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18th IFA board meeting

IFA held its 18th and last IFA – International Fistball Association Board of Directors online meeting in the election period 2019 – 2023. The agenda included a report on The World Games 2025, changes in eligibility for national teams and the IFA Fistball World Tour Finals as well as an update of anti-doping documents, the preparation of the IFA Election Congress on July 27, 2023 in Mannheim and a report on the successful 1st International IFA Referees Congress.

#wearefistball #WeAreTheWorldGames #faustball

SOGIPA and Novo Hamburgo win World Tour event in Curitiba

For the 36th time, Clube Duque de Caxias (Curitiba, BRA) hosted the Lothar Germani Jaehnert Tournament on the weekend of 6 and 7 May. 40 teams and over 200 athletes played exciting matches in both the youth and adult categories. In the women’s category, Sogipa (Porto Alegre) clearly came out on top. With a 2-0 win over Morgenau (Curitiba), the young Brazilians not only won the gold medal but also the next 500 World Tour points and thus remain in first place in the ranking.

In the men’s competition, the victory went to the team from Ginastica (Novo Hamburgo). A 2:0 victory in the final against Sogipa gives Ginastica 500 points and the jump to first place in the ranking.

Men and Women at TWG 2025

The International World Games Association (IWGA) has confirmed today by a unanimous decision of the General Assembly, the renewed implementation of a women’s fistball competition at the World Games 2025 in Chengdu (China). For the first time, a women’s fistball competition was part of the World Games in Birmingham (Alabama/USA) in 2022. Men’s competitions have been part of the World Games sports program since 1985 in London.

“On behalf of the entire Fistball family, I would like to thank the IWGA leadership very much for the confidence that we will have a women’s Fistball competition in 2025 after the successful premiere in 2022,” said IFA President Jörn Verleger. “It is particularly pleasing that there will now be eight women teams competing, just like in the men’s competition,” Verleger added.

Secretary General Christoph Oberlehner, who was on hand with Verleger at the General Assembly in Madrid, said, “We expect this expansion of the field of participants to give an even greater boost to the sport of women’s Fistball.”

Congratulations to 70th birthday

Congratulations IFA Honorary President Karl Weiss. All the best for your 70th birthday. You can look back on a successful sporting and coaching career as well as an official.

Sporting successes:
Active Fistball player from 1968 until today
With his club mates he marched through to the then State League A and achieved promotion indoors in 1978 and on the field in 1981.
4-time national champion, 4-time state champion
9-time senior state champion, 2015 world champion 60+.

Karl also looks back on a successful coaching and officiating career
In 1992, he became Austrian champion for the first time with Urfahr. As Urfahr head, he saw his sons Martin, Dietmar and Wolfgang become European Cup and World Cup winners. As ÖFBB president (from 2000), he was able to celebrate Austria’s first victory at the World Games in Akita (Japan) in 2001, and a year later Austria became European champion in Erlangen (GER). But the most emotional moment was probably when Austria won its first World Championship gold medal.

Official:
Honorary chairman FBC ASKÖ Linz Urfahr (among other things chairman from 2001 to 2013).
President of the Upper Austrian Fistball Association (2010 to 2014)
President of the Austrian Fistball Federation (2000 to 2011)
President of the International Fistball Association (2011 to 2019)
Council Member at The Alliance of Independent Recognised Members of Sport (2015 to 2021).

Special Awards:
Golden Decoration of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria (2006).
Federal Sports Organization Official of the Year 2008
Consultant of the Upper Austrian Government for Sports (2011)

In Memoriam: Walter Zöttl, IFA Honorary Member

It is with greatest sadness that the International Fistball Association (IFA) has learnt that Walter Zöttl, IFA Honorary Member from Austria, passed away at the age of 66.

Walter has dedicated his entire life to the sport of fistball.

As an active player, he won numerous state championship titles and participated in European and world championships as a national player. He was considered one of the best attackers in Austria at the time.

As an official, Walter played a leading role in the founding of the Austrian Fistball Federation in 1993 and worked for a long time on a voluntary basis for the previously joint Handball and Fistball Federation and from 1993 for the then independent Austrian Fistball Federation ÖFBB.

Walter was working for IFA in different commissions and awarded IFA Honorary membership in 2011.

With Walter we lose a dear person whose heart always beat for the sport of fistball!

After a short, serious illness he passed away at the age of 66.

TSV Dennach and FBC Urfahr win Major Tournament in Stammheim

Dennach wins the Pfister Stuttgart Open for the second time in 8 days after the success in Karlsdorf. Thus the Swabians jump to the second place in the World Tour Ranking.

In the men’s tournament, FBC Urfahr beat Tigers Vöcklabruck in the all-Austrian final and was crowned tournament winner. However, Vöcklabruck collected the most World Tour points, as Urfahr did not play for points.

Last weekend the Pfister Stuttgart Open 2023 took place. In Stammheim’s Volksbank Stadium, a total of 41 teams from three nations gathered in the best conditions to set a highlight of the international fistball scene from Friday to Sunday.

Already on Friday evening an international match of the women opened the tournament weekend. In front of about 300 spectators, Germany clearly and confidently won 4:1 (11:8, 11:9, 11:6, 9:11, 11:7) against Switzerland. In addition to the successful start into the European Championship year, it was also a farewell for Sonja Pfrommer, who gave her farewell performance from the national team with her usual strong performance.

On Saturday, the club teams then started in the men’s, women’s and youth U14 classifications. Top teams from Germany, Austria and Switzerland had followed the call of TV Stammheim every year to play for 1,000 world ranking points at the only major tournament of the IFA World Tour on German soil.

In the evening Stammheim’s U14 had secured the tournament victory in the youth category, the women and men had completed the preliminary round and positioned themselves for Sunday’s final round.

In front of about 500 spectators, the highlight of Saturday was the men’s international match. In a rematch of the 2019 World Cup final, runner-up Austria pulled off a surprise. After Germany lived up to its role as favorites in the first set, the Austrians, led by the outstandingly playing Karl Müllehner, turned up the heat mightily from set two on. The athletic Vöcklabruck player could not be controlled by the German defense at any time, and the German attacking game was not up to par. 1:4 (11:9, 8:11, 4:11, 8:11, 5:11) was the final result from the German point of view. For the team of national coach Olaf Neuenfeld certainly not a successful start into the world championship year.

The men’s and women’s tournaments went into the final rounds on Sunday in perfect weather:

In the men’s tournament, the three group winners from Pfungstadt, Käfertal and Vöcklabruck were directly in the final round. In the qualifying matches Urfahr (16:11 against Grieskirchen), Stammheim (14:12 against Freistadt) and Vaihingen/Enz 1 (15:13 against Vaihingen/Enz 2) prevailed and completed the round of the best 6.

From this round of the best 6, Pfungstadt, Vöcklabruck, Urfahr and Vaihingen 1 secured their place in the semi-finals. The tournament victory was secured by Linz AG Urfahr, with a 2:0 (11:8, 11:7) final victory over Vöcklabruck.

In the women’s final round, the group winners from Ahlhorn, Dennach and Urfahr faced the qualifying match winners from Segnitz (15:13 against Arnreit), Elgg-Ettenhausen (14:13 against Kellinghusen) and Diepoldsau (14:10 against Kreuzlingen).

Segnitz, Elgg-Ettenhausen, Dennach and Kreuzlingen made it to the semifinals before TSV Dennach secured the tournament title with an 11:7 and 13:11 final victory over Segnitz.

For Dennach’s highly decorated women, the final victory meant winning the Pfister Stuttgart Open for the first time. Men’s winner Linz AG Urfahr closed the gap to the record winners Pfungstadt and Waibstadt (also 3 tournament wins each) with their third tournament success (after 2014 and 2015) with now 3 titles.

IFA at INTERACT+ project partners meet in Limerick

From 19-21 April 2023, the University of Limerick hosted the first transnational partner meeting of the ‘International and European Sport Organisations Activate Citizens–Plus (INTERACT+) project. Led by TAFISA, INTERACT+ is a 36-month project co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission, aiming to bridge the gap from theory to practice by supporting and positioning ISOs as key leaders of the Sport for All and physical activity movement. This will encompass developing a new Sport for All delivery model and creating a knowledge and experience-sharing platform between ISOs and their National Federations.

The project meeting in Limerick was attended by representatives from TAFISA, the University of Limerick, the International Fistball Association, International Dance Organisation, World Minigolf Federation, Confederazione Boccistica Internazionale the European Flying Disc Federation, and joined remotely by the International Table Tennis Federation Foundation.

Next to discussing key elements of the project’s development, the project partners also had the opportunity to try out different Gaelic Games.

IFA500 tournament in Münzbach canceled due to bad weather conditions

The IFA World Tour 500 tournament in Münzbach had to be unfortunately canceled on Thursday afternoon due to the continuous rainfalls of the last days, as the OC team announced after checking the courts.
“Unfortunately, we had to realize that the pitches cannot absorb the amount of water as fast as we had hoped. A realization of the tournament to playable conditions is unfortunately not possible, so we are forced to cancel this year’s Greisinger Trophy,” said the OC team of the Union Greisinger Münzbach.

Nevertheless, a big World Tour event will take place this weekend: The Pfister Stuttgart Open, the IFA Major tournament of TV Stammheim. For Stammheim good weather conditions are announced at least on Saturday and we are looking forward to exciting matches.

Kreuzlingen and Vöcklabruck win first major tournament in Europe

Two World Tour tournaments took place last weekend. At the Major tournament in Elgg (SUI) the team of SATUS Kreuzlingen (SUI) won the women’s title and Tigers Vöcklabruck (AUT) the men’s title.
At the IFA500 tournament in Karlsdorf, TSV Dennach won the women’s event and TV Schweinfurt-Oberndorf the men’s event.

The Major tournament in Elgg took place in wet and cold weather. On Sunday, only the top 8 places in the men’s tournament could be played due to the bad weather. Vöcklabruck prevailed in the final against TSV Calw. Bronze went to the home team of FG Elgg-Ettenhausen. The women had already crowned their winner on Saturday evening with SATUS Kreuzlingen, who defeated hosts Elgg-Ettenhausen in the final. Third place went to UFG Grieskirchen/Pötting (AUT).
With teams from Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Italy, four different nations took part in the tournament in Elgg.

Already next weekend two new major tournaments will take place: TV Stammheim (GER) will host the already third major tournament this season. In Münzbach (AUT) the participants will fight for a maximum of 500 points.

Exciting matches at the IFA500 tournament in Karlsdorf

Women:
In good outside conditions and a great playable court, 12 women’s teams competed in three preliminary groups from the 1st & 2nd Bundesliga for the World Tour points. In the intermediate round group A, TV Unterhaugstett advanced to the semi-finals against VfL Kellinghusen after a close win against TV Dennach, Dennach as group runner-up had to face the strong TSV Pfungstadt as the winner of group B. With clear victories Dennach and Unterhaugstett prevailed in the semi-finals, in the small final Pfungstadt could then win the third place with a razor-thin 14:13 against Kellinghusen. In a final that was as hard-fought as it was high-class, the attackers Pia Neuefeind and Sonja Pfrommer determined the exciting encounter, with the better end for Dennach: 15:13, the serial winner prevailed.

Men:
22 men’s teams from the 1st & 2nd Bundesliga first fought in four preliminary round groups for a place in the final round of the best 8 teams. In the intermediate round group A, TV Oberndorf was able to earn a spot in the final, while TV Käfertal made it to the small final. In Group B, the first division promoted team from Tiefenthal won all three matches by a razor-thin margin and surprisingly entered the final, while VfL Kellinghusen secured second place. In the match for third place, the spectators saw a thrilling encounter in which TV Käfertal ultimately won out over VfL Kellinghusen by a narrow 15:13 margin. In the final, the team from Tiefenthal continued to play very well and at 9:7 was already close to winning the set, but Oberndorf was able to fight back and win the set 11:9 in the final spurt. The second set was then quite clear, Olli Bauer was able to convert the fourth match point to 11:8 and thus secure the winner’s trophy and 500 World Tour points for TV Oberndorf once again.