Dear friends of rollersports, a so important event like the World Speed Skating Championships is an excellent opportunity to understand how our sport is growing and in which direction it is going. And it is important that in this virtual place, that is the web, we find the time to analyze and share the rapid development in roller sports.
The just completed Championships in Gijon has showed to the world our organizational capabilities but, above all, has shown some characteristics of roller-skating, that can not be ignored.
Already the first days of competition saw the podium, with gold medal, represented by 4 continents: America, Europe, Asia and Oceania. Thinking about the final medals, it is exciting to see how the excellence of our disciplines have so different backgrounds, reflecting an increasingly widespread and hitting dissemination of the roller sports in the world.
We must consider that the world record was set by an athlete in the Junior category: it means that in our sport the potential is all still in the pipeline, and that the years ahead will see competitions on high technical levels, that would make unacceptable that the Roller Skating does not accede to the Olympic family. Our sport has everything that the Olympic world needs: athletic expression at the highest level, true competitiveness, appeal on young people, grit and spectacle.
In this regard, I believe that the presence of IOC Sports Director, Mr Dubi, in the last days of World Championships could be considered a great step forward for the nomination of roller-skating as a new Olympic sport. Mr Dubi had the opportunity to check personally the freshness of speed skating and its appeal on young people and has drawn up an evaluation card to be presented to the Executive Board of the IOC before the vote.
We discussed all the technical specifications of skating rinks, athletic characteristics of speed skating and its social and ecological value. We are sure, we can submit the appointment of Lausanne, on the next 13th and 14th November, with the knowledge of our strengths and our potential.
A sport hug to the whole world of roller skating,
FIRS President
Sabatino Aracu