BY MIREILLE GANZIN

FIG AEROBIC TECHNICAL COMMITTEE PRESIDENT

 

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Twenty years ago, Paris hosted the first FIG Aerobic World Gymnastics Championships, ushering the new FIG discipline into the spotlight already shared by Artistic and Rhythmic.

Accepting Aerobic – today a mix of strength elements, leaps, jumps, turns and traditional Acrobatics, usually performed to a strong techno beat -- represented a leap of faith for then-FIG President Yuri Titov (RUS), who felt the risk well worth taking.

 

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Competitors at that first World Championships included 1992 French Artistic Olympian Chloe Maigre and former Hungarian star Eva Szloboda, as well as Claudiu Christian Moldovan, a young man from Romania who would go on to coach the Romanian Artistic Junior National team.

In the two decades since, a new generation of Aerobic gymnasts has pushed the sport to evolve in terms of difficulty and execution.

Today Aerobic Gymnastics is practiced in 75 countries and on all five continents, while its World Championships unite the best of the best from all corners of the globe every two years.

 

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In 2015, Aerobic competitions will be included at the inaugural European Games, as well as the 11th African Games and the World School Games. The next steps should be inclusion at the Asian and Pan American Games, with the ultimate goal being inclusion in the Olympic family. The first step was taken at the recent FIG Executive Committee meeting in Lausanne (SUI), where the committee unanimously agreed that Aerobic and Acrobatic Gymnastics should be on the program at the next Youth Olympic Games.

Here's to the next 20 years of Aerobic Gymnastics!

 

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