Eindhoven, Netherlands, 19 July, 2018 – World ParaVolley President Barry Couzner OAM and International Paralympic Committee (IPC) President Andrew Parsons agreed to continue the strong relationship between the two organisations for the benefit of ParaVolley and Paralympic sport the world.
Mr Couzner and Mr Parsons met on Thursday on the sidelines of the 2018 World ParaVolley Sitting Volleyball World Championships in Eindhoven, the Netherlands where the men’s quarterfinals were taking place.
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And after a very close relationship with former IPC President Sir Philip Craven, Mr Couzner was keen to continue growing World ParaVolley’s relationship with the IPC and Mr Parsons, who became IPC President last year.
“I am grateful that Mr Parsons was able to visit the 2018 World ParaVolley Sitting Volleyball World Championships here in the Netherlands and see how important gender equality is for our organisation with 16 men’s and 16 women’s teams participating,” Mr Couzner said. “He was able to see the best sitting volleyball in the world played by the best sitting volleyball athletes in the world and can witness how competitive and popular the sport continues to be.
“We had a very fruitful discussion about the ongoing strong relationship between our two organisations with classification and anti-doping compliance two areas where we will continue to work very closely together while World ParaVolley’s goal to have Beach ParaVolley (Standing) in the 2028 Paralympic Games was also a topic Mr Parsons was very interested in.”
The 2018 World ParaVolley Sitting Volleyball World Championships continue through to Sunday with women’s semifinals and finals in Rotterdam on Friday and Saturday while the men’s team travel to The Hague on Friday for their semi-finals and finals on the weekend.