The FIG has renamed itself World Gymnastics

[IratePanda]

World Gymnastics - Homepage

World Gymnastics - Homepage

www.gymnastics.sport

Mais pourquoi?

 

[Seyonne]

Good. Glad to see they are finally addressing the important issues.

 

[IratePanda]

Good. Glad to see they are finally addressing the important issues.

Right?

 

[MaryClare]

Are they going to abandon French completely? Because Yurchenko is down as Iourtchenko on her athlete record!

I am fairly sure that they dropped the French language requirement for officials quite some time ago and now it is only English that is required. Although official documents are normally published in English and French as standard.

 

[Passion]

I hate it, but it looks like a number of other Olympic sports federations were already heading in the "World Sport" direction, so the FIG is just following suit.

https://www.olympics.com/ioc/international-federations

World Aquatics, World Athletics, World Boxing, World Curling, World Lacrosse, World Rowing, World Rugby, World Sailing, World Skate, World Squash, World Taekwondo, World Triathlon

I will continue calling it the FIG until the day I die though.

 

[Sasha]

I'm sort of indifferent to the change, but was it motivated just by the fact that the FIG dropped French? If so, that seems like a silly reason to do a full rebrand.

 

[Angelika]

You can put lipstick on a pig but it's still a pig...

 

[RedBirdie]

So stupid.

 

[rlayt]

 

[RAFIKI]

I will continue calling it the FIG until the day I die though

Same. FIG is so much easier to say. Also, I’m still using ROM instead of ROU.

 

[phoenix7]

Didn't they run a survey on this, with only one plausible answer? They had at least one ridiculous alternative - Health and Wellbeing or something.

 

[phoenix7]

Ah yes, here's the survey

Health and Fitness was under consideration https://gymnaverse.com/threads/fill-out-the-figs-survey-open-through-2024-01-17.2899/

Personally, I think they should have gone with, World Peace and Universal Prosperity, but they have gone with the safe option.

 

[JDB]

Knowing the FIG, they'll spend a ton of money on research for the rebrand. And the end result will be "World Gymnastics" with a logo that looks like it was made in Kid Pix.

I was wrong about the logo. It does not look like it was made in Kid Pix.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Ah yes, here's the survey

Health and Fitness was under consideration https://gymnaverse.com/threads/fill-out-the-figs-survey-open-through-2024-01-17.2899/

Personally, I think they should have gone with, World Peace and Universal Prosperity, but they have gone with the safe option.

Fully agree. It would've looked more natty on the legal paperwork next time they get taken to CAS too.

 

[Denn]

Might as well rip off the bandaid. I actually think the name change is probably good in the long run, and that despite that, there will never be a time that we'll be happy about it because so many of us have so many gripes with FIG. It was inevitable, honestly — they weren't even using the french name anymore, so it looked like they had sequencing issues calling International Gymnastics Federation by the letters FIG.

As far as typing it, I propose abbreviating it WorldGymn or even WG.

I was wrong about the logo. It does not look like it was made in Kid Pix.

LOL, I just went back to that old thread and saw that you had predicted they would spend a lot of money on research but go with World Gymnastics anyway. (...in addition to saying the logo would look like it was made in Kid Pix)

 

[CameliasFingerpaint]

Why on earth was French the official language? It’s not like the French speaking part of the world has some claim on the origins or history of the sport.

 

[MaryClare]

Why on earth was French the official language? It’s not like the French speaking part of the world has some claim on the origins or history of the sport.

Because it is head quartered in the French speaking part of Switzerland.

And in terms of sports governance, French speaking countries certainly do have some claim on the origins of all Olympic sports

 

[Passion]

FIG was founded in Liège, Belgium - French speaking. The first two presidents of the FIG (who together spanned the first 50+ years of its existence) were a French-speaking Belgian and a Frenchman.

IOC was founded by Baron Pierre de Coubertin in France.

Both are headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland - French speaking

It’s why the 2nd modern Olympics held after Athens in 1896 were in Paris, France for 1900. French was also the language used for international diplomacy back then.

 

[RedBirdie]

Many international sports federations have or had French as an official language because French is one of the official languages of the IOC. It was the leading diplomatic language at that time, meaning it was the working language of most international organizations, including sports organizations like FIG, World Aquatics (founded in 1908 as FINA), World Athletics (founded in 1913 as IAAF), and FIFA (founded 1904).

FIG is interesting, as it was originally founded in 1881 as the European Federation of Gymnastics with France, Belgium, and the Netherlands as member countries. It changed its name in 1921 when non-European nations were allowed to join.

FIG is the oldest international sports body. A travesty that they've thrown out the historic name to chase after this ridiculous trend of "World [insert sport name here]" and be just as bland and boring as everyone else.