25. Oktober 2004  
Antalya / Turkey  
Artistic Gymnastics

KIM and STOICA leading the artistic gymnastics TC’s

Nelli KIM, Adrian STOICA
newly- and re- elected

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)…

Hardy FINK - a loss for the TC!

Stoica who is said to be rather conservative won the election against Canada’s Hardy FINK (27 votes) that clearly so that Fink decided not to run for becoming TC- member anymore. With him the TC unfortunately looses a dedicated and capable personality who always fighted for new ways. Maybe he sometimes started slightly to early with progressive ideas which were not yet completely elaborated. In the end this might have cost him the majorities. However, it can be said that the general resignation of this men who wanted to move a lot is a loss especially in the current difficult situation of the FIG regarding the judging regulations.
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.

Jacky FIE - working for the FIG for almost 3 decades!

In the women’s TC a dedicated Jacky FIE (USA) retired after a 28-year (!) membership in the TC and a presidency of 12 years. This had been anounced by her already a while ago. However, against the expectations of most people Linda CHENCINSKI (USA), who was a long-year dedicated and competent supporter for Jacky Fie, was not elected for the TC. Surprisingly Nelli KIM was elected as president of the women’s TC. The former World- star of gymnastics certainly is more famous than Agneta GOETHBERG (SWE) who lost these elections against her but in contrast to the women from Sweden Nelly Kim is not really known to be an eager beaver… And especially these hard-working qualities are needed now in order to solve the amount of currently unsolved problems!
With Jacky Fie the FIG now has its’ third Honorary Vice-President together with Hans-Jürgen ZACHARIAS and the long-year former TC- president Karl-Heinz ZSCHOCKE from Germany.
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!
The procedure of the elections – the minor disaster
In view of the above mentioned situation the procedure of these elections in Turkey only was the minor disaster. However, the elections lasted from 9.00 am in the morning – 8.30 pm in the evening. It had been planned to learn from the last congress in Marakesh, computers were used this time, but the digital blessing actually seems to have been the curse: The PC’s had problems to recognize signs on the ballots which didn’t look like the requested cross and also had problems with the different colours of the ballots…? This resulted in breaks and annoying lengthiness:
Even the election of president Grandi – who didn’t have a rival candidate – took more than one hour.
How difficult will it be to make gymnastics transparent again also for modern media and a public who are not specialised experts in the sports!
Eckhard Herholz / GYMmedia


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