30. August 2024  
Paris, FRA  
Artistic Gymnastics

When will ‘Para Gymnastics’ also become Paralympic?

Para Gymnastics also in Sweden

You won't find ‘Para Gymnastics’ in the Paris 2024 Paralympic programme yet!
Nevertheless, the sport of apparatus gymnastics was included in the programme as an official international summer sport at Special Olympics International and was also introduced as an official sport at Special Olympics Germany in July 2020. At the "Special Olympic World Games" in Berlin / GER (June 2023), we also learnt more about the development status of this still young sport in Germany.
* British Gymnastics is an international role model and leader in this field and is currently working to include gymnastics in the Paralympic programme for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Brisbane, Australia.

♦ 'Indide the Games’ published the following article on the subject:

A year after British Gymnastics set out a long-term goal to make disability gymnastics a Paralympic sport from Brisbane 2032, work is already underway to make that dream a reality.
As part of the British Gymnastics Federation's Leap Without Limits vision, which expresses a ‘commitment to the relentless pursuit of inclusion and accessibility’, the organisation last year put forward a plan to develop a structured way of monitoring gymnastics, to be introduced in 2032 with a new FIG Para-Gymnastics Working Group.
The group working on the project will be led by Patrick Bonner, Executive Director of the British Gymnastics Foundation, and Dr. Angela Turner, Chair of British Gymnastics' Disability Panel.
‘The next three years are critical to this journey as we develop an FIG points code for men's and women's para-artistic gymnastics and a classification structure for the disciplines,’ said Bonner. ‘This includes a complex research programme to develop the scientific basis for our classification system, which is required for all Paralympic sports. We will initially organise many international competitions, including the first FIG World Paralympic Gymnastics Championships in 2027,’ he explained. ‘With this comes a big task to involve as many national gymnastics federations as possible around the world in a training programme for Paralympic gymnasts so that we can increase the number of nations competing internationally.’
Bonner also announced that the FIG para-gymnastics working group will hold its first congress in October 2024, where participants will vote to officially recognise para-gymnastics as a new discipline within the FIG family of disciplines. ‘The hope is that with the vote of all FIG member nations, a resolution will be passed to officially put para-gymnastics on the map and move forward with plans for 2032.’

Currently, the highest competition in disability gymnastics in Great Britain takes place at national level:
British Gymnastics will host the Disability British Championships in Cardiff on 28 September 2024.

Da dies der höchste Wettkampf im Behindertenturnen für Athleten ist, hofft die Arbeitsgruppe FIG Para-Gymnastics, die Wettkämpfe über ihre derzeitigen nationalen Grenzen hinaus auszuweiten, immer das Ziel vor Augen, das die Disziplinen Gerätturnen und Rhythmische Gymnastik Bestandteil der Paralympics in acht Jahren in Brisbane werden sollten!

British Gymnastics wird sich dafür einsetzen, internationale Wettbewerbe für das Behindertenturnen zu etablieren und so den führenden britischen Behindertenturnern die Möglichkeit zu geben, auf der Weltbühne anzutreten.
* Source: Inside the Games
* Author: Elliot McGowan
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In December 2023, the FIG provided information on the current status of para gymnastics in a statement by Nelli KIM, who is a member of the FIG's para gymnastics working group.


* Youtube
However, it is also a fact that the FIG is already behind its own schedule, as it originally wanted to publish the first instructions, including the corresponding competition classes, in spring 2024.

We would also like to take this opportunity to remind you of a remarkable event 15 years ago (!), when the German former national team gymnast and current TV gymnastics expert Ronny ZIESMER - five years after his serious accident in Kienbaum, near Berlin (2004), now in a wheelchair - opened a training camp for British disabled gymnasts at the same location for the first time, even receiving sponsorship support from the then Daimler Benz AG at the German Top Sports Center, which was later (2017) renamed the Olympic and Paralympic Training Centre for Germany.
Since this remarkable, hopeful individual action and connection to the leading officials of the British federation, little remarkable has happened in Germany in this area! The German Gymnastics Federation provides information on its association website about an advanced training module ‘Inclusive children's gymnastics’ and essentially refers to its regional associations.
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* The German Disabled Sports Association currently lists 8 team sports and 20 individual sports under para-sports.
Apparatus gymnastics and gymnastics are not (yet) included.
* It is known from Sweden, for example, that over 70 gymnastics clubs there currently offer special training for gymnasts with various types of disabilities. This number is constantly increasing and demand is high, and here too there are many people who would like to do gymnastics but cannot find a club nearby.

* Austrian gymnastics (‘TURNSPORT AUSTRIA’) very much welcomes the FIG-Para commitment, has already made contact with the Austrian disability sports organisations and is now included in the national group of ‘inclusive sports associations’. Incidentally, Austria's disability sports experts consider the FIG timetable for the first Paralympics participation to be VERY ambitious!

(c) gymmedia / E.W. Herholz