INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF ATHLETICS COACHING 2024 (IFAC 24 Conference)

We’re excited to share with you that IFAC 24 is being organised and will take place from 1-3 November in Padua, Italy.

Title – Excellence Builds on Brilliant Basics

European Athletics Coaches Association and FIDAL – Federazione Italiana Di Atletica Leggera welcomes you to the International Festival of Athletics Coaching 2024. The coaching conference is presented in cooperation with the Corpo Libero at the Palaindoor di Padova. As with our previous successful running of this event in 2022 and 2023, the conference is part of the European Athletics Coaching Summit Series for 2024 and we look forward to meeting and uniting coaches from across Europe and beyond.

This year the title of the conference is Excellence Builds on Brilliant Basics and will specifically focus on:

  • Preparing for Los Angeles 2028 – Making the first year of Olympic cycle count.
  • Fundamentals First – Efficient and effective practice in developing young athletes.
  • Topics and talks will deal with a multitude of important aspects of science and practice relevant to becoming and being high performance coaches and all relating back to the theme – Excellence Builds on Brilliant Basics.
  • Sessions will include a mixture of lectures, interactive workshops, and practical demonstrations.

Coaches, scientists, and athletes (current and former) have been invited to present on the Friday and Sunday, which includes a Q&A session with a panel of current athletes. The Saturday is once more dedicated to a carousel of practical sessions covering all the disciplines within the sport of athletics. For the third year, this event is both onsite and online. The timetable will be announced in due course.

Conference timings:

  • Friday, 1st November: 13:15h – 21:00h
  • Saturday, 2nd November: 08:30h – 19:00h / Evening – A Dinner with the Coaches.
  • Sunday, 3rd November: 08:30h – 13:30h

Venue:

Palaindoor di Padova, Viale Nereo Rocco, 35136 Padova PD, Italy.

The Programme, speakers and the information on how to register to be announced in due course.

EACA to patronize the 2024 Pole Vault Convention in Padova

The Padova Pole Vault Convention is an international convention on study and training of pole vault. It is a a unique formula in Europe consisting of workshops and competition. Born from the union of sports and training with the intention of sharing experiences, inspiration and motivation related to the world of pole vaulting. It is organized by Gruppo Asta Padova, a long-established movement that has mainly been training athletes and technicians specialised in pole vaulting since 1968, which has as its star athlete Elisa Molinarolo, world finalist in Budapest 2023 and Tokyo Olympian. The convention is also organized by Sport & Marketing, a team that consists of several professionals with years of experience in communication and event organisation, founded by Gianfranco Beda, former pole vaulter.

Starting from this edition, the European Athletics Coaches Association will patronize the event, with the aim to extend it with the High Jump, bringing back to life the event that our beloved Wolfgang Ritzdorf used to organize in Cologne.

The convention has the technical support of ESSX Europe, that will made available for athlete poles to be used during the competition. Registration for the competition are now open only to athletes that wants to participate also to the convention day, registration for the competition only will open later.

SPEAKERS

  • Greg & Helena Duplantis (coaches of Mondo Duplantis)
  • Philippe d’Encausse (coach of Renaud Lavillenie and French Pole Vault Team)
  • Herbert Czingon (biomechanical and one of the best German coach)
  • Scott Simpson (coach of Holly Bradshaw, Head of Field and Combined Events for UK Athletics)
  • Johan Cassirame (manage the biomechanical program for French Federation, obtained data of the 6m22 jumps of Mondo Duplantis)

Discount coupons reserved to EACA website’s members:

EACA15 for the on site ticket

EACA20 for the online ticket

 

EVENT SCHEDULE

  • Jan 5th: International Competition
  • Jan 6th: Pole Vault Convention
  • Jan 7th: Training session with speakers (only in the morning)

WHERE

Palaindoor Padova, Italy

TICKETS

Check our website for info and tickets

www.padovapolevaultconvention.com
info@padovapolevaultconvention.com

IFAC 2023: NEW Early Bird Sale at 30% OFF!

IFAC 2023 NEW Early Bird Sale (30% OFF) OPENS TOMORROW!
Only 30 Tickets for the Full Conference ON SITE, plus 60 Tickets for the ONLINE Streaming
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IFAC 2023
NEW Early Bird Sale OPENS TOMORROW!

30% OFF on:

  • up to 30 Full Conference ON SITE tickets
  • up to 60 Full Conference Live ONLINE streaming

THREE NEW SPEAKERS CONFIRMED!

Tomorrow, April 1st, the sales are open to EACA Members only. EACA PRO Members can benefit of the 50% discount included in their membership.

 

Sunday, April 2nd, the sales will open to everyone.

 

ON SITE ticket includes:

  • Coffee breaks
  • Saturday lunch
  • Full-HD recording of the whole conference (included in the ONLINE streaming ticket too)
Get it
Updated confirmed speakers list:
Carola Becker
Jonas Dodoo
Vern Gambetta
Laurent Meuwly
Nick Winkelman

The official conference's hotel is 4* Crowne Plaza.

A 3* option will be available later.

Transportation service will be provided from and to Venice VCE Airport and the Conference's venues from and to Crowne Plaza Hotel only.

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Take home from IFAC 2022 in Padova

So, the 2022 International Festival of Athletics Coaching was a success or not?

Personally, I was really concerned about coming back on site after almost four years: will coaches come to Padova to attend it? Or, after two years of cheap online event (including IFAC 2021), they will stay at home choosing the online registration? Have we enough time to organise an on site event after deciding to go with a hybrid formula only in July?

Well, with more than 130 coaches attending in person, now I think I can say that my concerns were not founded: I am really happy for this outcome so, thank you to all the coaches I met in Padova but thanks to all those who attended online too.

However, we did a lot of mistakes. But that’s why we also learned a lot and all the things we learned will be useful for the next years, when Padova will host IFAC again.

First mistake: no transportation service. We had no time to build a transportation service for staff, speakers and participants so we had to manage them on the fly with taxis or personal cars. This was also a huge cost for EACA but, mostly, a discomfort for the coaches. We now know this and we have enough time to setup a proper transportation service next year.

Second mistake: not really prepared for a hybrid event. Having fully online events like IFAC 2021 was relatively easy: every speaker, every staff member and every participant is seating at its own desk, with its own device, presenting by sharing its screen. But a hybrid event is completely different: a deep connection with the audio and video systems of the venue is needed, otherwise the experience for the people attending remotely may be not good, especially for the audio. But, also, streaming on Zoom a presentation is different from streaming people in motion like athletes demostrating dynamic exercises: Zoom auto-tunes the resolution of the video and if the rate of motion to capture is too high, it lowers the resolution. 

In some way, we predicted that we may have trouble managing for the first time a hybrid event. We also thought to look for a professional service, but its cost would be really high. That’s why we decided for a so low price compared to the quality and the quantity of the IFAC 2022 programme. Again, we learned a lot from this experience and we’re confident we will provide a great streaming conference next year.  

That said, I really enjoyed every moment in Padua, from the presentation of our great speakers to the practical sessions and Saturday dinner all together. For me it was an opportunity to meet some old friends and make new ones. It was also an opportunity to raise my esteem for some speakers. Let me spend a word on Laurent Meuwly, an incredibly successful coach, always willing to share his knowledge and experience with everyone, no matter if a world-class or a club coach, with no fear of “revealing his secrets”. We need more coaches like him. 

Thank you to Domenico di Molfetta and Francesco Uguagliati for the incredible support from FIDAL and FIDAL Veneto: really appreciated!

Thanks to all the speakers, the moderators and the Palaindoor staff in Padova for the technical and logistic support and the delicious coffee breaks.

Last but not least, a big hug to all my friends in the EACA staff, starting from Frank (so as not to sin of lese majesty…), GagaRebecca, Sena, Jimson and Shaun, but also CinziaLaura, Jacques and Lance for their incredible contribution

Today, we are releasing the first recordings taken in Padova. If you are an EACA Pro Member, you can find them in the IFAC Videos Archive.

If you’re not but you attended to IFAC 2022, you will receive the instructions on how to watch them with a newsletter message.

I hope to see you all (and more) in Padua next year, November 3 -5)!

ASEA Congress 2021 scheduled next 26-27 February

“Asociaciòn Sudamericana de Entrenadores de Atletismo” (ASEA) stands for “South American Coaches Association” and it’s an EACA Partner in the Conference’s cycle.

The main title of the event is “Women at the Center of Athletics Training”, so the focus will be on women training.

Prof. Oscar Gadea will lead the conference, while Martin Palavicini will act as moderator, also mastering both English and Spanish languages. 

Ticket price is $ 30,00 (€ 24,72) only and, as for the previous conferences, ASEA Congress will be streamed live on our website.

Take a look at the conference’s program and subscribe!

NACACTFCA 2020 Conference: recorded sessions

What a wonderful weekend watching the NACACTFCA 2020 Conference! 

If you haven’t had the chance to watch it live, don’t worry: you can always get the access to the recordings of the whole conference, session by session. 

The price is always $50,00, discounted at €35,00 for all the EACA members.

The recordings are enriched with the subtitles in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, and German.

Second stage of the conferences’ cycle is the North America, Central America and Caribbean Track&Field Coaches Association’s annual congress.

From December 18th to December 20th amazing coaches and experts will speak at the conference, hosted by Richie Mercado. Each session will see two individual speeches followed by a final roundtable with all the speakers of the session exchanging their experience.

Our president Frank Dick OBE and Wolfgang Ritzdorf will double the IFAC presenting at the NACACTFCA conference too. In addition to them, it will be possible to hear from great names: Rose Monday will talk about women in athletics, Kevin Reid and Jimson Lee from Speedendurance.com will show the state-of-the-art about sport science and technology, Roberta Anding will show the most recent studies on high performance nutrition and Les Gramantik will deal on how to develop competent future coaches.

But this is only a piece of the cake: more big names will be announced in the following days so stay tuned on our website. 

The European Athletics Coaches Association negotiated a special price with NACACTFCA’s president, prof. Victor Lopez: for EACA members the subscription price will be € 35,00 instead of $ 50,00.

Don’t lose time: subscribe now to the NACACTFCA 2020 conference!

Dan O’Brien will speak at NACACTFCA 2020 Conference

Combined events seems to be the reigning event during the next NACACTFCA conference.

After announcing coach Harry Marra a week ago, now we are here again to say that Dan O’Brien has been announced as a new entry in the congress’ line-up.

Dan is the former Decathlon WR holder, Olympic champion and three times World Champion and he will talk about the resources and opportunities for athletes to support their growth.

If you’re still thinking if to subscribe or not, please, read the updated program: we are sure that you’ll run to the subscribe form!

Harry Marra will speak at NACACTFCA 2020 Conference

We said it and we did it!

Another great coach in the NACACTFCA 2020 Congress: Harry Marra!
Harry is the former coach of the World and Olympic champion and Decathlon former WR holder Ashton Eaton and his wife, the canadian Brianne Theisen-Eaton who won the Bronze medal at Rio in 2016 in addition to the World Indoor title and two Silver medals at the World Championships in Moscow 2013 and Beijing 2015.
The topic of Harry’s speech will focus on how to be an athlete-centered coach and learn specific needs of each performer.

We can’t believe you still have doubts: subscribe now to the NACACTFCA 2020 conference!