Table Tennis Surpasses Volleyball for Largest Fed -- Federations Focus

(ATR)The International Table Tennis Federation is now the largest international federation.

Sao Tome & Principe and South Sudan were accepted into the ITTF during the federation’s annual general meeting on April 28, bringing the total of member federations up to 222.

"I am very proud that ITTF has achieved the number one status in terms of membership as our goal is not just to be among the top five sports overall, but also within each area," ITTF president Thomas Weikert said at the meeting.

"This is then another milestone on the path to achieve this."

The new additions are a result of the ITTF's development program, intended to grow national associations and help table tennis spread throughout the world. The ITTF only has four more countries in the Olympic family to integrate -- Eritrea, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde and Bahamas – before having a national association in every possible country.

The International Volleyball Federation was previously the largest international federation with 220 member federations.

EquestrianFederation ConsidersPay for Prez

The International Equestrian Federation is one step closer to presidential remuneration.

The federation held a vote to modify the organization’s statutes to allow the president to be paid at an extraordinary general assembly at the FEI sports forum in Lausanne on April 28. The 59 national federations present, along with 27 powers of attorney, voted unanimously to approve the measure for a total of 86 votes. The required quorum for a successful vote is 67.

According to an FEI release, Swiss federation member Dr. Claude Nordmann called for a study on salaried positions after the vote, as "the contents of the study would also be useful for other international federations."

The FEI bureau will make the final decision at its meeting in June.

2018 Sailing World Championships Headed to Denmark

The International Sailing Federation (ISAF) signed the contract for the 2018 World Championships to take place in the Bay of Aarhus today.

This will be the fifth ISAF worlds since the competition began in 2003. Today, the event serves as the primary qualifying event for the Olympics.

Half of the qualifiers for the Rio 2016 Olympics came from the 2014 edition of the event in Santander, Spain, the first sailing qualifier for Rio. This event featured 82 countries and 1,167 sailors.

Event organizers plan to make the 2018 championships in Denmark the biggest sailing competition to date. They are aiming for 100 participating countries and more than 1,600 sailors, making the competition larger in scale than sailing at the Olympics.

These championships are held every four year on the even years between Summer Games. The 2018 championships will be the first major qualifying event for Tokyo 2020.

All ten Olympic boat classes compete for Olympic spots during the ISAF world championships, and in 2018 the sport kitesurfing will be added to the competition.

Although Denmark is considered to be one of the best sailing countries in the world, consistently winning Olympic and world championship medals, this will be their first time hosting the world championships.

Event organizers hope the event will put Aarhus "on the world sailing map".

Written by Andrew MurrellandKevin Nutley

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