CERILH rebirth

I’m delighted to announce the organisation of the 1st European InLine Hockey Championships for Senior Women and Under 18 Men.

It has been a quite long journey to those championships, from the start and first discussions with some core nations (France, Switzerland, Italy and Spain), to the presentation of this project to European Federations during the Worlds 2014 in Toulouse, to finally the organisation of this first event Roana 2015. It took us almost 2 years of our time.

CERILH is still a provisional committee but with the organization of this Euro, the project takes shape and this is really good news for our sport.

Roana is the Future

The two CERILH championships in Roana gives an idea of what will be CERILH project in the future.

U18 Men is the category that will populate senior teams in a couple of years. This generation needs an international competition as a model of motivation. CERILH will propose this competition every year and open it to more and more countries as the best “rendez-vous” for those young athletes. Imagine the number of countries with InLine Hockey players and how amazing it could be to have them all in one single competition? The potential is crazy and Roana is the “first time” for this event. It is Future. Today, we start with 5 teams, but soon there will be more than 10 teams and within less that 10 years, at least 16 teams for a real standard international event.

CERILH Euro Senior Women championship has also to be seen with the future in mind. For all sports in the world that are governed within the Olympic movement, alternating World Competitions and Continental Competitions is a sign of good and healthy structuration. Starting to create the alternation between Worlds and Euros is key to help bringing our sport to its next level. It is key for federations that don’t have enough money to finance a World Championship in all categories every year (and as the economic development is now in Asia, South America and Middle East, there is a natural affinity to organise more and more World Events there). But it is also interesting, with Continental Competitions, to start creating another story, claim the European Identity of our sport. That, I’m sure, will interest media and sponsors. We are starting this new adventure with women and yet we see the futures of sport mixing together, as women in sport are an era of development in all Europe.

A new event for players and fans

The event in Roana will be great and new for everybody. Italy, Latvia and France in Senior Women are used to international competition. But still, I can see new players in those teams that will discover international competition for the first time. Switzerland women’s team, for example, will make its first appearance in an international official event. This is the typical purpose of CERILH project, open championship to new comers.

In U18, while some players are already playing junior world championships, it will be for many of these young people a real baptism of international sport.

I’m really delighted that CERILH can offer them.

I’d like to finish with some words about the organization. Roana organization team is proposing a great venue and great facilities for players. CERILH ans CERS are really concerned by the quality of an event for players. With the event broadcasted online with 100% of the games available, all fans will be able to follow it or by coming to Roana and enjoy all the sports and nature facilities the city propose, or by watching online and follow all the media coverage offered by the press team.

Roana 2015 is really a new event, by a new generation for new generations.