Machine-translated from Faroese and not yet reviewed. Read the original.
FÍF’s annual general meeting was held yesterday. A shorter summary of the meeting will follow later. Until it does, you can pass the time by reading the chair’s report.
Chair’s report 2012
My two-year term as chair of FÍF ends this evening. But I have nonetheless stood for the chair again, and knowing that no one else has been nominated, it looks as though I will continue as chair. I could have paused, reflected and assessed the time that has passed. Whether it has been good or bad. Or both. I have not really done that. But I know that there are unresolved issues that I set out to resolve, which have not been resolved – yet. And I know that although athletics takes up all my free time and a bit more besides, it is exciting and rewarding work. I would therefore gladly take two more years together with all the positive and exciting people I meet in athletics, and so have the chance to resolve the issues I once set myself.
Coaching courses
In this chair’s report I will start straight away with the activities that were under way around the time of the last general meeting, and with a subject I did not say much about in the last chair’s report. Namely, coaching courses. In April/May last year we had two weekends on which we ran the coach education for the 14-17 age group. Each of these two weekends had two different Swedish instructors. In addition, Ellinor Sundstrand from Gotland was present on both weekends. No fewer than 20 participants took part in the course. It is pleasing that at least 10 of them coach athletics on a daily basis. As in so many other sports, the need for coaches in athletics is great. In all the clubs a lot rests on the same shoulders, and if we are to move forward and take in more athletes, it is important to get more people involved in the coaching teams.
FÍF takes this task seriously, and plans to run a rolling education scheme with the modules that are part of the Swedish education scheme. Last year Heri Ziska and Randi Kúrberg were in Sweden and took the Swedish instructor education. FÍF was able to benefit from this this spring, when a coaching course was organised for the 7-10 age group. This was the first time Faroese instructors had organised a coaching course in athletics. At least for FÍF. And it must be said that all of the roughly 20 course participants were very satisfied. Heri and Randi took this education on their own initiative. The board agrees, however, that FÍF should support them in going further, if they wish to. Both because in the long run it will of course be cheaper with Faroese instructors, but also because we want to be able to do it ourselves, and because it is easier for course participants to communicate in their mother tongue. We expect to run a coaching course later this year, but this has not been confirmed yet.
Statistics database
One of FÍF’s major goals is to obtain a statistics database for recording results, which can then be turned into ranking lists of all kinds. At the last general meeting I mentioned that the company admind had been given the task and had gradually got to work. But now, a year later, we have unfortunately not got much further. It is hard to find results, there are no ranking lists and no record lists. But not nothing at all has been done. At a recent meeting with admind they informed us that the new registration system on athletics.fo is the very foundation of the new statistics database. In addition, they have linked a payment system to it. This is then to be developed further to include results and statistics. So we are talking about an advanced complete solution.
After the meeting, or yesterday, the company admind did, however, announce that they do not wish to build a statistics database for FÍF. The board will therefore, as one of its first tasks, look for another supplier. We must therefore live without a statistics database for a while longer. But while we wait, we can make some improvements. And some have already been made. The record lists that have been neglected on the website have now all been updated. Both for adults and youth. Indoor and outdoor. In addition, we will now once again post all results under the Results tab on the website. We are fortunate to have former Island Games runner Regin Reinert sitting down in Copenhagen, where he keeps an eye on all our activities. He has collected all the results and made it possible to update the record lists, and I am very grateful to him for that.
Sponsorship
2011 was a very eventful year. And 2011 also became a year in which a lot of money was spent. More than came in. It is therefore a fact that if the same level of activity is to be maintained or, preferably, increased, more money must also come into the coffers. FÍF has not had a main sponsor in recent years, but now that betting money and the support from the Ministry of Culture are no longer enough, we should seek a main sponsor or several smaller ones. I mentioned at the last general meeting that something was in the pipeline, and that sponsorship money would probably appear in the accounts for 2011 and 2012. For various reasons, which I will not go into here, no sponsorship money came in during 2011. We are, however, continuing to work on the matter, and negotiations with a possible sponsor are currently under way.
Facilities
Recently it emerged that the mayor of Tórshavn Municipality has plans to have a large hall built in Villingadalur. A football hall and concert hall first and foremost. But rather undefined. He called it a large hall or a multi-purpose hall. But regardless of whether these are castles in the air, eggs or chicks, we should be involved from the start and do everything we can to make sure there is room for athletics in the hall as well. We have had a winter in which our children and young people have defied the nasty storms that have been thrown at us. It would be an exaggeration to say that athletics is an outdoor sport through the Faroese winter. That at least takes a good, strong will. A hall would have been very welcome, and could also have been a real breakthrough for athletics. It is too late to start crying about this when the rafters are being raised on the hall, and so we should make our influence felt straight away.
The facilities at Tórsbreyt are still as poor as they have always been. For athletes, spectators and organisers alike. The town council has granted money for an officials’ room on top of the toilet building by the finish area. That will make things a lot easier. But this has been said for a long time now, and still nothing has happened, and no one from the town council has asked what such an officials’ room requires. It is easy enough for the town council to get out of it when no one applies pressure, because it is a proven fact that things have to be pushed and prodded for anything to happen. Some call it lobbying. But the question then is who should apply the pressure. Here I think that Hvirlan, Bragdið and FÍF should stand as one strong man/woman and really try to get the town council to follow its own decisions. Because it is quite simply impossible to organise competitions inside a dark, ice-cold toilet, where people wade back and forth among cables, while equipment worth more than DKK 100,000 stands on the roof and is ruined in the pouring rain………
Because the electronic timing equipment has been damaged, and expensive spare parts have been bought from the USA. The wireless signal still does not work, but the equipment works perfectly well with a cable.
Elite work
Of our six athletes at the Island Games, only three are not in the talent group. And in addition to these three, there are only three other athletes who belong to the elite group. The adults in the elite group have not really had any offer from FÍF, other than support for a competition or training camp abroad. It can be mentioned here that Henry Olsen took part in the Berlin ½ marathon, and that Heri Ziska took part in a veterans’ competition in Italy, where he also won two medals. We have chosen to change this this year, so that the national team will go to VU-Spelen in Gothenburg as one group together with the talent team. National team athletes will at the same time have the opportunity to take part when the talent group has training camps. Once again this year many have achieved the A standard for the talent group, which gives them the right to go on the trip abroad, so it will be a large party travelling to Gothenburg on 6 July.
We were also in Gothenburg last summer with the largest group ever. The results were excellent, and we came home with two bronze medals. They were won by Marnar Djurhuus in the 3,000 metres and Katarina Høj, who showed a fantastically high level when, only 12 years old, she ran 5:07 in the 1,500 metres!
When we set the standards for the talent group at the time, we often thought that “no one is going to achieve that”. But today the situation is different. If we include everyone who has also achieved the B standard, the number has now reached 20. We had expected the number to be at the lower end, around 10. We can happily note that the great work that the clubs and their coaches do all year round really does produce results.
Island Games
Last summer the Island Games were held on the Isle of Wight. The Island Games are the biggest and most important challenge for our athletes. The squad was not large. Six people. But it was evenly strong, and all of them could win a medal on a good day. All in all, we won two silver and three bronze medals and set 6 new Faroese records. We have to go all the way back to 1999 to find a better Island Games year. Bjørk won silver in the 5,000 and 10,000 metres and bronze in the half marathon. In all three races she set a new Faroese record. Øssur also set a Faroese record in both events he took part in. While he finished no. 5 in the triple jump, he managed to win bronze in the high jump. Marnar, like Øssur, was at his first Island Games, and he too managed to win a bronze medal in the 5,000 metres. Rebekka set a Faroese record in the 800 metres final, and improved her 1,500 metres time considerably. Heri finished no. 5 in the discus, but only a very few centimetres separated him from the silver medal. Rúni stumbled in the 800 metres semi-final, but we hope he comes back strongly next time.
And next time the Island Games will be in Bermuda. Stories have been circulating about sky-high travel costs, and both the swimming federation and the volleyball federation have been in the media saying that they will hardly take part in Bermuda. Naturally, we have also considered what is the right thing to do. FÍF is, however, in a good financial position, and we can therefore manage an expensive Island Games once. Some precautions have been taken. For example, some selection standards have been tightened somewhat, and we have also made it known that a user fee of up to DKK 3,000 per athlete may be imposed. In addition, we have wanted to have the option of arranging the whole trip ourselves, and thereby being able to make the trip much cheaper. We have therefore set 31 December as the deadline for meeting the selection standards.
It now looks, however, as though ÍSF and Atlantic Airways have made a reasonably good deal, so that we will travel with them. If so, the deadline can be moved forward a few months.
The squad next year can be expected to be 6-10 athletes plus team leaders.
Competitions
The competitions this past year have been quite similar to previous years. FM-cross was again held in Hoydalar this year. This time the race was part of the Winter Series, and this attracted many more people. A very successful event. The Winter Series was on the whole very successful, and never before have so many names appeared on the final results list, which included only those who had taken part in at least three races. It was a different story in the summer with the Grand Prix stevna runs. There were seven rounds, and to be part of the overall competition, 5 rounds had to be completed. This became the weakest competition so far, and this is probably because we no longer have a children’s Grand Prix at the stevnas. There will of course be stevna runs again this year, and this is on the initiative of the clubs. FÍF will of course help with handling the races if there is a need, but whether all the stevna runs are to be organised as one overall Grand Prix is something we should look into the need for.
The Track Grand Prix was again very successful in 2011. As something extra, adults were also given access to the competitions, though without being part of the Grand Prix. Not many, however, took up the offer.
To find the overall winner of the Grand Prix, we have used the so-called Tyrving table to award points. The three best rounds have counted. This has made it somewhat difficult and confusing for athletes and parents to follow, and we therefore intend to move away from the Tyrving table and instead use placing points. Organising five large Grand Prix meets has also demanded an incredible amount of the board, and of other helpers too. We will therefore go back to having three meets during the summer. Two before the holidays and one after. The first meet will be as early as next Friday evening, when Bragdið will be organising. The other two meets will be on Saturdays, so that we can use a bit more time, now that more events are to be held each day. The fact that we are now organising only three meets means that the clubs themselves have greater opportunity to organise other competitions.
FM Adults was, as usual, held on the first weekend in August. At the same time as the Summarfestivalur. We have now competed with the Summarfestivalur for some years, and I think that this time we lost. At any rate, there was no media in Tórshavn that weekend, or they did not dare venture out into the pouring rain that fell on both days. Although we had lowered the age limit by one year and allowed access to people outside the clubs, this did not produce enough participants. We have therefore moved FM Adults to July, but now the G-festivalur has also moved one week forward, so on our calendar we are set to hold FM on the same days as the G-festivalur. However, at a board meeting this week we decided to move FM one weekend closer to Ólavsøka. FM Adults was otherwise held with an almost full programme. 400 m hurdles, triple jump and relays were new events on the programme.
For the third year in a row, FM Youth was held over two days. There are many events on the programme, and this time the number of starts increased from 300 to 400. And although the weather was rather uncertain, and although the sound man had forgotten us on the second day, we had two fine days with a host of age-group records. Indeed, we even got a senior record, when four very young Hvirlan girls broke the age-old Faroese record in the 4×100 m relay. FM Youth will be held on the weekend after the start of school, 25 and 26 August, and will largely follow the same format, with some minor changes in the choice of events.
I mentioned earlier that the competitions have largely been the same as the year before. That is not quite right, however. The big club in Klaksvík with many runners had never organised an FM race, and at the last general meeting there was talk of moving the FM in the half marathon to Klaksvík. No sooner said than done, and last Saturday the first FM was held in Klaksvík. And Treysti made quite something of it. No fewer than 160 took part in the race, which we can safely call a resounding success. There has been some talk about the measurement of the course in Klaksvík. Because measuring routes is easier said than done. It takes an approved course measurer, and we have never had one in the Faroe Islands. We therefore decided to send Heðin Jóhannesen from Treysti down to Århus on a course measurer course. And this was then the first route to receive the stamp “approved”. The next will be the Norðoyastevna route.
I think we can also say that the FM marathon in Tórshavn was successful. Although there were perhaps not so many in the fun run, a lot of participants gathered on both the marathon course and the half-marathon course.
We now have FM in the vast majority of events. The FM in 10 km road running has been held in Runavík every year around the time of Eystanstevna. There is, however, still no FM in the 10,000 metres and the throws pentathlon. It could therefore be an idea to have an evening at Tórsbreyt for these two FM titles, and then perhaps also hold some of the odd relays, e.g. 1,000 m (100+200+300+400) or 4×1,500 m. It could then fittingly be Hvirlan that got this event, if there was interest in it. I once loosely mentioned this to them a long time ago.
The smaller clubs
It looks as though more life has come into the smaller clubs, and this is very pleasing. Hvistan in Suðuroy in particular has really woken up. They organise regular training sessions and have been around the villages on the island holding training evenings. Several of them have also been north of the fjord and taken part in the Winter Series. And they will be organising an innovative event this summer. A 25 km night run at Jóansøka, in addition to organising the Jóansøka run itself, Runt Vatnið. Frælsi has also elected a brand-new board at its general meeting, and they too have started regular recreational training. Although the board work in Roysnið is so-so, they too have started club training with longer and shorter runs. Common to all these clubs is that they have set up Facebook profiles, and perhaps it is an idea for us to become friends with them, so that we can also train with them if we are in their area.
So far their activity is only recreational running, but in time we hope to see someone from these clubs on the track. In any case, FÍF should help to keep this small flame alive and kindle it even more. The clubs are warmly welcome to ask for the help they need. That is, among other things, what FÍF is there for.
International
At the last general meeting I reported that DAF, at a Nordic meeting, had argued our case for being able to take part as Faroese in Nordic championships. And now our first challenge lies ahead. On Saturday 19 May the so-called Nordic Challenge, which is the Nordic Championships in the 10,000 metres, will be held at Østerbro Stadion. Among the other Nordic flags, Merkið, the Faroese flag, will also be flying, because among the participants will be Bjørk Herup Olsen, who is on her way home from the USA. The chair will also be present at this festive moment, which is in reality the Faroe Islands’ first international representation in athletics.
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Every year we from the Faroe Islands are invited to a Nordic youth conference, and FÍF has also had representatives at these conferences in recent years. The conference is about each country reporting on the initiatives it puts in place. These have been very exciting and rewarding conferences, but when you have attended several times, they start to resemble each other. This year FÍF therefore invited representatives of the clubs to the conference, which was held in Oslo. Randi Kúrberg, Hvirlan, and Anna Maria Seloy, Bragdið, went, and they also got a lot out of the trip. I think it is necessary for us Faroese to show our faces where we have the opportunity, and this is a good opportunity, because several of the others are people who work in the federations themselves, and this can always bring advantages sooner or later.
Nordic cooperation also allows us to take part in all the various Nordic Championships for veterans and the Nordic Track Championships for U23 together with the Baltic countries. We can also take part in race walking competitions, though that does not appear to be very relevant right now.
Finally
There are gradually many people who spend a lot of time on athletics. And here I am not thinking of athletes, but of all those who do unpaid work. Several of you do an amazingly large amount of work for your club and at the same time for the development of athletics. I value your work greatly and am also very grateful for it. I would, however, like to give special thanks to Gutti for all the work he puts in. Without Gutti it would not have been easy to be chair of FÍF, and when you think of all the tasks he takes care of for his own club at the same time, I can only marvel and bow.
Finally, I would like to wish you a good competition year. A good summer. I hope that you in the clubs will make use of FÍF when there is a need. I hope that we can always maintain a positive dialogue, and that we can solve issues and tasks together. Remember – the clubs are not there for FÍF. FÍF is there for the clubs!
