World Gymnaestrada
The World Gymnaestrada is the largest general gymnastics exhibition. There are approximately 20,000 participants from around 50 countries represented. It is held every four years much like the Olympics. But the focus of this event is not on winning medals. The Gymnaestrada is about Group Performances – some with hundreds or even thousands of participants. Adults and children of every age and description perform. Countries from around the world come together to showcase their talent and the culture of their various countries. The choreography is designed both to challenge the participants and to delight audiences. Routines are performed at various venues within the host country. Large group routines are known as "mass routines" which involve hundreds of gymnasts. The mass routines are often performed in large stadiums where spectators can take in routines performed by gymnasts from all over the world.
Riverland Gymnastics Academy has represented Australia in the previous two World Gymnaestradas where we travelled to Helsinki, Finland in 2015 and Dornbirn, Austria in 2019.
The 2023 World Gymaestrada will be held in Amsterdam, Netherlands
Planning for the World Gymnaestrada begins very early. Teams are required to qualify by competing locally up to years prior to the event.
Below are some highlights from our performance and the 2019 World Gymnaestrada in Dornbirn, Austria.
This is part of our performance from the 2019 World Gymnaestrada in Dornbirn, Austria. We combined with clubs from Payneham and Swan in Western Australia.
A report from one of our gymnasts:
On the 30th of June, 10 gymnasts from our club (Carolyn, Michael, Blake, Austin, Imogen, Layne, Abby, Heidi, Ana-stasia & myself, Bek) plus supporters left to attend the 2019 World Gymnaestrada in Dornbirn, Austria. We flew to Zurich and went sightseeing for 2 days and then set off to Bartholomaberg to meet the rest of the Australian team for the training camp. The scenery was beautiful as it was summer and we went for many walks and swims. The train-ing camp went for a week, it was fun and exciting as our routine with Payneham, KI and Swan Districts (Western Australia) was coming together nicely. During the camp we went on cable cars up mountains and some of us got to play in the snow, which was exciting as it was my first time seeing snow. There were a variety of adventures we could take for descending down the mountain such as the alpine toboggan (which I went on), hiking/sliding, sculpture trail etc. We also went to Bludenz for the 35th annual Milka Chocolate Festival. We then headed off to Dornbirn, the official 2019 Gymnaestrada location. The Opening Ceremony was originally supposed to be on the Sunday, but got postponed due to stormy weather to Wednesday, which was an extremely hot day. Our group was called Southern Stars and we did 3 performances throughout the week. The theme of our routine was ‘Australian Beach Party’. We enjoyed this acrobatics routine so much since we got to learn new tricks and get to know each other better. The open-ing and closing ceremonies were great as we got to see all of the different countries in their uniforms. We also got to see performances, one from Austria and the other was the FIG Gala. We had lots of fun participating in the 16th World Gymnaestrada and hope to be apart of the next one in Amsterdam 2023.
Rebekah Thomson
For more information on the World Gymnaestrada, visit their website at https://www.wg2019.at/wg2019/en