Dear Friends

This July, Helsinki will welcome the quadrennial World Gymnaestrada for a moment of intense interaction among Gymnastics for All participants.

Those who love recreational, educational, non-competitive gymnastics are invited to visit the country responsible for teaching the world the importance of physical activity on wellness.

Finland is at the centre of a world event that appeals to culture enthusiasts who also care deeply about human movement – which is a kind of raw material for biological health.

I would remind the world of gymnastics that the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that over the next decade the global population will see a rise from 580 million to more than one billion persons over the age of 60, that non-communicable diseases will increase from 43 to 60 percent, and that each dollar invested in sport will yield an average of three times that in return.

I have taken the WHO as a reference because of its non-political stance. It is important to know that sport practise for a higher quality of life constitutes an unquestionable economic advantage, regardless of discipline or category, and scientific authorities, particularly in medicine, are committed to pointing that out.

 

The movement is closely linked to the biology of human beings, to their morphological and functional development, and to the development of relational and communicative capacities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prof. Pfanner, neurophysiologist at the University of Pisa, affirms that, “movement is a paradigm of animal life, which, in man, becomes the projection and support of mental health.”

I feel that this scientific affirmation requires no special explanation, however, to be clear, this means that in its complexity, motion interacts substantially with the neurological structure of the internal and external nervous system.

The World Gymnaestrada is a world event where all motor cultures are presents. The event brings together an anthology of motricity with every gymnastic school present that connects with functional movement, underpinned by aesthetics and expression, and representing an exclusively human motricity.

Our relationships are born of this type of basic motility, and gymnastics as a sport – whether with or without apparatus – directly benefits from it.

It is important to remember that the exercises performed by leading gymnastic champions find their origin in rudimentary mobility. It is thus the specific responsibility of the International Gymnastics Federation to support and develop this type of rudimentary activity in the context of cutting-edge scientific knowledge.

The World Gymnaestrada is a prestigious part of our sport organisation because of its functional mission and social element. If nothing else, Gymnastics for All is good entertainment. It has a social role whose only objective is to create psychophysical conditions that promote wellness and improve quality of life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am not talking about high-level sport; I’m talking about exercise for normal men and women, which directly impacts the International Federation.

The position occupied by the FIG on the international stage is largely due to the educational value given to the sport by the International Olympic Committee. Gymnastics for All and, consequently, the World Gymnaestrada, play a political and economic role that is important for our organisation. Gymnastics is a fundamental activity that serves the greater social good, and which is valuable to the collective whole. It is not merely an entertaining sport; it is one that directly impacts global wellness.

 

Life is movement and movement is life. That is an important part of our daily existence.

 

Movement has always had an anthropological impact on the history of humankind. We believe that the cultural evolution of our species (the process by which man has been civilised) has taken place through motion. This is particularly evident in the human hand, whose evolution Professor Kurt Meinel identifies as the ‘intellectualism’ of movement used in every day work. This means that we are the curators of a culture that continues to develop, grow, and move toward the future with determination and acuity.

Let us all meet in Helsinki to honour together the wealth of our culture, and pursue the task that is ours.

CONTACT US

FIG World of Gymnastics,
Avenue de la Gare 12,
1003 Lausanne, Switzerland

Tel. +41 21 321 55 10

Fax: +41 21 321 55 19

​mediafig@fig-gymnastics.org

​www.fig-gymnastics.com