FIM Continental Union Update - FIM Latin America

2020 has been a special year for everyone. In the CONU Presidents’ update series, the leaders of the FIM’s Continental Unions describe the main challenges they faced during the COVID-19 pandemic and what people could learn from these extraordinary times.

Like all the other continents, Latin America faced an extremely challenging year. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, no continental competitions were organized in the FIM Latin America affiliated countries as of March 2020. The period between May and June was the toughest time for the continent.

“On the other hand, some of our federations have recently started to resume their national events”, says FIM Latin America President Pedro Venturo Jr.

All in all about 10 % of the planned events could be carried out in Latin America this year. The federation tried to come up with new activities that they managed to carry out despite the pandemic. FIM Latin America has also organized several Zoom webinars on different topics that have been a great success.

“We activated an online activity plan, which consisted of several Zoom meetings and webinars, interviews, discussions and our first ever e-sports event.”

Mr Venturo foresees that the online tools will be used frequently also when the face to face meetings will be possible again.

“Definitely, we plan to keep them going even after the resumption of events, but probably less frequently then.”

Despite the extremely challenging year, the leader of FIM Latin America and its 20 national federations sees that new lessons have been learned from this pandemic.

“It showed me that we needed to improve communication methods and frequency with our riders and our community in general.”

Mr Venturo expresses special gratitude towards the passionate volunteers who, despite all the challenges, have done their best to make sure that FIM Latin America could organize at least a few events this year.

“I would love to highlight the exemplary work our volunteers performed during these complex times and to applaud them for their continuous support, flexibility and ability to adapt during times of adversity.”

FIM Latin America and its management are ready to face the next year with hopefully easier challenges.

“I look at 2021 with optimism but I stand ready to face any adversities that may come and to operate under any necessary protocols that might have to be applied”, Pedro Venturo Jr concludes.
 
FIM Communications