World Cup Premiere in Ghent
From Friday 5 till Sunday 7 November 2004, the World Cup Competition Artistic Gymnastics will be organised in the Flanders Sports Arena in Ghent. It is the first time that a World Cup Competition Artistic Gymnastics is held in the Flanders Sports Arena.
Three years ago the World Championships was hosted here. It was also the official premiere of the new vaulting table 'PEGASES' in 2001. The first official gymnast on Pegases was Adam BOTHA from South Africa, at 2001, October 28.
<< photo, left)
Now gymnasts from the Republic of South Africa are also guests again, among the more than 50 top male athletes from 27 countries....

World Cup Premiere in Ghent
From Friday 5 till Sunday 7 November 2004, the World Cup Competition Artistic Gymnastics will be organised in the Flanders Sports Arena in Ghent. It is the first time that a World Cup Competition Artistic Gymnastics is held in the Flanders Sports Arena.
Three years ago the World Championships was hosted here. It was also the official premiere of the new vaulting table 'PEGASES' in 2001. The first official gymnast on Pegases was Adam BOTHA from South Africa, at 2001, October 28.
<< photo, left)
Now gymnasts from the Republic of South Africa are also guests again, among the more than 50 top male athletes from 27 countries....

The Australian Institute of Sport (AIS; Canberra) informs on some coaching important coaching positions that are available in Australia.
The AIS is a pre-eminent elite sports training institution in Australia with world class facilities and support services...
One of the leading Norvegian clubs 'Kristiansand Turnforening' is looking for an experienced coach for women's artistic gymnastics; also the Belgian top center of Rhythmic Gymnastics in Antwerp, 'NO LIMITS GYMNASTICS' - also long time media partner of GYMmedia INTERNATIONAL - needs a coach, same like the Swiss Kunstturnverein Lucern for men's artistic gymnastics......
>> ... more information on our special GYMmedia Job Exchange

The Italian team of GAL LISSONE was the best at the 29 anniversary of the oldest and most tradional artistic gymnastics tournament in Germany, the LEVERKUSEN CUP 2004.
On second place with a difference of nearly 4 points came the team 'Waverly Gymnastics Club' (Melbourne/AUS), followed by the South Africans Gymnastics Federaion 1
Also in all-around competition the Italian girls lead: Winner was
Ilaria COLOMBO (34,60) followed by her teammate Alessandra BALLADORI (33,40). On third came the 'Aussie' Georgia BONORA (32,55) from Melbourne
. A German select team ranked on fifth place and Anja BRINKER was the best of the host on 12 place....

>> read mor about this German Top event on GYMmedia PREVIEW

At the first final day of the Glasgow's Grand Prix the Chinese got three gold medals: After the floor decision, won by Brazil’s Diego HYPOLITO, China dominated the other two men’s events with XIAO, Quin, the convincing winner on Pommel Horse with a 9.900 - the highest score of the competition so far, and HUANG, Xu took gold on the Rings.
In the Women’s finals, Elena ZAMOLODSHIKOVA (RUS) showed why she is ranked number one in the World cup series on Vault winning gold on this apparatus, in front of her teammate Anna PAVLOVA.
Then LI, Ya made it three gold medals for China winning the bars just ahead of Great Britain’s top gymnast, Beth TWEDDLE, but at the Sunday's finals Slovenia and Catalin PONOR are the most successful....

Qualification on Friday:
Austria jubilates: Tanja Gratt qualified for vault final...

... but only eight gymnasts want to start!
Today the socond to last of the wold cup events of the circuit 2003/2004 take place at the Kelvin Hall of Glasgow and the finals will follow at the weeken.
So Austria's Number 1, Tanja GRATT reached a world cup final to the first time - but all together 8 gymnasts don't need a qualifying today...!
>> Women's qualification results

At the men's competition the Romanian Marian DRAGULESCU (floor), the Chinese XIAO, Qin (pommel horse) and the Japanese Hiroyuki TOMITA (rings) were the best at the first apparatuses....
>> Men's qualification results
... the event is just in progress!)

>> Hattrick for 'Rodovre og Omegns GF' (DEN) !!

With excellent shows, highclass performances and the expected wins of Scandinavians the finals of the 5th European Championships in TeamGym in the stadion of Dornbirn (Austria) ended today. Denmark has won with team 'Rodovre og Omegns GF' and 25,250 points the mixed competition for the third time in sequence (European Champion!). They also won with 'HSG Slagelse' (27,300) in the male competition. The female 'Team Asker' (25,950) from Norway achieve gold. Denmark, Norway and Sweden shared all medals. Best Austrian ranking achieve 'Sportgymnasium Dornbirn' with rank five in category men.

Romania’s Adrian STOICA has been elected as president of the men’s artistic gymnastics technical committee of the FIG at the elections in Antalya (TUR). With Kazakhstan native Nelli KIM who ran for Belarus for the first time an Olympic Champion has been elected as president of the technical committee in women’s artistic gymnastics. Both of them were elected with a large majority in the 1st round (Kim: 56 out of 91 valid votes; Stoica: 62 out of 97 valid votes)…

After the first round of the men’s TC- member elections already a strong European fraction (ROM, HUN, ESP) was represented in the TC next to China and Japan. Germany’s Siegfried FUNK then benefited from this in the second round while the South-American fraction voted for Argentina’s Enrique SALANITRO who in the end had one vote more than George Beckstead (USA)…
Of course Beckstead suffered from the „Athens judging syndrome“ and a general mood among the member federations which was not exactly pro-american. This could be noticed also in the elections for the women’s TC.

The FIG in a very tricky situation..!
It has to be remembered: Usually the gymnastics nations received the printed versions of the judging regulations for the next Olympic cycle already at the Olympic Games and the drafts resp. the direction of the content were known for quite a while before already. So all gymnasts who didn’t belong to the Olympic squads of their countries already worked on the new content. Especially the younger gymnasts could have and should have started already in spring 2004 to work on the new sportive direction on the way to Beijing 2008!

The actual disaster
And now...?
The pathbreaking international judges course is now scheduled for only after (!) the next individual World Championships in Melbourne (end of November 2005) – as a result of this the 2005 World Championships will still be performed according to the “old” Code!
Training institutions for judges on the various levels in the member federations will be provided with the new regulations not before January/ February 2006. That means the actual practical work regarding the new code from the athletes in the gyms can start in spring 2006 the earliest.
But already a few months later the World Championships in Aarhus (DEN) will take place. These World Championships will be very important as there for the first time a pre- qualification of the best 24 teams out of which then again at the World Championships 2007 in Stuttgart the 12 teams which can take part in the Olympic Games 2008 will be decided! So there will be about 5 – 6 months to adapt to the new program and then already half of the gymnastics nations will be sorted out at the World Championships… Even China, although they certainly have a large squad of talented gymnasts, has doubts about the sense of this situation!

>> ... more about the FIG- congress