Canoe Sprint & Paracanoe World Championships 2018 and Canoe Marathon World Championships 2018 | International Relations Coordinator in the Host Organisation Committee

Situation

In 2018, the Portuguese Canoe Federation was in charge to host both the Canoe Sprint & Paracanoe World Championships and the Canoe Marathon World Championships. It was a challenge to organise two world championships in the same year, and the option was to manage them as one huge project with the same team. It was a small team, and each member was responsible for a certain area. ACPN was responsible for International Relations before and during both events. That included managing the registration processes of National Teams, Masters Athletes, and Officials, and supporting them with all related issues. It also included coordinating the Info Point, the information station at the venues to support National Teams, Masters Athletes, and Officials, and provide them with official information like Start Lists and Results.

Action

An efficient information system was implemented to interact with all people involved and efficiently collect and share information. Since most of the people involved were from all over the world and all members of the team were working remotely, the communication was based on email. Therefore, there was a need to sort incoming and outgoing emails to keep track of all exchanges – in this case, by type of championship and by country. As official contacts were at a more personal manner (with the team leaders mostly), it was possible to build good and trustworthy working relationships that allowed for interactions at the venue becoming easier. On the other hand, as there was a single person collecting information for the other members of the host team, those could focus better on their jobs. The collected data were transformed into information in shared excel sheets, regularly updated, so all members of the team could track the situation.

In the meanwhile, preparations were made to set up the Info Points at each venue. Based on previous experiences, several improvements were introduced:
. The phone numbers of the Team Leaders were collected and the main phone numbers of the host team members were shared, making communication better and more efficient.
. Info Point moved from an isolated container to a space inside the Athlete’s Lounge (a place where Athletes and Coaches could relax and watch the races on television), becoming closer and more available to Athletes and Technical Staff.
. One more board was added to the one available, for a better organisation of the information: one exclusive for results and the other for start lists and useful information (for example, restaurant schedule, bus shuttle schedule, Wi-Fi password).
. The pigeon holes for the Teams’ mail became self-service, instead of asking for it, which allowed Teams to manage it as they pleased.
. An Info Point member was posted at the Officials Office to improve the support provided, a request from the Officials.
. Info Point became responsible for managing the Athletes’ restricted area, including providing support to the Anti-Doping Committee and the Paracanoe Office.

Result

National Teams, Masters Athletes, and Officials felt they had more support in every step of the way and they were very grateful for it. On the other hand, due to a productive sharing of information, team spirit arose among the host committee members and issues were resolved quickly and easily. All objectives were successfully attained.