The President's Note N° 12 - December 2025

In a last mad rush towards the end of the year, November was filled with gymnastics, both on an international level, and organised by European Gymnastics.

The Royal Spanish Gymnastics Federation hosted the World Championships in Trampoline, Double Mini-Trampoline and Tumbling in Pamplona. The event attracted the best in the world in an excellent venue, creating new success stories for our superstars.

After a suggestion from our Aerobics Technical Committee President Alina Dragan, the Executive Committee added the U15 age category to the Aerobics Europeans to encourage the development of younger athletes. From this year onwards, we organise first the U15 and junior European Championships, followed by the European Championships for seniors. Both events were held in the Azerbaijani city Ganja. I congratulate the gymnasts for showing up in large numbers, and showcasing their strength and skills to the world. These events were followed by the fans in the venue and online with great interest and culminated in the crowning of new champions, looking to expand the popularity of this discipline even further.

The capital of the Philippines, Manila, then welcomed the world’s best junior artistic gymnasts. The abundance of talent competing showed that the future certainly looks bright.

Last week, Prague turned out to be an excellent host for our 31^st Congress. With impeccable organisation from the Czech Gymnastics Federation and our office staff, all 50 member federations joined us for important discussion and decisions. We focused a lot on our Strategy 2030 which was one of the main topics of the work of the Executive Committee over the past three years, and covered innovative projects in a long-term vision. And, of course, it was time to elect new authorities for the next 4-year period. I’m grateful to be elected for a third and final term. I appreciate your trust and respect for the work we are doing together. I want to take this opportunity to congratulate all elected authorities, and thank the people who could not -or decided not- to continue or were not re-elected. The commitment of each and every one of you ensures we can make the changes and improvements needed in a fast-changing world.

In the framework of the Congress, we organised the second edition of the CEO Symposium. I’m pleased to see that 19 federations attended with their Executive leads. I’d like to thank our General Director Lisa Worthmann for putting her shoulders under this important project. The exchange of ideas, information and best practices is vital to all our federations.

Now, it’s time to continue our joint work with the re-elected members of the European Gymnastics authorities as we warmly welcome the new ones, who I am sure will bring fresh breath to our big team.

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Enjoy the festive season!

Dr. Farid Gayibov

European Gymnastics President