Sports & Venues - HANDBALL

  1. KEY STATISTICS

The ATHENS 2011 Handball Tournament in numbers:

  • Competition days: 6 (1 divisioning, 5 tournament)
  • Courts: 2 (1 main, 1 warm-up)
  • Teams: 12 (9 men, 3 women)
  • Divisions: 4 (3 men, 1 women)
  • Total matches: 26 (19 men, 7 women)
  • Average match attendance: 137 (max. hall capacity: 720)
  • Highest match attendance: 620 (men’s div. I final, GER- KEN: 16- 13)
  • Athletes: 134 (94 men, 40 women)
  • Team officials: 40
  • ITOs: 3 (2 men, 1 woman- TD)
  • NTOs: 15 (10 men, 5 women)
  • Paid staff: 14
  • Volunteers: 99
  1. HIGHLIGHTS
  • Paid staff: 95% with previous Olympic experience.
  • Venue: Olympic facility.
  • Court:Taraflex professional (3-color) competition surface that was never been used before in SO
  • Match statistics and tournament ranking software:The software was produced by the Sport’s Results team in order to cover the previously mentioned needs since the GMS was not able to cover them. It proved to be one of the tournament’s major assets.
  • Match scoresheet: For the first time in the history of the SO Handball tournament a fully electronic scoresheet was used during all the matches. The scoresheet was created by the Sport’s Results staff and was further designed to draw feed from the GMS data base. It functioned excellent.
  • Presentation team: A fully professional presentation team composed of a supervisor/stage manager, an English/Greek announcer and a dj, assisted by two volunteers, made the difference in the atmosphere inside the venue, during the matches and the breaks, giving a constant feeling of party, intriguing athletes and spectators in participating.
  • Cheerleaders: A professional cheerleading group was appointed for the last day (finals, USE and awards giving day). It proved to be a “strategic” movement in not only creating a perfect image and atmosphere but also attracting spectators to the venue and keeping them there until the last moment, plus gave to the athletes a unique sense of being special.
  • Budget: The limited budget represented a real challenge for all since things started out in being financially planned on a largely different basis that what we ended up with. Therefore, we had to improvise very often as well as in terms of staff’s work everyone was asked to do everything (meaning to perform duties quite often far from their official job description and appointment).
  • Award ceremonies: The careful planning and the attention paid by the GOC to this project resulted in a much appreciated by all involved or attended ceremony at the end of the tournament.
  • Sport publications: The publications produced and distributed to all concerned were very informative, descriptive and yet handy.
  1. FAs MAJOR ISSUES & RECOMMENDATIONS

List all major issues encountered by your FA during the Games and your recommendations on how to resolve/avoid these issues

No / Issue Description / Recommendation
1 / Divisioning / It was a senseshared by many Handball experts that certain teams had athletes not complying very much with the mental disability profile, something that was apparent in the team strategies that they followed during a game. This remark has not much to do with the divisioning process itself rather than with potential cheating on behalf of those teams
2 / Rules and Regulations / Many of the delegations were not familiar (either partially or at all) with the Rules and the Regulations governing the sport, the event or even the Special Olympics, thus causing problems in the daily communication with them, their functioning and life at the Venue or having them ask (even complain) for issues that are governed by standard SO or Handball procedures
  1. MAJOR ISSUES WITH OTHER FAs

List all major issues encountered in your cooperation with other FAs during the Games and/or other issues observed during the ATHENS 2011 Special Olympics World Summer Games

No / Functional Area / Issue Description
1 / Transportation / Limited human resources and transport means
  1. SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL

Please list of all supplementary material that you would like to include in the transfer of knowledge process (i.e. publications, staffing numbers, presentations, etc.)

1