Kazan to host international judging seminars in run-up to Summer Universiade

The Executive Directorate of the 27th Summer Universiade with the support of the Ministry of Sport of the Russian Federation, Ministry of Youth Affairs, Sports and Tourism of the Republic of Tatarstan, in cooperation with all-Russian and regional sports federations is actively working on the creation of a database of the Russian sports judging corps as well as on the establishment of the quantitative and qualitative composition of judges for the 2013 Summer Universiade.

In order to improve the skills of judges in Tatarstan and to enable their participation in the Summer Universiade during the period from January to July 2013, there are plans to hold international judging seminars in 18 sports with the number of participants reaching over 1,100 people. The total number of judges and referees engaged in the World University Games in Kazan will be 2,418, including 831 international and 1,587 Russian judges and referees.

As Olga Pavlova, Merited Coach of Russia, Adviser for Sports Affairs to the Director General of the Kazan 2013 Executive Directorate, explaimed, such large-scale work is being done in the country for the first time: "It is not just seminars. It is a system of training, retraining, requalification and re-evaluation of the new Russian judging crops. We have a proactive attitude, we work for the long-term. Not all of the national judges will work at the Summer Universiade, but they will all go through these seminars."

According to Olga Pavlova, the cycle of these activities will also play a very important role in the context of the judges' adaptation to the changes in the rules due to the changed Olympic cycle: "Taking advantage of the fact that these seminars will be conducted by international lecturers who are members of technical committees of various federations, our judges will be the first to get hold of this information."

Besides, as part of the comprehensive preparation for the World University Games, the seminars simulate stress situations which require the judges to make the right decisions in the shortest possible time because a judging error is not only a biased assessment of an athlete's performance, but it is also a serious blow to the host country's image.

The first in the series of the seminars held in the run-up to the 27th Summer Universiade will be the international badminton judges seminar. The seminar will be held under the auspices of the Ministry of Sport of the Russian Federation, Ministry of Youth Affairs, Sports and Tourism of the Republic of Tatarstan, Executive Directorate of the 27th Summer Universiade Kazan 2013, National Badminton Federation of Russia, and Badminton Federation of the Republic of Tatarstan. The seminars will be attended by more than 100 people, including judges, coaches and teachers of children and youth sports schools, Physical Education teachers and university lecturers.

Badminton is on the curriculum of secondary schools – as an individual PE lesson – and this sport is also included in the Children's Spartakiad of the Republic of Tatarstan. The badminton judges seminar will enable physical education teachers to obtain extensive knowledge in the organisation of competitions and to conduct badminton tournaments in the form of tests when teaching PE, as well as to judge in regional competitions and the Children's Spartakiad of Tatarstan.

"The upcoming seminar will boost the development of badminton," says Olga Pavlova. "It is a new sport which is developing rapidly. We are training 150 new line judges who will attend these seminars. They will be spreading this knowledge. We will audio- and video-record these seminars and prepare special teaching materials based on these seminars. Using these materials, the judges will be able to conduct badminton training seminars for Physical Education teachers. We have a wide coverage from the theoretical and practical point of view."

Following the seminars, the Ministry of Youth Affairs, Sports and Tourism of the Republic of Tatarstan will re-evaluate sports judges of Tatarstan to check their competence.