COSTA RICA
7 Day Pickleball Tour
with World Champ Jennifer Lucore
and Bev and Bob Youngren
participate. An America’s Cup event (U.S. vs. Canada) is being
explored as well.
The international potential of pickleball
Looking at the players who stood on the podium at Nationals
VIII highlights the international potential of the sport. For
example, the Men’s Open Singles Gold Medal winner, Marcin
Rozpedski, was born in Poland, and the Bronze Medal winner,
Daniel Moore, lives in Japan. And all three medalists in the
Women’s Open Singles Division were born outside of the U.S.:
Irina Tereschenko from Russia (Gold), Lucia Kovalova from
Slovakia (Silver), and Simone Jardim from Brazil (Bronze).
Pickleball’s quest to become an Olympic sport
When I worked as the Global Promotions Manager for Adidas
in Germany, we received calls from “new sport inventors”
around the world asking us to invest in the next global sport.
Their ideas were creative, but I was skeptical a new sport with
true worldwide potential would be invented in my lifetime.
The game created by Bob Pritchard, Bill Bell, and Barney
McCallum has all the right characteristics to become a global
sport. The IFP’s role is to leverage this great sport and build on
the momentum created in the U.S. to position pickleball for
recognition and acceptance in the Olympic Games. We firmly
believe that it’s not a question of “if” pickleball will be an
Olympic sport, but “when.” •
Mike Hess is Vice President of the IFP and President
of the Spanish Pickleball Association. He’s also a
professor of sport marketing and business strategy at
CUNEF University in Madrid, Spain, where he resides
most of the year. He spends the other part of the
year in his hometown of Newport Beach, California.
May 16-22 2017
Register Now! Space is Limited
PickleballCostaRica.com
When the game
gets hot, keep
a cool head
Save 25% off your order at checkout with code:
PICKLEBALL @www.headsweats.com
DECEMBER 2016 |
MAGAZINE
59