Director Rob van Bommel’s opening speech at 2015 WPA ceremony

Openings speech WPA Director Rob van Bommel at the ceremony in Augsburg, Germany 9 May 2015. His original speech was in German and spoken in English by Academy member Mirjam Goudsmit (pictured below).

What I learned over the years is that with more than 15 different paddlesports it is a very rich, colourful and versatile sport.

Despite this it has, until today, lacked one important thing; there has never been an international event that celebrated the most remarkable men and women from the world of competitive paddlesports, along with their extraordinary achievements.

The World Paddle Awards aims to do this by telling the world about the athletes, coaches, parents and volunteers, event organisers, sponsors, boat manufacturers, media, fans, spectators and so on, and so on.

With you, the World Paddle Awards would like to recognise and celebrate their fantastic achievements and service over the past years.

By honouring tonight’s winners and their personal achievements, we also honour our wonderful sport and the many, many people from all over the world that are part of, and contribute to our community.

Together with the first ever World Paddle Awards we also started something else that is truly unique in the world of paddlesports: we established a unique association of the greatest living sporting legends and other figureheads in our sport who strongly believe that the World Paddle Awards is essential for our sport.

An Academy with legends such as the eight most successful Olympian ever; Birgit Fischer or 10-time World Champion, Richard Fox; but also for example Ursula, a mother in South Africa who dedicates her time to raising her son in paddlesports. She is the team nurse for her local canoe club, co-ordinates races, does the bookkeeping for the club and much, much more.

There are ten-thousands of parents like Ursula all over the world and we are proud to have several of them in our Academy.

We are really excited and grateful to be celebrating the first ever World Paddle Awards with you, here in Augsburg, together.

I would like to end by thanking my wife Mirjam, Karl Heinz Englet, Andre Santos and the World Paddle Awards Academy for their ongoing support.

Thank you for being here and have a wonderful evening.