Waterskiing meets the IOC
The The following photos and letter from Desmond Burke-Kennedy are his "bird's eye view" of the historic events. Graziano Tognala, IWSF Sec. General, will be
issuing an official note in the next few days We have just arrived back from quite an extraordinary experience in Spain
and I will try to share the details and atmosphere with you using the
limitations of the English language!
Here is the perspective on the occasion. The 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games
were watched by over 18,000 million viewers. This is not a typo - eighteen
thousand million viewers is the figure! As we know, The President of the
IWSF, Andres Botero has worked for years to try to get us on to this stage.
A special occasion arose over the past weeks where we had a window of
opportunity to make our case in a very special way.
nbsp;The full Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee plus the
General Assembly of the World's Associations of National Olympic Committees
planned their Congress for Seville in the southern part of Spain for the
first week in June. This is hosted by the Government of the Andalusian
region. This includes over 800 National Olympic Committee delegates
representing 197 countries - plus the entire - and very powerful - IOC
Executive Board. Over 150 Journalists also cover the event. Andres
succeeded in getting a commitment that we could organise a special
Waterskiing Demonstration at some stage during this highly influential
gathering.
Like us ordinary mortals, these important World leaders of Sport (remember
the 18,000 million viewers) have to eat lunch every day. Our project was to
somehow get them to agree to come to a venue to see us in action - and to
provide lunch for them. No small challenge!
Andres, Secretary General Graziano Tognala, EAME President Kuno Ritschard,
Helena Kjellander and myself then started to work on the details. The first
coup was securing permission from His Excellency, Juan Samaranch, to give
us the time slot - 1.00pm to 3.00pm on June 4th. The second "miracle" was
the securing of the magnificent C.A.R. Rowing Club facilities on the
downtown Guadalquiver River. This venue is not unlike the Moomba location.
The Clubhouse area was superb. Thanks to magnificent work by Xavi Mill and
the Spanish Waterski Federation, within 24 hours the site was ready. Xavi
towed the Ramp from Barcelona - way up north. Correct Craft were generous
in the extreme and towed three boats all the way from Portugal - Peter
Methven deserves our great thanks.
Helena and I worked hard at preparing all the activity schedules for the
week and focused our main efforts on two full dress rehearsals of the
entire routine. Timing was critical. Try this for a challenge - over 600
guests on 14 Coaches plus hoards of TV crews, Journalists and Photographers
- all to be seated and fed and presented with a full demonstration on
Slalom, Tricks/Figures, Wakeboard and Jump in this almost impossible time
slot. That is why I took a stop watch to bed for the week!
Let's skip to 1.00pm on Thursday, June 4th at the Guadalquiver River site.
The security was tight - mounted and armed Police on horseback in the reeds
at both ends of the Rowing Club. We were ready. Our dress rehearsals
forced us to make many cutbacks - and it was going to be very tight. We
heard on the radios that his Excellency and the 14 Coaches were on their
way. At this stage we thought - this is about as big a challenge as you can
get. The logistics challenge is enormous. Andres straightened his Panama
hat, Graziano double checked the things he double checked a few minutes
ago, Helena counted the Athletes to make sure nobody went a.w.o.l and I was
silently trying to figure out how to stand in front of the Mike facing our
distinguished guests and at the same time watch the water behind me. When
His Excellency arrives, you know he has arrived. TV crews scramble, camera
flashes explode, security guards take charge - and in the midst of this,
the IOC President looks as if this is all normal. The sun is shining. It's
26C degrees. The show begins.
The best view in the World at that moment is directly behind the Mike in
front of over 600 ACNO guests, virtually the entire IOC Board, the World's
Press - and all focused on Waterskiing. I can see Andres and Graziano
unleash a smile. At first the guests look tense - just another stop on a
hectic social round. We begin with Slalom - Helena Kjellander
(Sweden),Steve Cockeram (NZ)and Jeff Rodgers (USA) put on a magnificent
display. My job is to explain as simply as possible how it all works -
Cruise Control on the Correct Craft, Perfect Pass, Rope lengths and
colours, boat speeds, Bottscher Video measurement system,scores. We are
now just a little behind our practice times - try not to panic! Next
comes Figures - try hard not to say Tricks - the audience is beginning to
relax - the applause becomes more natural. Ageliki Andriopoulou (Greece),
Sergio Font (Mexico) and Patrice Martin (France) are superb. Again, I
explain the fundamentals. Vreni Ritschard gets the scores to me in a flash.
The applause gets warmer. We are now a little later behind our time
schedule - but His Excellency looks relaxed. Next comes Wakeboard - Gillian
Whiteley (GB), Stephane Traeger (Switzerland) and Dean Lavelle (USA). Fate
intervenes. From one of the eyes in the back of my head, I notice that the
Wakeboarders are in trouble - just beyond the vision of our guests. It
turned out to be weeds in the filter ! Can you believe it. Like the team
of a well rehearsed Broadway Show, we quickly switch to Jump - and the
audience hardly notices the glitch. The athletes walk on stage - Elena
Milakova (Russia), Andrea Alessi ( Italy) and Jaret Llewellyn (Canada).
Now the audience has totally relaxed - I can feel the warmth of reaction.
They are responding well to our commentary. Each athlete is now getting
natural applause. " We judge the distance by putting a chalk mark on the
water " gets a spontaneous laugh. Xavi Mill had a crew member in the water
under the Ramp - less than two minutes to get it up to 1.8m. Great stuff.
Andrea Alessi really helped - just a little back on his heals - looked in
real trouble in the air - an audible gasp from the audience - great stuff
again. Jaret just flew - hanging by a silver thread from the deep blue
Spanish sky - and the applause was even better.
The slight Wakeboard mishap turned out to be our saviour. Our resulting
timing was perfect. The moment our talented Driver, Ian Campbell(UK),
returned with Jaret to the Dock, His Excellency stood up and the show was
over before we could finish off with some presentations and thank-yous' The
entourage of TV cameras, Photographers and Journalists started the scrum
again and off they went to their next venue. It was over .... but not quite.
His Excellency and the IOC Board sat to the right of our Rowing Club Stand
- and the Greek Delegation sat with our own Depy Papademitriou (IWSF) to
the left. In conversations with His Excellency and Gilbert Felli (IOC),
they have made it clear that we must succeed in getting the Greek IOC to
nominate Waterskiing as one of their two additional sports for the 2004
Athens Olympic games - before the IOC can consider our request. Depy has
done enormous work to prepare the way for a positive decision - and so we
wanted to treat the Greek Delegation as our special guests. They greatly
appreciated the involvement of Agelike Andriopoulou in the Figures event -
and we also took them all to dinner and a great Flamenco show later that
night.
This was a great experience - one of those memories which lasts a lifetime.
Our team worked their hearts out - and the result was a very professional
presentation. The comments from the Delegates later were very flattering to
our sport of Waterskiing. I doubt if there is any more we could have
achieved. Our Wakeboard friends recovered from the intervention of fate
with a display as the Delegates exited. Our Barefoot friends had hoped to
participate but the time allotted to us by the IOC made it impossible to do
any more than we did - and even that was on a knife edge.
Keep those signatures of support rolling in - they are critical. Did you
submit the letter of support from your own National Olympic Committee ? If
not, get it in as soon as possible. It is critical to the next stage.
I will issue photos as attachments as soon as I get another free moment.
Thank you for all your support to our team - without this comfort, we could
not have got to this point.
Yours in exhaustion!
Des Burke-Kennedy
Dear Waterski Friends,
Front :
Dean Lavelle (USA), Andrea Alessi (Italy), Elena Milakova (Russia), Brenda
Nicholls Baldwin (USA),Carlos (Portugal), Natalya (Spain). 
