Last summer month continued to showcase beauty and diversity of Gymnastics - Farid Gayibov

By Trend

The last summer month continued to showcase the beauty and diversity of Gymnastics, European Gymnastics President Farid Gayibov said in a note, Trend reports citing the European Gymnastics.

The note said:

Four Gymnastics disciplines were a part of the 5th Islamic Solidarity Games held in Konya (TUR) on August 9-18. Gymnastics became a part of these Games from 2017 when Baku (AZE) was the host city. I was pleased to see that Group exercises in Rhythmic and Aerobic Gymnastics have been added to the programme of the Islamic Solidarity Games after Baku 2017. More than 4000 athletes from over 50 countries took part in the competitions in more than 20 sports disciplines. The atmosphere of the multi-sport Games is unique. It is always a great experience for the athletes to interact with other sports representatives, as they have something in common to share for further development of sport.

Sadly, the same cannot be said in regard to the 3rd edition of the European Games in Krakow and Malopolska (POL, June 21 – July 2, 2023), as Gymnastics was excluded for this edition of the Games. As you remember, six gymnastics disciplines were represented at the 1st European Games held in Baku in 2015. In Belarus in 2019, we were successful to have the same number of gymnastics disciplines in the programme, for obvious reasons. We all know that Gymnastics is a very diverse type of sport and is one of the most popular Olympic disciplines. We do hope that the European Olympic Committees and future hosts will consider returning Gymnastics to the European Games programme to add more validity and popularity to these multi-sport games.

Gymnastics is very spectacular sport discipline and that is reflected in TV rates recently published after the multi-sport European Championships held in Munich (GER) on August 11-21. Although the report on free-to-air TV coverage after the Europeans shows the peak of audience on Athletics events reaching 6.7 million people, Artistic Gymnastics events were undoubtedly among the leading disciplines. The sold-out stadium for the gymnastics events is a clear indicator.

This was the 2nd edition of the multi-sport European Championships. The first one was held in Glasgow (GBR) 4 years ago. Inclusion of 9 sports disciplines into its programme marks the significance of these events. The competition venue, the Olympiahalle, where the Summer Olympic Games were held 50 years ago, astonished me with its design and facilities which perfectly met current requirements for hosting such a large-scale event. We expected good organisation from Munich, but it was beyond our expectations.

A great number of athletes, coaches, officials, volunteers, tourists gathered in the City of Munich to create this gorgeous atmosphere, having a positive impact on the competitions, no matter how tense they were. I am confident to say that the Munich European Championships were on par with the Olympics in its organisation and general feel.

I would like to express my gratitude to the German Gymnastics Federation, German State of Bavaria and all the stakeholders for the exceptional joint work resulting in unforgettable 10 days of competition.

Within the framework of the Munich European Championships, we had some remarkable events as well. For the first time we presented “Gymnast of the Year” Award established by European Gymnastics. At this event we were happy to present awards to our winners in Rhythmic Gymnastics (Boryana Kaleyn / BUL), Men’s (Ferhat Arican / TUR) and Women’s Artistic Gymnastics (Jessica Gadirova / GBR).

I am grateful to all the representatives of federations who arrived in Munich to take part in our meeting which we hold regularly. We discussed the works carried out after our last meeting, made an analysis of the results of the 2021 elections to the FIG Authorities, and, of course, spoke about the forthcoming elections to be held within the framework of the 29th European Gymnastics Congress (Albufeira / POR / December 2 & 3).

Now, we enter the season of the World Championships after August which was full of emotions, competitions, and events. The season will be opened by the Rhythmic gymnasts (Sofia / BUL / September 14-18). For the first time, the number of participants at the Rhythmic and Artistic Gymnastics Worlds will be limited as the gymnasts have qualified for the events through the Continental Championships.

This year’s Worlds also marks the launch of qualification procedure for the Paris 2024 Olympics.

I wish success to all the athletes which are taking aim at new heights.