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There is something in the air in an Olympic year. This is the year when individuals and nations will rise up to realise long-held dreams, or achieve what they may not even dared to dream of. As these fantasies solidify into golden realities, they spark new dreams among the generations to come. So goes the Olympic cycle.
While the Games are afoot in 2020, there is far more than just summer in Tokyo to look forward to in Gymnastics. As the year begins, the Olympic rosters in Men’s and Women’s Artistic Gymnastics, Rhythmic and Trampoline are only partially filled out, and before the Games can begin, the FIG World Cup Series and continental championships will complete the fields.
For Parkour, 2020 will mark a new milestone in the discipline’s rise to prominence, with the inaugural FIG Parkour World Championships in Hiroshima, Japan, this spring. Three decades in the making, the first FIG Parkour Worlds represent a terrific leap for the discipline while also serving as a qualifying event to The World Games 2021, where the sport is set to make another noteworthy debut.
Acrobatic and Aerobic Gymnastics are also set for turns on the World stage, with FIG World Championships in Aerobic in Baku (AZE) and Acrobatic in Geneva (SUI) the big events of the month of May.
All three World Championships serve as qualifying events to The World Games 2021, an Olympic-style event for non-Olympic sports, in Birmingham, Alabama (USA).
Off the field of play, FIG authorities will convene for two important global meetings, where the decisions taken will reverberate into the years to come.
Below, a rundown of what is to come:
A busy spring of World Cup events and continental championships will determine the remaining 18 gymnasts to qualify to Tokyo in Men’s Artistic Gymnastics, while 16 spaces remain in Women’s Artistic, nine in Rhythmic, six for Rhythmic Groups and 20 in men’s and women’s Trampoline. Tripartite invitations for athletes from smaller nations will also be extended to one male and one female gymnast in Artistic Gymnastics, one Rhythmic gymnast, and one Trampoline athlete ahead of the Games.
Click here for more on the 2020 Olympic qualification process and refer to the applicable rules.
Hiroshima holds a special place in the heart of Parkour - it was here in April 2018 that the nascent discipline’s first World Cup took place. Two years later, Parkour will bound onto the world championship stage in the same place. The athletes who triumph in the men’s and women’s speed and freestyle events in Hiroshima will earn a special distinction - not only will they be world champions, they will be regarded as pioneers in their sport.
Photo courtesy of Jean-Pierre Limery / FIG
Eight titles are at stake as the planet’s greatest Aerobic gymnasts gather on the shores of the Caspian Sea to decide who goes into The World Games 2021 as reigning world champions. Gymnasts and teams from Japan, Hungary and the Republic of Korea have been dominant of late, but can they continue their success in the face of threats from Turkey, Bulgaria and Vietnam? Fast-paced action in Baku will provide the response.
The annual legislative assembly with 45 delegates representing all five continents is vested with the power to allocate future World Championships, revise technical regulations and grant provisional membership to new national federations. The Council’s actions this year will set up October’s electoral FIG Congress in Turkey.
A new chapter in the elegant book of Acro will be written on the banks of the Arve River as Switzerland hosts the Acrobatic Gymnastics World Championships for the first time. Acro has typically been an area where Russia has excelled, but whether the powerhouse nation can remain atop the medal table is in doubt, thanks to excellent challengers from Portugal, Belgium and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, among others.
The gaze of the world will turn to the Ariake Gymnastics Centre for the Olympic showdown between the 324 athletes qualified in Men’s and Women’s Artistic, Rhythmic and Trampoline Gymnastics at the Games of the XXXII Olympiad. Gymnastics, one of the marquee events of the Games, promises jaw-dropping storylines. Among the biggest: whether reigning Olympic champion Simone Biles (USA), considered by many the best female gymnast of all time, can become the first woman in more than half a century to capture a second crown.
The curtain falls on Gymnastics’s banner year with the election of the new FIG authorities, including the FIG President, Vice Presidents and Technical Committee members in all Gymnastics disciplines, who will see the organisation through the next four years. As one Olympic cycle ends, a new one begins.