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hina Pickleball | WSET sumnmit report
an Carlos Tournament
The 2018 World Sporting Events & Tourism (WSET)
Summit was recently held in Yangzhou China on
November 30th and December 1st. Hundreds of
domestic urban department leaders, entrepreneurs
and industry elite attended the summit.
The IFP was one of sixteen international bodies
invited to attend and present with speakers coming
in from eleven different countries. In addition to
sport specific presentations covering pickleball,
volleyball, baseball, rowing, equestrian, archery and
skiing there were presentations from the IOC, from
the Korean Olympics, from Para Sport, from UNESCO
Sombrero Showdown Pickleball Tournament at and other related sport tourism organizations.
Mirador Courts. 184 participants played this year,
with over half coming from out of town. I was invited to represent the IFP due to my
involvement on both the Canadian and International
Tons of fun, pickleball, dancing and tequila at the boards for pickleball. My presentation at the summit
Amigos Cup portion of the pickleball tournament. was unique from the others for a few reasons –
For the 2nd year in a row, Team The World beat pickleball was the only sport participating at the
Team Mexico in the Amigos Cup -- what great event that is not currently recognized by the IOC; the
Mexican hospitality to let our friends north of the Chinese have little or no knowledge of pickleball and
border win again! pickleball has its origin with a senior population and
has just recently been moving towards a younger
demographic (opposite from the way most sports
Kim Main develop).
I therefore focussed the first half of my presentation
on introducing them to pickleball and its rapid
growth over the past 10 years. The second half of
my presentation reinforced why pickleball is a great
sport for them to invest in.
Key points were
Y It is an easy sport to learn at any age offering
youth the opportunity to learn transferable
paddle/racket skills at a very young age and
providing seniors an activity they can have fun
at no matter what the skill level
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