FéDéRATION INTERNATIONALE DE  GYMNASTIQUE
* Press Review 2008 ...

GYMNASTICS

Chinese coach aiming for dream farewell in Taiwan

KAOHSIUNG (TPE), September 12, 2008 (Bangkok Post): Wang Pinyi, one of China's top gymnastics coaches, defected to Taiwan in 1981 to escape from political persecution. After having trained Taiwan gymnasts for 27 years, Wang, 87 and suffering from thyroid cancer, plans to retire and return to his home in Kunming, China, but not before realizing his last dream. "I will keep working until the 2010 Asian Games. I hope my students can bring back at least one medal in the women's gymnastics event."  >> Read more …

OBITUARY

World War II postponed Olympic gymnast's dream

SARASOTA, September 11, 2008 (Herald Tribune): Vinny D'Autorio faced off against gymnasts half his age when he took to the parallel bars and floor exercises in the 1952 Olympics at age 36. The two-time Olympian, who died of cancer Wednesday at 92, had hoped to compete as a younger athlete, but like so many others he was forced to put his dreams on hold because of World War II.  >> Read more …

Gym clubs nationwide celebrate National Gymnastics Day on Sept. 13

Indianapolis (USA), September 10, 2008 (USA Gymnastics): Riding on the heels of the USA’s tremendous success at the 2008 Olympic Games, gymnastics clubs across the country will celebrate National Gymnastics Day on Sept. 13, 2008, with a variety of different activities, including gym open houses, fitness challenges and cartwheel-a-thons. National Gymnastics Day is also the culmination of the Tyson Fitness Challenge, a joint initiative of USA Gymnastics and Tyson Foods that has two goals: helping today’s kids get more physically fit through fun activities; and raising money for Children’s Miracle Network to help kids who are fighting illnesses. >> Read more

Nassau 'Nastics, the Country's Oldest Gymnastics Club, Take on Student Coaches

September 8, 2008 (The Bahamas Weekly): Recently, many 14 year-olds found themselves involved in summer camps and programmes as their parents sought ways to keep them challenged and active during the summer. At Nassau ‘Nastics, the country’s oldest gymnastics club, a pair of teens with a passion for the sport and love for children found themselves out of the students’ circle and into the coach’s corner after being appointed instructors for summer camp and junior coaches for the new year.  >> Read more …

From Beijing to barnstorm, US gymnasts on the road

September 8, 2008 (Associated press): Bringing home gold and silver from Beijing has certainly earned Shawn Johnson a rest, but this 16-year-old's not quite ready. Rather than returning to her Iowa high school for her junior year, Shawn is taking the semester off to barnstorm the country with fellow U.S. gymnastics greats and some hot young singers from Disney, including Jordan Pruitt. The "Tour of Gymnastics Superstars" kicked off Sunday in Reno, Nev., with Shawn looking forward to performing without the Olympic-style stress.  >> Read more …

Young gymnasts inspired by Olympians' success

September 8, 2008 (Reno Gazette-Journal): The Olympic gymnasts who performed Sunday at Lawlor Events Center had a crowd of thousands of the next generation of tumblers, each with their own dreams of winning gold. Several girls and boys in the crowd at the first stop of the 2008 Tour of Gymnastics Superstars wore gymnastics outfits to watch their favorite stars, including Shawn Johnson, Nastia Liukin and Jonathan Horton.  >> Read more …

Gymnasts flipping for fun

September 8, 2008 (Reno Gazette-Journal): With the flips, dips and dives, Sunday looked like an ordinary day for the average world-class gymnasts. But, add a little dancing and loud music to the mix and that is what the audience enjoyed Sunday at Lawlor Events Center. The 2008 Tour of Gymnastics Superstars, featuring the 2008 U.S. women's and men's gymnastics teams, kicked off the first leg of its 37-city tour in front of about 4,000 screaming fans who gave all the gymnasts a standing ovation at the beginning and end of the show.  >> Read more …
 

SPORTS WORLD

Olympic Movement meets to discuss EU matters

LAUSANNE (SUI), September 11, 2008 (IOC): At the invitation of the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Jacques Rogge, stakeholders of the Olympic Movement met today in Lausanne to discuss current European Union (EU) matters. All participants agreed to work together on a detailed definition of the specificity and the autonomy of sport, which needs to be further clarified with regard to the wording on sport in the Lisbon Treaty.  >> Read more …

Delhi's Commonwealth Games Chief Hopes For Olympic Bonus

September 11, 2008 (The Sport Briefing): Suresh Kalmadi, chairman of the organising committee for the 2010 Commonwealth Games, believes a successful staging of the event will bolster India’s chances of hosting the 2020 Olympic Games. Delhi will host the Commonwealth Games between October 3 and October 14, 2010, and the event will be the largest multi-sport competition to be staged in the city and in India generally.  >> Read more …

BIGresearch China Quarterly: 94% of Chinese 18-34 Years Old Watched Opening Ceremony

Closing Ceremony and Gymnastics Round Out Top Three for Most Viewed Olympic Events

COLUMBUS (USA), September 9, 2008 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX): 93.9% of Chinese consumers 18 to 34 years old contributed to the more than 2 billion people who watched the 2008 Summer Olympics' Opening Ceremony, according to an analysis of BIGresearch's (http://www.bigresearch.com) most recent China Quarterly Survey (3,874 participants). The Closing Ceremony (78.4%) was the second most watched event among young Chinese, followed by Gymnastics (71.9%).
>> Read more …

Durban to bid for 2020 Olympics

September 9, 2008 (Sport Business): The city of Durban in South Africa is to bid for the 2020 Summer Olympic Games according UK newspaper, The Times. Although a decision on the host city for the 2020 Games won't be made until 2013, the paper reports that Durban is busy with a series of strategic moves to make the best use of its sporting resources - the Moses Mabhida Stadium and the Kings Park sports precinct around it.  >> Read more …

China’s CCTV must be considered the business gold medal winner of the Beijing Olympics

September 5, 2008 (sport intern): None other than the Chinese state broadcasting company earned the biggest profit, because it acquired the broadcasting rights for a laughable sum, believed to be less than 10 Million Dollars and cashed in at least 400 million Dollars through sales of advertising time. With relative low production costs that leads to a profit that is at least twice as high as the profit of the American Olympic broadcaster NBC, whose profit amounted to around 100 million, whereby NBC Universal appeared generally quite satisfied. CCTV has originally acquired the rights through the Asian Broadcasting Union before Beijing was ever elected. Although the IOC succeeded in forcing CCTV on the eve of the 2008 election, back in 2001, to sign an agreement giving the IOC the option to purchase back all the advertising, or equally share all advertising revenues, CCTV was able to continually postpone discussions with the IOC, until politically it became to late for IOC to hold CCTV to press the matter further. CCTV has repeatedly shown who has the upper hand with IOC, whether it was forcing the IOC to back down over the much heralded new media tender for the Beijing Games, or totally ignoring by breaching IOC advertising guidelines during the Games with blatant commercial presence in the broadcast studios, through to releasing millions of copies of unauthorised DVDs of the Opening Ceremony. It was reported that IOC even had to threaten to pull the CCTV’s signal in China during the Games to get their attention… Admittedly, it is certain that CTTV will never again be able to purchase Olympic rights so cheaply. Who will win the next negotiation round will be interesting to see. Several commentators now believe that the IOC should be asking for at least 300 million Dollars for the rights – if it is to be seen not to be subsidising Chinese broadcast rights – something that the U.S. is again watching closely as part of the ongoing IOC – USOC marketing negotiations.

Olympic audience hits 4.7 billion

September 8, 2008 (Sport Business): The 2008 Beijing Olympics drew an estimated global television audience of 4.7 billion over the 17 days of competition, market research firm Nielsen reports. In a statement to the press, Nielsen said that the estimated audience from August 8-17 surpassed the 3.9 billion viewers for the whole of the Athens games in 2004 and the 3.6 billion, who watched the 2000 event in Sydney.  >> Read more …

The 2009 World Games Kaohsiung website gets a facelift

September 2, 2008 (World Games 2009): In order to enhance international marketing for the 2009 World Games Kaohsiung scheduled for July 16th through 26th in 2009, the Kaohsiung Organizing Committee (KOC) has made a special effort to redesign the structure and layout for the official page a year before the event in the hopes of utilizing the borderless Internet to deliver the latest news on the World Games to those who are interested in the international sports events. The new official webpage has been redesigned to better cater to the needs of users as a means of offering more information without boundaries.   >>  Read more …

* The link to the official 2009 World Games Kaohsiung webpage is
>>  http://www.worldgames2009.tw.