(2014 ARCHIVED) Miroslav Haviar - Slovakia
MIROSLAV HAVIAR (Slovakia) - Nominee for 'Paddlesport Professional'
Website: www.canoeresults.eu (slalom, sprint, downriver, ocean racing, freestyle, marathon)
Miroslav 'Miro' Haviar (1950) from Bratislava, Slovakia has been nominated for the WPA Paddlesports Professional Award for his ongoing service in canoe sport administration and digital innovation.
His father was a canoeist and therefore Miro spent much of his childhood at the Dunajcik Bratislava Canoe Club. He started to train in K1 (sprint) at the age of 14 and after starting university he changed to university club of Slavia UK Bratislava, where he has been Chairman since 2000.
Miro originally built an online database in 2005 with all canoe marathon, canoe slalom and canoe sprint results, which even goes back to the Berlin 1936 Olympic Games. This quickly expanded into one of the world's leading resources for archive results that journalists worldwide use: Canoeresults.eu.
Currently Miro's database features Olympic, World Championship and European Championship data for 6 paddlesports (granted only 2 are in the Olympic programme) – the latest 3 sports to have been added are canoe freestyle, ocean-racing and wildwater-downriver. It took Miro more than 10 years to develop the results website to where it is now.
Miroslav Haviar is also the Vice President of the European Canoe Association (ECA). Here his focus is on rules and developing technology for use in race management (more effective boat control, and the same software at all European sprint competitions etc).
Activities and achievements off the water:
- 4 Times Czech Champion and member of the national team for 5 years
- Several qualifications in sport such as 'Coach in canoeing' and ICF International Official (ITO) for slalom, sprint and marathon
- His son Michal is an ICF ITO in sprint, his wife Zora officiates at domestic events and his daughter Daniele raced in canoe marathon
This is a 2014 archived nominee. For the 2015 nominees click on the button below.
