Young players and also match officials showed their talent in Gliwice. This year ETTU puts a strong focus on the development of young match officials. The event in Poland has been chosen as a starting point for the project. Online training session before the event mentoring working with experienced Blue Badge Umpires and two workshops have been offered to interested candidates. 74 nominations have been forwarded to ETTU URC for 39 available places. 18 female young match officials have been selected among the 39 officials and 19 of this group have been younger than 30 years.
During the 10 days they had the chance to umpire a lot of matches to get to know in detail the procedures in international events and to handle different situations in the Field of Play.
Christian David Asko Rasinen and Pol Pierret could give them feedback about their performance and some ideas how to move forward. During 2 workshops in the last days of the event they could exchange their experiences of the last days and specific scenarios have been discussed in working groups under the guidance of Werner Thury ETTU URC chairperson.
Members of the Executive Board have been present in one of the workshops. Heike AHLERT as Acting Deputy President welcomed the participants and highlighted the importance of the Development of Match Officials. Secretary General Pierre KASS and Vice President Sonja GREFBERG welcomed the young team. Ina JOZEPSONE as Vice-President responsible for Umpires and Referees was happy about the performance and hopes that all of them will come to the next events again.
In the evening they analysed in the hotel their matches together and new friendships have been made.
Werner THURY ETTU URC chairperson: “It is excellent to see the motivation of the young team. They joined our workshops also after 10 hours of umpiring. We can see that there is a new team which will go together to future events and develop further to become umpires for our top-events. I want to thank also our experienced umpires in Gliwice who mentored and supported the young team.
The project is not finished now. European Youth Championships was the start for further activities. The participants will be divided in groups and our European top umpires will mentor them. Each group will have one Gold Badge Umpire as mentor and they will also be together in events. Additionally of course online workshops will be in place in the second half of the year.”
European Youth Championships is not only a platform for young players but also for young umpires.
