Via Rick at Gymnastics Coaching and Blythe at Gymnastics Examiner —
The FIG has issued a statement banning North Korea from pretty much any form of competition for two years, which of course means they will be missing the 2012 Olympics. Very sad for the gymnasts, as it applies to all FIG disciplines, which I take to mean artistic men’s and women’s gymnastics, rhythmic, tramp, and tumbling. All punished because of a mistake (well, a lie) over one gymnast. (Stupid question: that’s all the disciplines, right?)
Read More
is AWESOME! They are providing so so so much information to the public, it is incredible! Every World Championships host from here on out should really take a page out of their book. (I’m looking at you, Tokyo, Mr. We-Don’t-Even-Have-A-Website-Yet!) Check out their coverage information, athlete lists, and even features with certain athletes!
Click HERE to see their list of places you can find information about the meet (eg. couch gymnast, etc). Sadly they left off the amazing GYMNASTIKE….SHAME!!! Gymnastike is one of the best gymnastics resources available (in my semi-biased opinion) and I’m thrilled that Anne’s going to be at her first World Championships! I’ve emailed them and hopefully they’ll remedy the problem! Again the website link is HERE!
WOW, the FIG has banned North Korea from competition for 30 days, due to the recent discovery of the age falsification(s) of 2004 and 2008 Olympian Hong Su Jong. 30 days doesn’t sound like a lot, but that takes them out of the Worlds coming up, which is a qualifier for the 2011 World Championships, which is in turn a qualifier for the 2012 London Olympics. Yeesh…suddenly things just got a lot more serious!
North Korea can appeal, but the evidence all points to the same thing - that they falsified the age of one of their athletes. While this is all very unfortunate, I have trouble feeling too sorry for them….you have to play by the rules, that’s why they’re there.
Rick at Gymnastics Coaching pointed out that this likely applies to the men’s team as well as the women, which is unfortunate, because as far as we know, the men did nothing wrong. There’s going to be a lot of angry gymnasts in North Korea today, methinks.
It will be interesting to see how this pans out. I doubt an appeal will allow the women’s team to compete in Rotterdam, but perhaps the FIG should allow the men’s team to compete. After all, it was the women’s mistake, why should the men be punished? However, if North Korea isn’t able to compete in Rotterdam, there’s no fair way to allow them another way of qualifying for the Olympics, is there? Harsh punishment, but not unwarranted.
