FÉDÉRATION INTERNATIONALE DE GYMNASTIQUE
FIG Education & Academy Program Report
79
th
FIG Congress and General Assembly Cancun, Mexico 2012
By:
Slava Corn, FIG Vice-president responsible for the Academy Program
Hardy Fink, Director of FIG Education & Academy Programs
Introduction Focus of FIG Coach Education Programs
The various FIG coach education initiatives have ever more focused on the safe and healthy
preparation and development of young gymnasts towards high performance excellence. Special
efforts are made to provide coaches an understanding that the age period of 11-15 is a critical time
for our gymnasts because it is a time when they are capable of learning complex aerial skills
quickly but are simultaneously susceptible to debilitating acute, chronic and overuse physical
injuries and to emotional and psychological damage. If our coaches can patiently guide their
gymnasts past that critical period, they will have a champion; if not all of us within FIG will have lost
another gymnast and tarnished the image of our sport and the reason for our existence.
FIG Academy Program (all disciplines)
Ten years of the FIG Academy Program: One
hundred and thirty-seven academies; exactly
200 if we count MAG and WAG separately! At
the time of the 2010 FIG Congress, the FIG
Academy Program had completed 91
academies. At this Congress two years later,
that number will have increased by 46 to 137
academies with eight more scheduled before
year end. Those 46 academies that were held
since the last Congress are listed at the end of
this report.
Enormous progress has been made since the last Congress. The curriculum of the academy
program for all disciplines was completed with Level 3 courses held for Trampoline-, Rhythmic-,
and Acrobatic Gymnastics. The preparation for these courses required the completion of all theory
and technical lecture material and the preparation of 10 more technical manuals in English, French
and Spanish bringing the total to 37 latest-edition technical manuals across all disciplines.
By the time of the Congress:
47 different federations hosted academies
112 federations attended academies
Over 2000 different coaches will have attended (we estimate 2090)
The total participation will exceed 3700 coaches
40 federations provided experts
170 different experts taught at academies.
The amount of activity has been truly remarkable and has continued to accelerate yearly. And with
those amazing numbers we celebrate ten years of this most remarkable and possibly most
successful of FIG's many programs.
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FÉDÉRATION INTERNATIONALE DE GYMNASTIQUE