Under the leadership of the Italian President Gianni Merlo, the 72nd AIPS Congress held in Milano started on April 29th. As it has become a tradition over the past years, FISU was present at the Congress of the International Sports Press Association in order to enlarge the network and to inform the sports journalists about the FISU activities. Leonz Eder, Chair of the FISU Press Committee attended the Congress at the beginning while Verena Burk, Vice Chair of the CIP FISU joined the Congress later and stayed until the end.
About 350 sports journalists from more than 110 nations were present in Milan at the Marriott’s Hotel. Besides FISU, the world of sport was represented by Ottavio Cinquanta, president of ISU, Gianfranco Kasper, president of FIS, Bruno Grandi, president of FIG, IAAF Vice-President Sergey Bubka, FIVB press officer Fabrizio Rossini, Hein Verbruggen, former UCI president and now president of Sport Accord, and many other officials from different fields of sport.
Russian world pole vault champion and AIPS female Athlete of the Year for the past two years Yelena Isinbayeva attended the congress also to receive her 2008 award. The two-time Olympic gold medalist who holds an incredible 26 world records was accompanied by her coach Vitaly Petrov and IOC member Sergey Bubka, the Ukrainian legend of pole vault. In a kind of talk show Yelena Isinbayeva and Marcello Lippi, National coach of the Italian football team, informed the audience about their success. In the afternoon session of the first day of the congress presentations were made by AIBA, FIVB, IAAF and the Mediterranean Games. Finally Italian football coach Marcello Lippi who led his team to victory in the 2006 World Cup, Inter Milan captain Javier Zanetti and A.C. Milan midfielder Clarence Seedorf joined FIFA’s newly-appointed communications director Hans Klaus and UEFA media and communications director William Gaillard for a forum on football.
FISU EC member Leonz Eder used the opportunity to meet many of the sport leaders and sport journalists and to inform them about the FISU program. He discussed the promotion of the Winter Universiade 2011 in Erzurum with the Turkish sports journalists delegation and Turkish NOC president Togay Bayatli.
AIPS President Gianni Merlo and Leonz Ezder, CIP Chair
AIPS President Merlo flanked by Yelena Isinbayeva and Sergey Bubka
Hans Klaus (FIFA) with Marcello Lippi, Italian National Football Coach