Chapter 11

It is difficult to describe briefly what SportAccord is, how it became what it is today, what it’s function has been for Aikido and what it will mean for us in the future*.

Earlier I have described how sports that were not in the IOC were brought together in the WorldGames, and how the IOC and IWGA together formed GAISF (General Association of International Sport Federations). The name SportAccord was used for the convention GAISF organized, and eventually adopted as their name because of the marketing power of the concept.

But let me go back to the first time I attended a SportAccord convention in Berlin in 2005. The event was hosted in a large hotel (which easily packed the meetings, the convention, the gala dinner, etc.). It appeared that GAISF was a prestigious organization, where literally all the sportorganizations that meant anything were participating.
Another thing I noticed was that there was a lot of political wheeling and dealing going on. There were endless meetings, formal and informal. And it was an old-mans event. There were some younger people, but all the representatives were 60+ in my perception.
I visited the events I needed to: the IWGA general assembly, the GAISF general assembly. I tried to make acquaintance with the people representing other sports. And I tried to find a justification for being there to satisfy my own efforts.

This came when a United Nations Ambassador made an address at the gala dinner. Mr Ogi, former president of Switserland, made a strong appeal to the representatives about their responsibilities. He pointed out the importance of sport:
– for obvious reasons such as health and relaxation
– for less obvious reasons such as sport being one of the last social structures where children can participate and learn social skills
– for the even less obvious reason that in conflict-ridden areas where sport may be the first activity to reconcile people

The next day I found a more pragmatic reason why Aikido needed to attend. The chairman and general secretary of IWGA came to me to inform me that Aikido would need to introduce competition to maintain its position as a demonstration sport**. Of course I realized the sensitivity of the situation, and made not other comment than that I would address the issue in the IAF. I did howver try to ascertain why this was such a strong issue for the IWGA and in the following days I talked to several IWGA officials. Perhaps the strongest resentment came from the IWGA general secretary who simply put it as: ‘we organize competition, Aikido has no competition, why would I organize it’.

Fast-forwarding from this first experience, the IAF found out quite quickly that GAISF was changing each year. The following year the convention was larger, the number of people attending had grown, the political buzz was growing. The IAF went there to see if we could renegotiate its position with IWGA. Some minor progress was made, but still little seemed to be really relevant.

In the coming years we maintained our presence, made an effort to create good connections to people attending and follow the developments and promote the position of Aikido.

This became relevant after the World Games. Because Aikido would always draw larger crowds than a number of other competition sports. We would be negotiating our position as a demonstration sport.

But in the meantime we noticed that GAISF was changing. When Mr Verbruggen became chairman of GIASF he clearly tried to reposition GAISF. Until then the reality had been that the IOC and its substructures had dominated the field, IWGA had been growing, but could be seen as taking care of the fall-out from the Olympic Games. But the number of new sports grew, and at that time AIMS was formed to give those new members a phramework to function***.

At that time AIMS was nothing other than a small meeting for the other sports. It was established, the next year it had its first meeting and decisions, the next year it introduced some new member, the next year it appointed a new board which promised to do more, etc. It slowly moved forward but without a real sense of purpose.

At the level of GAISF things were happening. We found out that IWGA was really going to strike off Aikido as a demonstration sport. But at the same time GAISF wanted to introduce Martial Arts Games. And in 2008 I was asked by the chairman of the IAF to introduce the concept to the general assembly of the IAF.

GAISF had finally become relevant for Aikido.

(to be continued)

* So, this may lead to several posts on SportAccord describing different aspects
** For those of you who wish to be offended by the shere mentioning of Aikido as a demonstration sport, please realize that the current Doshu has agreed to see Aikido as a demonstration sport in the context of the Olympic Games in Japan in 2020.
*** During the SportAccord each and every IOC-related organization would have its general assembly. The other sports would be ‘hanging around’ on those days. Introcuding AIMS gave these other sports their own meeting.