2015 ARTISTIC GYMNASTICS WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: Eight Things To Know About The Women’s Competition

History in the making
After winning the World All-around title in Antwerp in 2013 and Nanning in 2014, Simone Biles (USA) is favored to win for a third consecutive time in Glasgow, something no female artistic gymnast has ever done. Svetlana Khorkina (RUS) is the only woman ever to have won a triple crown in the All-around. Golden for the first time in Lausanne in 1997, she lost the title in Tianjin in 1999 before reclaiming it in 2001 in Ghent and again in Anaheim in 2003.

London calling back
Gabrielle Douglas (USA), who reigned over the London Olympic Games in 2012 with gold medals in the All-around and with the American team, and Aly Raisman (USA), the Olympic champion on Floor Exercise and with the team, have rejoined the U.S. squad after a two-year absence. Viktoria Komova (RUS), second to Douglas in the All-around at the Olympics, is also making her big return to the World Championships in this pre-Olympic year.

An enduring legend
Still fresh at age 40, Oksana Chusovitina (UZB) is living proof that Gymnastics is not just a sport for adolescents: Her first international exploits date back to the World Championships in Indianapolis in 1991. With a collection of 11 World and two Olympic medals, Chusovitina, who has competed under four different national flags (USSR, Unified Team, GER and UZB), hopes to qualify for an unprecedented seventh Olympic Games in Rio, where she would set a new record for Olympic presence in Gymnastics.

The first big dance
Just a little more than a year ago, Seda Tutkhalyan stood proudly atop a podium in Nanjing, where she was coronated as the Youth Olympic Games All-around champion. As a first-year senior and first-time World Championships competitor in Glasgow, the young Russian will get the chance to test herself against older World and Olympic stars. Same goes for Brazil’s Flavia Saraiva and Great Britain’s Ellie Downie, who finished with silver and bronze, respectively, last summer in China. Also making her Worlds debut is China’s Wang Yan, who won two Youth Olympic golds in event finals.

Simone Biles

American domination
Since 2011, the American team has monopolized the top step on the podium at the World Championships and Olympic Games. Last year in Nanning, the U.S. bested silver medallist China by an otherworldly 6.5 points in the final. Since 2003, the Americans have made a habit of marking their territory in the pre-Olympic year by winning the World team title. With the exception of the currently injured Aliya Mustafina in 2010, every female World All-around champion since 2007 has also held a U.S. passport.

Romania now and again
A small country population-wise, Romania nevertheless still counts among the great powers of Gymnastics 40 years after Nadia Comaneci stunned the world with her string of perfect 10s at the Montréal Olympic Games. Without injured star Catalina Ponor, who was expected to make her return to international competition in Glasgow, the women’s team will be counting on the dynamic Larisa Iordache, silver medallist in the All-around competition last year.

The Vault that will take your breath away
Specialists call it the “Produnova,” named for Yelena Produnova (RUS), who was the first to do it in competition. The gymnast approcaches the table going forward and executes two front flips before landing. This Vault, which carries an exceptionally high difficulty score (7.0), attracts only the most adventurous gymnasts, who risk heavy penalties in execution for not landing it correctly. Three gymnasts — Oksana Chusovitina (UZB), Yamilet Pena (DOM) and Dipa Karmakar (IND) — are the only ones daring to perform it today.

Diana Bulimar

Happy returns
Seven Olympic medallists from the London Olympic Games and two from the Beijing Olympics are set to compete in Glasgow. From 2012, there’s Gabrielle Douglas (USA/gold in the All-around and gold with the U.S. team), Alexandra Raisman (USA/gold on Floor Exercise and gold with the U.S. team), Viktoria Komova (RUS/silver in the All-around and silver with the Russian team), Maria Paseka (RUS/bronze on Vault and silver with the Russian team), Ksenia Afanasyeva (RUS/silver with the Russian team), Larisa Iordache (ROU/bronze with the Romanian team) and Diana Bulimar (ROU/bronze with the Romanian team). From 2008, there’s Hong Un Jong (PRK/gold on Vault) and Oksana Chusovitina (GER/UZB/silver on Vault).

Six individual World champions will also be present: Oksana Chusovitina (USSR/UZB: Floor in 1991 and Vault in 2003), Vanessa Ferrari (ITA/All-around in 2006), Viktoria Komova (RUS/Uneven Bars in 2011), Simone Biles (USA/All-around in 2013 and 2014, Floor in 2013 and 2014, Beam in 2014), Hong Un Jong (PRK/Vault in 2014) and Ksenia Afanasyeva (RUS/Floor in 2011).

Yana Kudryavtseva Captures Third Consecutive Rhythmic Gymnastics World All-Around Title

Reigning World Rhythmic Gymnastics champion Yana Kudryavtseva (RUS) captured her third consecutive World All-around title Friday night in Stuttgart (GER), cementing her status as a favorite for gold at the Rio Olympic Games next summer.

After winning gold with the Ball, Clubs, Ribbon and in the team competition earlier this week, the All-around title is the 17-year-old’s fifth gold medal at these World Championships, and her 13th overall. Since beginning to compete on the senior level in 2013, Kudryavtseva has proven nearly unbeatable in competition, and Friday was no exception.

But it was not quite the domination that was expected from “the Angel with Iron Wings,” as Kudryavsteva has been nicknamed. After an excellent start with the Clubs, where she scored 19.000 points, the Muscovite made a slight error with the Ribbon, allowing her best friend and biggest rival, Margarita Mamun (RUS) to move into the lead by 0.2 points with one routine left to perform.

With gold in her grasp, Mamun dropped the Ribbon early in her last routine, scoring an uncharacteristically low 18.050 on the event where she was World champion in 2014. Kudryavtseva took full advantage of the opportunity, posting the highest score of the competition (19.116) with the Ball to bounce back for the gold, her third consecutive World title (75.632).

As she typically has for the past two years in international competition, Mamun settled for silver (74.766). Veteran Melitina Stanioiuta (BLR), already a bronze medallist with the Ball in Stuttgart, allowed the apparatus to slip out of her hands early Friday night but recovered well enough to finish with a second bronze in the All-around (72.132).

Reigning World Rhythmic Gymnastics champion Yana Kudryavtseva

The usually collected Kudryavtseva pumped her fists and bowed to the crowd following her routine, knowing she had secured the title. Kudryavtseva has been nursing a slight leg injury in Stuttgart and opted not to compete for the World title with the Hoop, which in her absence was won by Mamun.

On a night where Olympic qualification berths were at stake, few among the 24 All-around finalists managed four clean routines. Reigning World bronze medallist Ganna Rizatdinova watched her chances of a fifth medal at this Championships vanish after she failed to catch her Clubs out of bounds at the end of her first routine of the night. Son Yeon Jae (KOR), another pre-competition favorite, made several errors during her Ribbon routine and finished 11th overall.

Three More Golds For Kudryavtseva At Rhythmic Gymnastics Worlds

2013 and 2014 World champion Yana Kudryavtseva (RUS) pocketed another three gold medals during the second night of individual apparatus finals at the 2015 Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships in Stuttgart (GER).

Seventeen-year-old Kudryavtseva, who successfully defended her World title with the Ball Tuesday night, added World titles with the Clubs and Ribbon Thursday, as well as an additional gold in the team competition, in the company of her countrywomen Margarita Mamun and Aleksandra Soldatova.

Despite a slight leg injury that kept her out of the Hoop competition here in Stuttgart, the 17-year-old Muscovite has been nothing less than dominant since the Championships began. With the Clubs, she was flawless, scoring 19.066 points to take her third consecutive World title with the apparatus.

Soldatova, who outscored Mamun to qualify for the Clubs final, took a distant silver (18.583), her second of these Championships.

The last competitor to perform with the Ribbon, Kudryavtseva appeared to improvise slightly at the end of her routine after failing to catch the Ribbon’s wand following a throw. Her score, 18.866, was still enough to edge Mamun (18.850), the 2014 World champion with the Ribbon, due to a superior execution score.

Yana Kudryavtseva, Russia

Ukraine’s Ganna Rizatdinova won bronze with both Clubs (18.566) and Ribbon (18.383), just as she did Tuesday with the Hoop, giving the 22-year-old three individual bronze medals so far in Stuttgart.

The Russian trio of Kudryavtseva, Mamun and Soldatova also finished 1-2-3 in qualifications, giving the Russians the World team title, the total of the eight best scores obtained by a country’s gymnasts. With 149.990 points, Russia finished more than eight points ahead of Belarus and Ukraine.

The 2015 Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships continues with the individual All-around final Friday night. Kudryavtseva, the top qualifier, is a favorite to win her third consecutive World All-around title.

34th Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships kicks off in Stuttgart

A total of 279 gymnasts (143 individuals and 136 gymnasts representing 24 Groups), the 34th Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships began Monday in Stuttgart (GER).

With less than a year to go before the 2016 Olympic Games, this World Championships is the first qualifying event for nations to earn Olympic berths for Rio in Rhythmic Gymnastics.

The sport of Gymnastics has solid ties to the city of Stuttgart, recalled FIG President Bruno Grandi (ITA) during a press conference Monday at the Porsche Arena.

“Stuttgart is a very important city for us. This is the third time that we are organising a World Gymnastics Championships here, the last being the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in 2007, which was also a qualifier for the Beijing Olympic Games. We have a lot of confidence in this city and in the German Gymnastics Federation,” Grandi said. “In Stuttgart we have not only organisers who possess extensive knowledge in running Gymnastics competitions, but the spectators are true fans of the sport.”

Günther Kuhnigk, Director of the city of Stuttgart’s Department of Sports, underlined that “Gymnastics is one of the major sports in Stuttgart.”

“We have excellent venues in place for Gymnastics and we are very proud to show this during these World Championships,” he added.

“With events like these World Championships, we intend to foster development for sport on a political level. We aim to make the city move and inspire its citizens to get active,” said Rainer Brechtken, the president of German Gymnastics Federation (DTB) .

With the Olympics on the horizon, the World Championships have already drawn a great deal of attention. “Everyone wants to go to the Olympics,” Grandi said. “As such, the judges must realise the responsibility that they have.”

Marina Durunda (AZE)

While five judges from the 2014 Rhythmic World Championships were recently sanctioned by the FIG Disciplinary Commission for biased judging, Grandi noted that judges are closely monitored and that any attempt to favorise a gymnast is easily detected in the FIG’s technical analysis.

“Rhythmic Gymnastics is a beautiful sport, there’s no doubt about it,” Grandi added. “But this sport must be judged and it’s not always easy to put a number on the aesthetic part. There can be a small margin between the judges in evaluating execution, but the judgment must stay within this margin. Otherwise, there has clearly been a mistake.”

Nine World titles are at stake this week in Stuttgart: five individual titles (All-around, Ball, Ribbon, Hoop and Clubs) and a team title, and three Group titles (All-around, 5 Ribbons and 3 Pairs of Clubs/2 Hoops).

2015 RHYTHMIC GYMNASTICS WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: Five Questions With Natalyia Kuzmina

Five questions with Natalyia Kuzmina, President of the FIG Rhythmic Gymnastics Technical Committee

Eastern Europe has traditionally been a bastion of Rhythmic Gymnastics, but we have been seeing that gymnasts from the Americas and Asia are beginning to challenge this domination a bit. How do you explain this ?

Kuzmina: “You’re right: there has been visible progress in Asia, not only in Uzbekistan but in Korea, Japan and other countries. But there has also been notable progress in America. I was at the Pan American Games in July in Toronto, and I was very surprised to see that there were 6,000 spectators who came to see the Rhythmic events, not just the relatives of the athletes but local people, because Canada does not have a big Rhythmic tradition. The gymnasts from the Pan American countries as well have made a great deal of progress and have a lot to look forward to, as do those from Africa. We are very aware at the FIG that this sport must be universal. We have put in place FIG Academies and judges courses to help spread knowledge and training techniques. It’s very important that the coaches and choreographers from leading countries organise seminars and give courses on how to compose a routine and use the apparatus. I am expecting to see many continents in the All-around final here in Stuttgart.”

Yana Kudryavtseva, Russia,

Yana Kudryavtseva (RUS) has been the dominant gymnast of the past two World Championships. What makes her such an exceptional gymnast ?

Kuzmina: “It’s true that she is unique. Yana has exceptional apparatus elements and harmony with music. She has excellent coaches and benefits from wonderful training conditions put in place by the Russian Rhythmic Federation. Its President and Head coach, Irina Viner, has a long-term vision and has put in place an organisation and methods so that the gymnasts are always well prepared. In Russia as well, there are music specialists, specialists for choreography and a big medical center in the vicinity if they need to see doctors. That too is unique.”

What needs to be done to continue to develop Rhythmic outside Europe ?

Kuzmina: “Courses are one thing, but we also have to think of ways to render our programme more exciting and attractive to all federations. We should revise the code of points in order to support the principle of universality. This idea may seem new, but why not try to develop team Rhythmic Gymnastics competitions for men like they do in Japan? Or pairs with two apparatus? Or Mixed Pairs? There are a lot of ideas coming from our federations. One must know how to evolve. We cannot just leave the situation as it is, because we know that the competition is strong between sports to continue to be part of the Olympic programme.”

Five judges from the 2014 World Rhythmic Championships in Izmir were just sanctioned by the FIG Disciplinary Commission for biased judging. What does this say to you ?

Kuzmina: “Obviously, we’re not happy about this. We have fought to have fair, objective judging in Rhythmic Gymnastics. We should organise a more practical education system for new judges. The judges from Asia or South America especially don’t have a lot of opportunity to get experience. All the judges must be objective and honest. A judge must judge only what he or she sees, without taking into account the name of the gymnast or which country or continent she comes from. But I think that over the years we have made progress. It’s not enough to penalize the judges, because judges are only human and they make errors. The main thing is educating them and then giving them ample practice.”

Natalyia Kuzmina,
President of the FIG Rhythmic Gymnastics Technical Committee

The FIG Rhythmic Technical Committee is preparing a new code of points for the 2017-2020 Olympic cycle. What changes would you like to see in the new code ?

Kuzmina: “That’s a difficult question. We would like to eliminate the repetition of elements. We have a special scientific workgroup that has done some research and collected a lot of data. The important thing is the handling of the apparatus, because we are a sport that uses apparatus. So we would like to focus on the manipulation of the apparatus as well as the artistic side of the sport: the use of music and how the gymnast works with it. That’s what I hope to see in the future.”

FIG Disciplinary Commission Sanctions Aerobic And Acrobatic Gymnastics Judges

The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) recognised the excellent work of a total of 26 judges at the 2014 World Championships and Youth Olympic Games across all disciplines (FIG reported).

However, in the context of the thorough review of the judging at last year’s Aerobic and Acrobatic World Championships, a number of judges had to be referred to the FIG Disciplinary Commission.

The commission states that “it is crucial for the sport of Gymnastics that judges are at all times acting and seen to be acting in an independent and unbiased manner. This is reflected in the Judges Oath (as set out in Reg. 7.12.1 TR) which states: ‘In the name of all the Judges and officials, I promise that we shall officiate in these World Championships with complete impartiality, respecting and abiding by the rules which govern them in the spirit of sportsmanship.’ Any judge who fails to act in this manner damages the image of Gymnastics both in the eyes of the public and, also importantly, in the eyes of the gymnasts, coaches and other judges upon whose continuing participation the sport of Gymnastics and therefore the future of the FIG itself is dependent.”

In this matter, the FIG Disciplinary Commission has given warnings to five judges (two AER; three ACRO) for biased judging and has excluded six judges (two AER; four ACRO) from participating in any FIG activities or other international events for periods ranging from six to 12 months.

The sanctioned judges have the right to appeal the decision rendered by the FIG Disciplinary Commission to the FIG Appeal Tribunal.

FEDERATION INTERNATIONALE DE GYMNASTIQUE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETS IN AUSTRALIA…

Please find here within a summary of major decisions and information published by the FIG Executive Committee (EC) at the close of its ordinary meeting, May 12-14, 2015, in Melbourne (AUS).

The EC approved the revised Regulations for the Judges’ Evaluation Programme (JEP).

Following the decisions made at the last EC meeting concerning the hand guards and the interventions of the Superior Jury in case of deviations between the Difficulty Judges and the respective Supervisor, the EC approved the necessary changes in the Appendix to the Code of Points.

The EC awarded the Norwegian judge Dag Ivar Ytreberg an Honorary Judges’ Diploma.

Upon request of the Japanese Gymnatics Federation, the EC agreed to change the dates of the 2016 Congress in Tokyo (JPN). The electoral Congress will be held 18-20 October 2016.

The EC confirmed the contractual framework between the FIG and Rio2016 for the organisation of a Gymnastics Gala following competition at the Games.

The EC discussed new competition formats for the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires (ARG).

The EC postponed the planned EC meeting from October 2015 to 6-8 December 2015. At this meeting, the Technical Committes will have to present the Code of Points 2017-2020 for approval.

Additionally, the following changes in nationality have been accepted:

NAME————————–STATUS——–FORMER———–NEW

Paula TALARN BALDELLOU——–RG Gymnast——ESP————AND

Anthony DUCHARDS————–MAG Gymnast—–GBR————IRL

Tara DONELLY——————WAG Gymnast—–GBR————IRL

Marcela SOLEDAD TORRES——–WAG Gymnast—–ARG————SWE

Igor BLINTSOV—————–ACRO Judge——KAZ————GER

Fabian DE LUNA—————-MAG Gymnast—–USA————MEX

Daria ELIZAROVA—————WAG Gymnast—–UZB————RUS

Farah BOUFADENE—————WAG Gymnast—–FRA————ALG

George Robert STANESCU——–MAG Gymnast—–ROU————CAN

The next meeting of the FIG Executive Committee is scheduled for December 6-8, 2015 at FIG Headquarters in Lausanne (SUI).