking at new ways to promote our international sport federations and to develop new sport disciplines, and the latest broadcasting deal will provide a fantastic opportunity for the participating sports to reach a new audience throughout Europe." said GAISF President Raffaele Chiulli.

Click here for ATR’s in depth interview with Chiulli.

If you can’t make it to Budapest, you can also catch the Urban Games on the Olympic Channel, which will have daily coverage.

The competition schedule can be found here.

ISA World Surfing Games

The sixth day of competition at the ISA World Surfing Games featured standout performances from Kolohe Andino of the USA and Italo Ferreira of Brazil.

Ferreira’s performance, second only to Andino’s on Thursday, came a day after the Brazilian barely made it to the venue in Mayazaki, Japan in time for his opening heat. In fact, had the start time for his heat not been delayed by an hour, he would have missed it.

Ferreira, on his Instagram account, explained that his late arrival was the result of a series of events beginning on Sunday, when thieves in the USA stole his car with his passport inside. His flight to Tokyo was then delayed by a typhoon and after arriving at the airport in Miyazaki, he decided not to wait for his bags and surfboard. He arrived with nine minutes left in the heat. He borrowed a board from his countryman Filipe Toledo and, wearing denim shorts, took to the waves and won his heat.

He is still in the hunt to qualify for Tokyo 2020, though it will be tough. Brazil can only qualify two surfers, and despite being the current world number six, Ferreira is behind Toledo, who is number one, and Gabriel Medina, who is fourth.

The 2019 World Surf League Championship Tour and the 2020 ISA World Surfing Games will ultimately determine which Brazilians go to Tokyo.

The top eligible man and woman from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Europe at the World Surfing Games earn a spot at Tokyo 2020. South Africa, Japan, Israel and New Zealand each provisionally secured a woman’s spot in Tokyo 2020 during the women’s competition, which has already been completed.

The men’s competition wraps up on Sunday, the final day of the event.

AIBA World Championships

Olympic qualification may not be in the picture but365 boxers from 78 nations are still competing at the AIBA World Championships in Ekaterinburg, Russia.

Ordinarily, winning a medal at the championships would earn Olympic qualification. However, the IOC in June suspended AIBA from its role organizing boxing at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, including qualification for the Games.

AIBA Interim President Mohamed Moustasane addressed the organization’s dilemma:

"The situation of AIBA hasn’t been the easiest one since months but being all united we can overcome it. World Championship is a great opportunity to show the whole world how strong and passionate about boxing we are."

Moustasane continued, "Investments that all of us made into boxing should go back to National Federations to continue to develop our sport. The politics should not be at the centre of our Universe, but the athletes and coaches, yes!"

Preliminaries run until September 17.

The quarterfinals begin on September 18 with the semi finals taking place two days later. Finals conclude on September 21.

Cuba is expected to have a strong showing; its athletes are ranked number one in all but one of eight weight classes.

FIBA Basketball World Cup

Four teams are in contention for the FIBA Basketball World Cup title in Beijing.

On Sunday, the champions will be crowned at the Wukesong Sport Arena.

The semifinals on Friday will feature Argentina against France and Spain facing Australia.

The two-time defending champion USA can finish no better than seventh, the worst performance in the country's history. Team USA, which lost to France in the quarterfinals, followed that with a defeat to Serbia on Thursday.

The USA did do enough in China to qualify for Tokyo 2020.

Togo Becomes Newest Floorball Member

The International Floorball Federation (IFF) now has 74 members after Togo was approved by the IFF Central Board this week.

There are currently 70 players, 17 of them women, at six floorball clubs in Togo. The men’s team will be competing at the Africa Floorball Cup in Nairobi on Sept. 21-22.

The Central Board decided to replace the China Floorball Federation with the new China Floorball Union as the new provisional member, after the latter took over all floorball activities in China and has the support of Chinese sport authorities.

The IFF is also raising the participation fees and transfer fees for hosting the World Floorball Championships.

The federation says it made the decision after being stuck with the financial risk when the local organizers for the WFC 2016 in Latvia, WFC 2017 in Slovakia and the U19 WFC 2019 in Halifax, Canada failed to live up to their requirements.

The IFF notes that participation fees have not been raised since 2003.

Written by Gerard Farek and Greer Wilson

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