Following the success of the Budapest Symposium in April that dealt entirely with the new Artistic Gymnastics Code of Points, the FIG has moved forward into a phase of reform in terms of its judging methods.
  The FIG will test its new FIG Instant Replay and Control System at the European Championships in Debrecen (HUN) in June. Entrusted to its partner Swiss Timing / Longines, the project will combine the video technology and information stored in their data bases. The procedure was initially tested with positive results in December 2004 at the World Cup Final in Birmingham (GBR).
  Along with these developmental projects, the Men’s and Women’s Technical Committees will meet twice in Debrecen and Minsk (BLR) to complete a single document. The new 2006 – 2008 Code of Points must be on the FIG Secretary General’s desk by August 31, 2005 at the latest. It will then be distributed for information to the Executive Committee members and to the 129 FIG Affiliated Federations. The final decision rests on the Executive Committee, a decision that will be given October 10, 2005 at its ordinary meeting in Baku (AZE).

  After two days of excellent presentations, constructive exchange of arguments, open and lively discussions between technicians, politicians, experts, judges, coaches, the overwhelming majority of the symposium participants strongly supported the principles of the changes as presented by the FIG President, Prof. Bruno Grandi, and the two TC Presidents Adrian Stoica (ROM) and Nellie Kim (BLR).

Simple Jury's structure
  Regarding the structure of each Apparatus juries, both Men's and Women's TCs proposed two panels of judges, A and B. The A Panel with two judges, evaluating independently but also in consultation to determine the gymnast’s exercise value content. The B Panel is separated in 2 groups. The Panel B1 consisting in 4 judges evaluating the execution according to general table of faults and the specific apparatus deductions. The B2 Panel with 2 judges who will evaluate the composition and the artistry. "This will preserve the “10 points” as the Artistic Gymnastics trademark", said both TC Presidents. It also allows a traditional and understandable value for the public and mass media. It continues to allow the public to shown his capacity to feel the beauty, the artistry and the perfection of execution.
  By the increase in severity of execution deductions, gymnasts should be discouraging from performing a technical and difficulty risk element without perfect mastering of his gymnastic ability, and his bodies capacity. The functions of these two B sub-groups will be elaborated by the two TC’s, bearing in mind that the needs for Women’s Artistic Gymnastics is different from Men’s Artistic Gymnastics.

Giving more weight to Execution
  Instead of doubling the Execution deductions, the majority of the group the international experts prefers to raise the deductions as follows: small errors 1/10; medium errors 3/10; large errors 5/10 and fall 8/10. Concerning the Value of difficulty elements, the majority preferred a linear system of increments by point one. The group debated this and the TC’s are still studying the difficulty elements.

A	B	C	D	E	F	G	etc
1/10	2/10	3/10	4/10	5/10	6/10	7/10	Etc.

Inquiries / Protest
The Symposium strongly supports the proposal for a new rule to allow inquiries for the Start Value. The following principles must be respected:

  Olympic gold medalist Paul Hamm received the 75th Sullivan Award as the USA’s top amateur athlete. Hamm beat out previous winner Michael Phelps, as well as Olympic gold medalists Carly Patterson, Natalie Coughlin, Cael Sanderson, Andre Ward, Jeremy Wariner and Steven Lopez for the award. In Athens, Hamm came back from 12th place with only two events left to become the only U.S. man to win the Olympic all-around. But two days later, gymnastics officials discovered that Yang Tae-Young of South Korea had been wrongly docked a tenth of a point on his second-to-last routine, the parallel bars. Yang asked the Court of Arbitration for Sport to order international gymnastics officials to change the results and adjust the medal rankings accordingly, giving him the gold and Hamm the silver. But the CAS panel dismissed the appeal, leaving Hamm with the gold. He still keeps the medal in a drawer, just as he did while he was waiting for the court to rule. He plans to eventually give it a more distinguished home. Hamm is only the second gymnast to win the Sullivan award. Kurt Thomas won in 1979. Voting on the USA Today Web site helped determine the winner. More than 500,000 votes were cast online. The award is named after Amateur Athletic Union founder James E. Sullivan, and has been presented annually since 1930.

  Octavian Belu announced last Friday that he was ready to return as coach to Romania’s gymnastics team, nearly two months after he resigned amid legal troubles and media criticism of his methods. Belu coached Romania from 1981, helping it to 272 medals - including 104 golds - at Olympic, world, European and other top competitions.
  At the gymnastics federation’s annual meeting Friday, Belu told members and the media that he was ready to take back his position. Federation officials said they were happy with Belu’s return.
  His return marks the end of a troubled period for Romanian gymnastics, which was rocked by scandals and legal problems. On Thursday, former gymnast Oana Petrovschi dropped an injury lawsuit against Belu, Bitang and the federation after reaching an out-of-court settlement.

  The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) came down hard on several judges Friday, months after the sport's highest court allowed American Paul Hamm to keep his Olympic gold medal.
  Senior official Xiao Guanglai of China and judges Jorge Sandoval (Venezuela), Jose Mendez (Portugal) and Xavier Colon (Puerto Rico) were handed one-year bans stemming from the controversial men's vault final at last summer's Athens Games. The suspensions will be lifted on Feb. 25, 2006.
  Judges Chris Grabowecky of Calgary, Yuliy Kushenkov of Ukraine and Timur Amirbekov of Kazakhstan were issued a letter of warning by CAS for their insufficient work during the men's team competition. Three other judges who were temporarily suspended following the event were further disciplined on Friday by FIG for errors that may have helped Hamm win. American judge George Beckstead and Spain's Benjamin Bango are suspended until the end of the year, while Oscar Buitrago Reyes of Colombia is prohibited from judging until August. Beckstead oversaw the panel that determined the start value for Yang on the parallel bars, while Bango and Buitrago Reyes made "serious mistakes in judging at the parallel bars," according to the FIG.   In Athens, Yang mistakenly was docked 0.1 points for the level of difficulty in his parallel bars routine and finished third. If Yang had received the proper score, he would have finished 0.051 points ahead of Hamm. Hamm was awarded the gold in the all-around competition over South Korean Yang Tae-young despite a scoring error. FIG admitted a mistake was made but said a protest wasn't filed in time to change the decision. In their Oct. 21 ruling, Court of Arbitration for Sport arbitrators said the Korean protest was submitted too late. They also said CAS was not in a position to correct results due to an admitted error by an official.

    Very sad news came from the second largest city in Slovakia - Kosice. One of the few special gym for artistic gymnastics in Slovakia burnt to ashes during night from Friday to Saturday. Fire started at about 10:30 PM on Friday February 4th and luckily nobody was injured during fire. The wooden construction gym burnt to ashes with all gymnastics equipment in it. The cause of fire is not know yet so is the future of artistic gymnastics in east Slovakian city Kosice. If anybody wants to help please contact   webmaster

    Octavian Belu, 54, coach of the Romanian women's gymnastics team that won Olympic gold in Athens, has submitted a written resignation on Sunday, the president of Romanian gymnastics federation Adrian Stoica annonced on Monday. Belu's resignation had taken the Romanian Gymnastics Federation by surprise.
    Belu has coached Romania's gymnasts since 1981. He took over the team after famed gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi defected to the United States under communism. Belu had threatened to resign three times in the past, but never submitted a written resignation until now, Stoica said. Stoica said no replacement had been found yet.

    Sydney Olympic Park Sports Centre in New South Wales will host Australian Youth Olympic Festival this week. Competing Countries Men's: Australia, China, Chinese Tapei, Japan, Malaysia. Women: Australia, China, Chinese Tapei and Malaysia. Trampoline: Australia, Canada, China, Japan and New Zealand.   The maximum number of athletes who may compete in gymnastics is 140, with 54 men and 86 women. There are 7 teams in the AYOF gymnastics competition. Each country may enter 8 athletes per team. Competition Format: Artistic Team Competition (4 gymnasts with 3 scores to count), All Around competition, Apparatus Finals. Age Group Men: Athletes must be not less than 14 years nor more than 19 years of age to be eligible to compete in the year of competition. Women: Athletes must be not less than 13 years nor more than 16 years of age to be eligible to compete.    Official website

    USA Gymnastics President/CEO Bob Colarossi announced Wednesday that he will be leaving his post at USA Gymnastics at the end of March to accept a position with Los Angeles-based sports and entertainment presenters AEG. Colarossi's decision brings to a close one of the most successful presidential tenures in USA Gymnastics history.
    Colarossi, who took over the helm of USA Gymnastics in 1998, led USA Gymnastics to what many believe has been the greatest quadrennium in the organization's history. In the past four years, USA Gymnastics earned 56 World, Olympic and Pan American medals – including nine Olympic medals in 2004. Under Colarossi's leadership, USA Gymnastics also launched several new on-line initiatives, successfully organized two World Championships and the 42-city post-Olympic T.J. Maxx Tour, and saw membership and sponsor involvement reach new heights.

    UCLA came to Salt Lake City as the two-time defending NCAA champion, but for the second straight year, lost its season opener to Utah. A Huntsman Center crowd of 10,064 was treated to a see-saw meet between two teams that have combined for 15 national championships. The Utes finally edged ahead on the third event of the night and held on for a 197.675-197.300 win.

    Ohio State men's gymnastics head coach Miles Avery and Olympians Paul and Morgan Hamm will appear on ABC's 20/20 at 10 p.m. this Friday detailing their efforts in assisting two Central Ohio families in overcoming obesity. The title of the program `Obesity Olympics' discusses obesity in America and how families can help each other towards a healthier lifestyle.
    "I am glad I had the opportunity to work with families in the local community and help them jumpstart their lifestyles," Avery said. Avery and the Hamms helped the Lechners and the Rankins improve their health by changing their diet and implementing exercise into their daily lives. Morgan and Paul were each assigned to a family and were responsible for motivating each household to better health. Avery worked with both families as a personal trainer for seven weeks before the project concluded Dec. 17, 2004.

Twenty-two years old 2004 Olympic gold medallist gymnast on floor Kyle Shewfelt from Calgary was named the male athlete of the year in Canada. Shewfelt said in an interview. "This year was just like a dream." A golden dream. Shewfelt won the floor exercise at the Summer Games in Athens, the first Canadian to win an Olympic artistic gymnastic medal.
Shewfelt won the CP-BN Award in a tight vote by sports editors and broadcasters across the country. He finished with 139 points, just seven ahead of Martin St. Louis of the Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning and winner of the Hart Trophy as the NHL's most valuable player.

UCLA Opens Season At Utah - Two-time defending NCAA gymnastics champion and pre-season No. 1 UCLA opens the 2005 season on Friday, Jan. 7 at fifth-ranked Utah with a 7 pm dual meet in the Huntsman Center. UCLA and Utah have won 14 NCAA Championships between them (UCLA with five, including four in the last five years, and Utah with nine).
Live streaming video and live scoring will be available on the Utah webpage www.utahutes.com

The Second South Central Asian Gymnastics championship will be organized by the National Sports Academy from February 20. The three-day event would be held in the men's and women's section in which eight countries including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Maldives would participate. In every team there would be eight men and women each and a male and a female coach. About 200 gymnasts will participate in the championship.

Carlyn Davis Casting is currently assisting on Casting for the Disney Feature film "Stick It" written and directed by Jessica Bendinger. ("Bring It On") We are looking for skilled female gymnasts/tumblers with acting ability ages 14-18 who are able to attend an audition in the Washington D.C. area the first week of January. This is an exciting opportunity for a few lucky young ladies. For more information visit: http://www.carlyndavis.com/ Contact: Megan Kelleher, Carlyn Davis Casting, 703-532-1900

Gymnastics Federation of Italy held on December 20th elections for 2004 - 2008 session:
President: Riccardo Agabio
Vice-President: Graziella Pasquinelli Candiani (Lombardia)
Vice-President: Guido Menchi (Lazio).

  FIG Honorary President Yuri Titov (RUS) has been elected President of the Russian Gymnastics Federation. The election took place at the Russian National Olympic Committee headquarter in Moscow, on Monday December 20, 2004. Yuri Titov won this election with 27 votes, while the second candidate, Svetlana Khorkina, received 22 votes. The multi Olympic and World champion has been elected as 1st vice-President, while the most honoured male gymnast, Nicolai Andrianov, became 2nd vice President. Former President Leonid Arkaev recently removed his name from the list of candidates. Yuri Titov, 11 times Gymnastics world champion, led the FIG from 1976 until 1996.

2004 World Cup Women's Results

Floor Exercise
1. Diego Hypolito BRA 9.737
2. Isao Yoneda JPN 9.550
3. Robert Gal HUN 9.537
4. Brandon O’Neil CAN 9.475
5. Marian Dragulescu ROM 9.362
6. Jeffrey Wammes NED 9.350
7. Yernar Yerimbetov KAZ 9.337
8. Ioan Suciu ROM 9.325

Pommel Horse
1. Xiao Qin CHN 9.825
2. Marius Urzica ROM 9.812
3. Ioan Suciu ROM 9.662
4. Nikolai Kryukov RUS 9.637
5. Takehiro Kashima JPN 9.587
6. Krisztian Berki HUN 9.412
7. Ross Brewer GBR 9.337
8. Alberto Busnari ITA 9.137

Still Rings
1. Yuri Van Gelder NED 9.737
2. Hiroyuki Tomita JPN 9.712
3. Matteo Morandi ITA 9.700
4. Alexander Safoshkin RUS 9.700
5. Pierre-Yves Beny FRA 9.625
6. Xu Huang CHN 9.562
7. Regulo Carmona VEN 9.562
8. David Massam GBR 9.400

Vault
1. Lu Bin CHN 9.718
2. Yevgeny Sapronenko LAT 9.574
3. Filip Yanev BUL 9.543
4. Diego Hypolito BRA 9.500
5. Yernar Yerimbetov KAZ 9.493
6. Marian Dragulescu ROM 9.475
7. Leszek Blanik POL 9.475
8. Robert Gal HUN 9.462

Parallel Bars
1. Mitja Petkovsek SLO 9.787
2. Huang Xu CHN 9.762
3. Marius Urzica ROM 9.737
4. Li Xiaopeng CHN 9.712
5. Hiroyuki Tomita JPN 9.712
6. Yann Cucherat FRA 9.650
7. Valery Goncharov UKR 9.625
8. Yernar Yerimbetov KAZ 9.525

High Bar
1. Valery Goncharov UKR 9.687
2. Isao Yoneda JPN 9.662
3. Vlasios Maras GRE 9.650
4. Aljaz Pegan SLO 9.637
5. Yernar Yerimbetov KAZ 9.637
6. Takehiro Kashima JPN 9.625
7. Philippe Rizzo AUS 9.225
8. Xiao Qin CHN 8.200

2004 World Cup Women's Competitors

Men's Floor Exercise Qualifiers
1. Marian Dragulescu ROM
2. Diego Hypolito BRA
3. Ioan Suciu ROM
4. Robert Gal HUN
5. Yernar Yerimbetov KAZ
6. Brandon O'Neil CAN
7. Yevgeny Sapronenko LAT
8. Jeffrey Wammes NED
R1 Isao Yoneda JPN
R2 Tomas Gonzalez CHI

Pommel Horse Qualifiers
1. Marius Urzica ROM
2. Ioan Suciu ROM
3. Xiao Qin CHN
4. Takehiro Kashima JPN
5. Nikolai Kryukov RUS
6. Krisztian Berki HUN
7. Alberto Busnari ITA
8. Ross Brewer GBR (Wild Card)
R1 Huang Xu CHN
R2 Eric Casimir FRA

Still Rings Qualifiers
1. Yuri van Gelder NED
2. Matteo Morandi ITA
3. Alexander Safoshkin RUS
4. Hiroyuki Tomita JPN
5. Pierre-Yves Beny FRA
6. Huang Xu CHN
7. Regulo Carmona VEN
8. David Massam GBR (Wild Card)
R1 Dong Zhen CHN
R2 Walid Eldariny EGY

Men's Vault Qualifiers
1. Marian Dragulescu ROM
2. Leszek Blanik POL
3. Yevgeny Sapronenko LAT
4. Robert Gal HUN
5. Filip Yanev BUL
6. Lu Bin CHN
7. Diego Hypolito BRA
8. Yernar Yerimbetov KAZ
R1 Raouf Abdelkarim EGY
R2 Erick Lopez CUB

Parallel Bars Qualifiers
1. Li Xiaopeng CHN
2. Mitja Petkovsek SLO
3. Huang Xu CHN
4. Valery Goncharov UKR
5. Yernar Yerimbetov KAZ
6. Yann Cucherat FRA
7. Marius Urzica ROM
8. Erick Lopez CUB
R1 Hiroyuki Tomita JPN
R2 Alexei Sinkevich BLR

High Bar Qualifiers
1. Aljaz Pegan SLO
2. Vlasios Maras GRE
3. Igor Cassina ITA
4. Philippe Rizzo AUS
5. Yernar Yerimbetov KAZ
6. Isao Yoneda JPN
7. Takehiro Kashima JPN
8. Xiao Qin CHN
R1 Alexander Jeltkov CAN
R2 Tommy Ramos PUR