FÉDÉRATION INTERNATIONALE DE GYMNASTIQUE
Letter from the President
Nr 48
By Prof. Bruno Grandi, President of the FIG April 2011
Marketing!
On my initiative, the FIG convened its Executive Committee for an extraordinary meeting to
discuss a study conducted by its Marketing Commission. Why now? At the halfway point of the
current cycle, a mere few months prior to the qualifying events for the London Olympic Games?
The timing is of little import, but what does stand out is that a certain level of awareness and
intellectual maturity need to be achieved in order to create the necessary conditions for efficient
decision-making.
This is also the outcome of an initial phase conducted by the Commission that is in part meant to
spur concrete and decisive action, a phase which should ultimately sever gymnastics from its
traditionally passive stance.
The concept has been under construction for several months, even years. Various projects have
contributed to a debate, and while immediate solutions have yet to be found, these projects shed
tangible light on a variety of issues and serve to identify just what is at stake and where different
strategies and personal interests lie. We've devoted a good deal of time to this already, and today
the FIG Executive Board is finally beginning to harvest the first fruits of its labour.
Amnesia
Have we forgotten? While other international federations have been steering their disciplines in the
same direction taken by today's youth (street basket, inline skating, beach volley, BMX, break
dance, etc.), gymnastics has been losing its way in the fog that is the codes of points, broadening
the gap between itself and its own gymnasts.
The entire time, swimming and athletics have been claiming the educational value of sport while
cycling and soccer parade in the name of a socio-cultural impact. The media have been attentive
to this. The IOC is so caught up in the movement that nothing was mentioned of gymnastics' role
as a fundamental human activity at a session in Singapore.
A report put out by the Marketing Commission draws our attention to the fact that we have in our
hands a sport that is as replete with television audience as it fosters a healthy life-style.
Gymnastics is about Man and the way he expresses himself through movement, but it also speaks
to the preservation of an inner state of health.
Image
We have a gap that must be filled. Every four years, gymnastics seduces the world at the Olympic
Games and then slips into an obscure media silence that only Artistic is able to break, and that at
its world championship events. Our sport appeals to people worldwide; its bests even athletics,
basketball and swimming but only every four years! It is beautiful but complicated, spectacular
but boring.
In its report, the Commission revealed that gymnastics is very likely one of the most attractive
sports for television cameras, with an ideal cast. However, it invites us to reconsider the running of
our championships, to recreate a show, new props, and a new version of the original sport. Action
follows intention and the Commission appeals to everyone involved organisers, broadcasters,
technical partners and athletes to take heed. It invites those in charge to revamp the concept of a
world championship and opt for events in which gymnasts are in the limelight, and no one else.
There is something to discover deep between the lines of the Marketing Commission's report, and
that is how far we have strayed from our original image. Before donning the cloak of entertainment
and becoming a flagship of Olympism, gymnastics was an activity common to all men. But our
sport was in need of a boost, a revisiting of its competitive personality. Everything has changed.
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FÉDÉRATION INTERNATIONALE DE GYMNASTIQUE