SportAccord (until April 2009 ): General Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF); French: Association Générale des Fédérations Internationales des Sports (AGFIS) was formed to promote communication and cooperation among various international sports federations. Twenty-six such international sports associations participated in the founding of GAISF in 1967 in Lausanne; today more than 100 sports are represented. GAISF works closely with the Olympics movement. It is headquartered in Lausanne since 2009; It was headquartered from its founding in 1978 in Lausanne, in Monaco from 1978 until 2009.

The premier conference of SportAccord is the annual SportAccord International Convention. It was established in 2003.

Gata Kamsky (Tatar: Ğata Kamski, Ğataulla Röstäm ulı Sabirov; Гата Камский, Гатаулла Рөстәм улы Сабиров; Гатаулла Рустемович Сабиров, Гата Камский) (born June 2, 1974) is a Soviet-born American chess grandmaster, and the current World Rapid Chess Champion. As of May 2012, he was rated No. 2 in the United States and No. 14 in the world.

Kamsky was a prodigy who reached the final of the FIDE World Chess Championship 1996 at the age of 22, and reached a ranking of fourth in the world rankings in 1996. He played almost no FIDE-rated games between 1997 and late 2004.

Kamsky won the Chess World Cup 2007. This earned him a match against Veselin Topalov for the right to challenge for the World Chess Championship 2010, which he lost. Kamsky played in the Candidates Tournament to determine the challenger for the World Chess Championship 2012, where he advanced to the semifinals before losing to Boris Gelfand.

Kamsky was born in Novokuznetsk in Russia, in a Tatar family. Gata's last name, Kamsky, is derived from the stage nickname of his grandparents who were members of the Tatar traveling theater group.^{[citation needed]} The family's "real" name is Sabirov.^{[citation needed]}

Levon Grigor Aronian (Armenian: Լևոն Գրիգորի Արոնյան; born 6 October 1982) is an Armenian chess Grandmaster and the reigning World Blitz Chess Champion. On the May 2012 FIDE list, he had an Elo rating of 2825, making him number two in the world and third highest of all time.

Aronian won the Chess World Cup 2005. He led the Armenian national team to the Gold medals in the 2006 (Turin) and 2008 (Dresden) Chess Olympics and at the World Team Chess Championship in Ningbo 2011. He won the FIDE Grand Prix 2008–2010, qualifying him for the Candidates tournament for the World Chess Championship 2012, where he was knocked out in the first round. He was also the World Chess960 Champion in 2006 and 2007, the World Rapid Chess Champion in 2009, and is the current World Blitz Chess Champion.

Aronian was declared the best sportsman of Armenia in 2005 and was awarded the title of "Honoured Master of Sport of the Republic of Armenia" in 2009.

Aronian was born on 6 October 1982 in Yerevan, Armenia, to Seda Sarkisovna, a mining engineer and Grigory Leontievich, a physicist. He was taught to play chess by his sister Lilit at the age of nine. His first coach was the Grandmaster Melikset Khachiyan. An early sign of his ability came when he won the 1994 World Youth Chess Championship (under-12) in Szeged with 8/9, ahead of future luminaries Étienne Bacrot, Ruslan Ponomariov, Francisco Vallejo Pons, and Alexander Grischuk.