Welcome to the new future of downhill skateboarding. Over the last five years ASRA has run both World Cup and World Championship downhill events under the banner of the IGSA. While we have had many successes in this relationship we have also had many struggles in the way we believe the international scene should be headed.
At this time and with the growth in our sport, ASRA needs to affiliate with a group that is more closely aligned with the democratic and accountability structures of a real international sporting association. We could no longer adhere to an international company that had complete control over our sport without any accountability to its stakeholders.
Without our voices being heard we continued to battle from the inside to reform and modernize a body that refused to change. This has made it very difficult and very expensive for us to give our sport the dynamic and exciting future it deserves. Considering ASRA has had so much skin in the game over the last five years we felt it imperative that Australian voices are heard at the board level of a legitimate internationally elected body - a federation more closely aligned with the structure and principles that govern ASRA. The Australian Skateboard Racing Association has now aligned with a new international structure under the banner of the International Downhill Federation (IDF).
We have come to a stage in our sports development where ASRA believes our sport at an international level must become more rider focused. It must support and give voice to event organisers, and it must be fully accountable and transparent both in decision making and financially.
This new structure will create a body elected by its members, a legitimate association that responds to its stakeholders and gives voice to its riders. This will not be a one-man show, but a body elected by the riders, event organisers and other stakeholders that have put so much into this sport. It will promote events that can stand on their own two feet and support new growth in our sport.
It will be a body looking to innovate, respond, and change to develop our sport into the exciting product we all know it is. With this ASRA has joined with the IDF to take World Cup racing to a new level.
Australia's two World Cup events at Mt Keira and Bathurst will now move to this new structure and form a core part of the 2013 World Cup circuit under the IDF. We are super excited about the future of Downhill Skateboarding both in Australia and internationally and believe the IDF is the positive next stage to the sports development.
There are many more details to be worked out but I can promise you this; ASRA with the IDF are working hard to take downhill skateboarding to a new level of growth and accountability internationally and we look forward to an awesome year of racing in 2013.
