Glasgow World Championships Set A New Benchmark For Artistic Gymnastics Competition

For the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG), the 2015 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Glasgow have set a new benchmark for organisers of future Artistic Gymnastics competitions.

When the FIG allocated the major World Championships of the Olympic cycle to British Gymnastics and the city of Glasgow four years ago, it knew its championships were in good hands. But it could not have imagined how far the organising committee would go in its innovation and originality in presenting the event and its stars, the gymnasts.

“These World Championships have been wonderful in every aspect,” enthused Professor Bruno Grandi, President of the FIG, during a press conference before the final day of competition Sunday. “I would like to thank the city, because Gymnastics, this magnificent sport, needs to try to continue to organise competitions in this manner.”

The Glasgow World Championships featured several innovative features designed to engage the crowd while emphasizing the gymnasts’ craft. The use of a giant 20 x 6 meter screen and stage to present gymnasts as they entered the arena before a backdrop of smoke and flames, as well as the placement of the judges above and away from the field of play were among the innovations that contributed to the beauty of the spectacle.

“By presenting them this way, the gymnasts became actors in a grand production,” Grandi said. “It was even better than the Olympic Games, and for this we owe a lot to the Glasgow 2015 Organising Committee. With these World Championships, we have become even more professional in our way of doing things.”

“As an Olympic qualifying event, we wanted this World Championships to be run to the highest of standards so the athletes could feel that they were taking center stage while achieving their goals,” said British Gymnastics CEO Jane Allen. The success of the World Championships owed much to the vision of Colin Hartley, Championships Director of the Glasgow 2015 Worlds, as well as Competition Director Matthew Greenwood.

On a sporting level, the World Championships will be remembered for numerous reasons: In addition to being the first qualifying event for the 2016 Rio Games (the top eight men’s and women’s teams as well as event finalist medallists whose teams do not qualify for the Olympics all to the Games) the Glasgow Worlds have been remarkable for the number of history-making performances.

The field of play at the SSE Hydro

In Glasgow, Japan’s Kohei Uchimura and American Simone Biles won their sixth and third consecutive World All-around titles, respectively, establishing new records for winning streaks in both Men’s and Women’s Gymnastics. In becoming the first Cuban gymnast to win a medal in the individual All-around competition, Manrique Larduet (silver) carved out his own slice of history, while Max Whitlock (gold on Pommel Horse) also wrote a new chapter for Great Britain as its first-ever World champion in Men’s Gymnastics.

Additionally, the women’s Uneven Bars final, which produced gold medallists Fan Yilin (CHN), Daria Spiridonova (RUS), Viktoria Komova (RUS) and Madison Kocian (RUS), will rest in the annals of gymnastics as one of the most unanticipated results ever produced in world competition.

Five Questions With: Jane Allen, CEO of British Gymnastics

In the five years since she became CEO of British Gymnastics, Jane Allen has presided over a multitude of changes in her sport’s domain, watching with pride as the sport — and the organisation — has risen to new heights in Great Britain. London’s successful bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games gave new importance to the uber-popular Olympic sport of Gymnastics, and in the run-up to the 2012 Olympic Games, British Gymnastics reaped the reward of increased funding and a groundswell in popularity generated by well-timed international success.

In 2008, Louis Smith became the first British gymnast in a century to win an Olympic medal with his bronze on Pommel Horse. In front of a supportive home crowd at the North Greenwich Arena a year later, Daniel Keatings (silver in the All-around) and Beth Tweddle (gold on Floor Exercise) delivered the best results in British history at the 2009 World Championships. Smith, Tweddle, Max Whitlock and the British Men’s team all went on to medal at the London Games in 2012.

Allen, who spent a dozen years at the helm of Gymnastics Australia (where the women’s team experienced a similar rise beginning in 1997) before accepting British Gymnastics’s top job, shies away from the idea that she has a golden touch, preferring to credit successes over the years to the talented people she has had the pleasure of working with. With the 2015 World Artistic Championships coming to Glasgow’s SSE Hydro beginning October 23, Allen is optimistic that British gymnasts will rise to the occasion once again before a home crowd.

Q: What’s been your proudest accomplishment since you took over as CEO of British Gymnastics?
Jane Allen: “Probably winning the bid for the 2015 World Championships in Glasgow. The London Olympics were amazing but anything associated to this great event was in place well before my involvement at BG. For the bid for the 2015 World Championship we were up against Paris and the USA, so we knew it wasn’t going to be easy. We worked hard to prepare a very professional bid with a fantastic group of partners from Government and the city of Glasgow and we kept hoping this would get us across the line.”

Q: Which competitions are you most looking forward to seeing in Glasgow?
Allen: “We have a fabulous men’s programme, so I’d have to say the goal is to get a team medal, and I’m really looking forward to the men’s team competition to see if we can repeat the performance in 2012 when they won bronze in the team competition. We came fourth in China at the 2014 World Championships, so we think they’re in there with a shot.”

Jane Allen, CEO of British Gymnastics

Q: British Gymnastics has had great success recently not just in Artistic with the collective Home Nation success at last year’s Commonwealth Games, but in Acro, with the gold medal for Women’s Trio at last year’s World Championships…
Allen: “I’m really keen to see our women’s programme progress to the international standing of our men’s programme and this is definitely possible under our national coach Amanda Reddin who is halfway through an eight year plan to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Finally, Great Britain also has a strong Trampoline base, however, British Gymnastics has not had any major success at the Olympic level in Trampoline. We’ve got a good women’s group, and it is our absolute dream to pick up a medal in Rio.”

Q: As CEO of British Gymnastics, you concentrate a lot on the business side of the sport. But are you a fan as well?
Allen: “I am a definite fan. I wasn’t in Gymnastics as a kid. I came through team sports but when I started to be employed in the sport and I spent 20 years in Australia in Gymnastics, I just learned to love it. I think it’s a fabulous sport. I’m in awe of how hard it is and I’m in awe of the athletes and what they have to do to perform. I think it’s the hardest sport out there.”

Q: On behalf of the other federations out there, who are trying to do a lot with rather small budgets, any advice?
Allen: “My advice to smaller federations is find something that you can really work to build on. I think really look at something you can concentrate on. Don’t try and do everything. Don’t try and be everything to everybody. We did this in Australia. We didn’t have the resources in Australia to the degree that people might have thought we had. But we found a committed coach, built a women’s programme and we worked really hard to build that up, whilst we tried to support the others as well. We knew that if success came in one area it would really flow over to other areas of the business. If you have success in that, success will lead to success and you’ll engage your community and it might allow you then to do more within the sport. The biggest thing is that gymnastics is complicated, it’s diverse, and so if you try to spread your resources over everything you will really achieve very little, because you’re spreading your resources too thin. If there are limited resources, make a decision and commit the organisation to one or two goals you’ve then got more chances to succeed.”