Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

The first thing that I saw when I linked to Bruno Grandi’s latest address to his adoring public was this : ‘ I am grateful to have fellow authorities who were willing to follow me at a time when others would sow doubt and dissonance in the hearts of a wounded and writhing people, afflicted with the tragic events that wracked Japan .’ And the first thing I thought was, ‘ At last! Finally he understands how distraught we all are at the mess he has made of the sport ’. Then I got things into context a little, and realised he was referring to a different disaster. It is important to keep gymnastics in perspective. But this honestly is a snapshot of my immediate reaction to this part of his address. I must confess I read the next part of Our President’s letter with growing incredulity. In fact, I do wonder if he isn’t being rather sarcastic, here : ‘ Never before, and I speak from no small amount of experience, have the scores given by judges so accurately reflected athlete performanc...

FIG President Bruno Grandi has recently published one of his regular addresses to the gymnastics community, a new year’s letter which can be found here . I frequently struggle to follow the logic of much of Grandi’s writing; I think it must be written in the Italian originally, and then suffers from poor translation. I also find many of his ideas distorted and misplaced. Grandi has been President of the FIG since 1996 and I therefore guess that he must have the support of a fairly significant body of gymnastics federations in order to survive. I suppose this isn’t that surprising when you consider they experience a better chance of medalling under his regime. It is rather sad, however, when you consider how the women’s sport has degraded artistically under his presidency. Despite what he says, the artistry of gymnastics has not improved since 1989, and artistic gymnastics is not the sole domain of the more physically mature woman. His age limits and competition format changes ...