FIG Artistic Gymnastics Academy Level 2, Santiago

Lausanne, Dec 20: Exactly one year after hosting a Level 1 FIG Academy for Men’s And Women’s Artistic Gymnastics, Chile hosted a Level 2 Academy in the capital city of Santiago. It was the second last Academy for 2012 held on December 10-17 and preceded the start of the last Academy in South Africa by only a few hours.

And once again it was a big one. It was the biggest Level 2 Academy yet! Forty-five coaches attended from ten countries – Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. The participants were almost exactly evenly split with 23 for MAG and 22 for WAG.

In order to assist the development and the attendance of coaches in the region the attendance at this Academy was partially funded by the FIG Development Fund for the Pan-American Gymnastics Union (PAGU).

Andrea João of Brazil served as course leader and taught all of the theory lectures. She has become one of the most active FIG Academy experts having now taught at 17 Academies and in all FIG disciplines. Jose Súcart of Puerto Rico taught the men’s apparatus and Andrés Llanos Gerardino of Colombia taught the women’s apparatus. Rhony Ferreira, a professional dancer and gymnastics coach from Brazil taught artistic preparation and choreography as he has done at many previous Academies and at all levels. The Academy was held at the CAR; Centro de Alto Rendimiento (High Performance Centre) in Santiago.

The two-part examination process was very lengthy because of the large number of candidates and there was a very large range of results. The highest result for Women’s Artistic Gymnastics and for the Academy overall was, as it was at the Level 1Aacademy last year, achieved by Ximena Rodriguez of Chile with an incredible mark of 96%. Second overall also for WAG was Clara Davina Maleb Teixeira of Brazil. The top for men was Vitor Diniz Moreira also of Brazil.

We thank the Chile Gymnastics Federation for its willingness to host this Academy immediately following a very successful Academy for Rhythmic Gymnastics and to do so very effectively. Claudia Perelman Barry who is the Executive Director for the Chile Gymnastics Federation also participated in the Academy and handled all of the organisational details. Her work helped make this Academy a big success and she managed a very high score of 92% as well. —- FIG