Sri Lanka becomes the 49th FIG Academy host

Lausanne, Nov 13: 49th FIG Academy, During the first week of November, Sri Lanka hosted a Level 1 Academy for Men’s and Women’s Artistic Gymnastics in the city of Colombo. It was the first time Sri Lanka hosted a FIG Academy and makes it the 49th FIG member federation to have done so.

Thirty-one coaches attended from seven Asian countries – India, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore and Sri Lanka. A coach from Japan had to leave for personal reasons after participating in the first half of the course.

The course leader was many time FIG Academy expert Chris Evans, a women’s coach and osteopath from Great Britain. He shared the teaching of the theory lectures and the women’s technical lectures with Louis Fourie of South Africa who is the coach education coordinator for that country. Takashi Kobayashi of Japan taught all of the men’s technical lectures. He is the coaching director for the Japanese National Olympic Centre. Joanne Richards of Australia, who is the national junior development coordinator and holds a Ph.D. in biomechanics, taught artistic preparation and choreography.

As expected, there was an extremely wide range of results in the two-part examination process and this reflected the wide range of experience and knowledge of the participants. The highest results for WAG and for the Academy overall were achieved by Jui Hui Toh of Singapore with a 98% score overall and an exceedingly rare 100% on the practical examination. Women’s Gymnastics coaches also had the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th highest scores. The highest result for MAG were shared by Himanshu Dave of India and Gabriel Gan Zijie of Singapore.

We thank the Sri Lanka Gymnastics Federation for its eagerness to bring an Academy to its country. Special thanks must go to Mr. R A K Jeewantha who was recently elected to the FIG Council. He was the main organiser for the Academy and was present constantly during all lectures to assist where necessary and assure the success of this Academy. Only the long travel times between hotel and venues – as much as five hours per day – marred an otherwise perfect course.

The FIG Academy Programme continues remains busy until the end of the year with five more Academies before Christmas and three FIG Age Group Training Camps as well as an Africa Zone 2 training camp. The Academies will be two Level 3 Aerobic aAcademies in Vietnam and South Africa, two Men’s and Women’s Artistic Gymnastics Academies in Colombia for Level 1 and Chile for Level 2 and a Rhythmic Academy Level 1 also in Chile. —- FIG