[James]

The International Canoe Federation has today announced that Federations will need to qualify for the 2006 and all future World Canoe Polo Championships.

The 2004 World Canoe Polo Championships in Miyoshi Japan will be the first Qualification Event for the 2006 World Championships to be held in the Netherlands.

In each of the Men's and Women's categories the top 16 teams at the 2004 Worlds will qualify automatically for the 2006 World Championships provided that they participate in their Continental Canoe Polo Championships in 2005. The teams that win each of the five Continental Canoe Polo Championships in 2005 will also qualify for the 2006 Worlds. In the event that a team has already qualified as one of the top 16, then the next best placed federation in that Continental Championship will get the Continental place. The ICF will allocate a further three wildcards. A total of 24 Men and 24 Women teams will participate at the 2006 Worlds.

Qualification will also be required for the Under-21 categories. Participating teams in Miyoshi will have the chance to qualify automatically for the 2006 Worlds by placing in the top 5 teams provided that they participate in their Continental Canoe Polo Championships 2005. As in the Men's and Women's categories, the five teams winning their Under-21 Continental Canoe Polo Championships in 2005 will also qualify for the 2006 World Championships. A total of 10 Under-21 Men and 10 Under-21 Women teams will participate at World Championships in the Netherlands.

The 2002 ICF Congress changed the qualification rules for the World Canoe Polo Championships and as such these rules are already in effect.

At the 2006 World Canoe Polo Championships there will be 4 categories participating: Senior Men, Senior Women, Under-21 Men and Under-21 Women.


I guess you wouldn't really want to miss out on this worlds if your from Europe.....might be hard to get the other spots. I guess what ICF is saying is it is rewarding persistance.

[BigD]

Just wondering: is the host nation (Japan, Netherlands) automatically qualified?

[Djorre]

If i'm correct this means, you either have to go to Japan,
the best 16 go to the next worlds. (meaning allmost every nation that will be there?!)

Or if you can't go to Japan, you have to be 1st in the next Europeans eg.

Because, possibly the first placed European teams in the worlds will be the same teams in the Europeans, does this mean that the ticket goes to the first placed European team at the Cont. Ch. that didn't qualify in japan?

(I can imagine GB, FR, GER, NED, SPA, ITA to be high ranked in both)

thoughts anyone ??

Greetz,
Joris.

[Greg]

Djorre,


You are thinking right. In Seniors top 16 automatically qualify for next Worlds if they enter the following years continental champs.

So yes, for example in Europe the team placed perhaps 9th may be the continental qualifier.

Greg Smale
ICF CPC

[Greg]

Apology - should have said Joris - oops.

[pab]

hello greg


where can we get or download the full set of rules from? ta, pab

[ErikV]

Why does the ICF make those rules?

To decrease the number of participating countries?
Or an equal number of countries from each continent?

I think this qualification process will not lead to a better country rank.

bye, Erik
ps. I'am not playing at such a high level, but i can't see the advantage of this qualification process.

[Djorre]

no prob Greg :-)


I see that up untill now only some 13 to 14 country's have confirmed they are going to Japan,.... what will happen with the 3 other places left from the Japanese WC ??


Greetz,
Djorre,..
Joris,...
...
;-)

[carlostelmo]

Hi everybody,

I hope that this qualifications rules will be the same for several worlds and not only for the Netherlands-2006 worlds, because it won´t be very polite and sportive make this rules only to ensure that the Japan World Championship have a massive participation....

Best regards for everybody.

[JW Lester]

So this post is about travel to Canada and the Qualification process for the upcoming worlds and the Americas region qualifiers.

For Europeans travel to Canada it shouldn't be too bad (expensive - yes, as intercontinental travel from Europe during summer is always expensive) - probably a bit cheaper than Japan, but few if any of the airlines serving Edmonton directly will carry boats (Air Canada, Alaska, and Northwest Airlines are the chief offenders). This means you'll have to fly into Calgary which has service by United Airlines which will take boats, but charge USD $127 per piece each way (ie. two boats together) at present. You can then drive to Edmonton. The other thing is that the Canada Canoe Polo organization is very very good, and I wouldn't be suprised to find that the Canada Worlds will be organized to a very high standard and I don't think travel from Europe to Edmonton will be all too much of a challenge.

The difficulty will be for more far-flung countries which don't have reasonably priced flights to Calgary - which brings me to the qualification process.

The really unrealistic thing about the whole qualification process is that those who have made this decision didn't consider that forcing the USA/Canada to travel to Brazil/Argentina or vice versa for a qualification is simply ludicrous. It is the equivalent of telling a European team that they'd have to travel to South Africa in order to qualify. The Canadians had a terrible time getting to Brazil for the Worlds and the reverse is likely to be the case. Tickets to/from Canada/Brazil cost over $1400 not including boats, and the Canadians had lots of trouble with their boats at the 2000 Brazil Worlds.

In the case of countries such as Brazil and Argentina which struggle to attend the Worlds, how can the ICF assume that they'd be able to spend money for intercontinental travel every year???

Even in relatively "wealthy" countries like the US/Canada, we recieve scant financial support, and many of our players would not be able to afford to travel to qualifications in S.America one year, and then Europe/Asia/Wherever the next.

I also heard a rumor that the S.Africans/Namibians will be forced to qualify in Oceania???? If true, where is the logic in that?

[AndyDancer]

Seems a strange thing to do. As I understand it one of the pre-requisits for getting a sport into the Olympics (has to be an aim for polo since the pool etc is already there it would be easy to stage) is getting lots of countries to participate in your world champs. So much so that, as I understand it, in Slalom they have been deliberately supporting emerging nations by funding and getting the top nations to provide coaching etc.

Why are we going the other way?

[mrkeeg]

I thought I would rejuvinate this post to help increase awareness. These questions are being asked over and over again.

Keegan