Gymnastics Ireland attends 2024 FIG GfA Colloquium in Brazil

Gymnastics Ireland attended the 2024 FIG Gymnastics for All (GfA) Colloquium in Brazil last week with three days of meetings, presentations and collaborations with 61 delegates from 39 countries in attendance, representing all 5 continents.

This was an opportunity for members of the GfA family from all around the world to reflect on progress made in the last few years as well as to look forward to what comes next.

Commenting on the colloquium, Gymnastics Ireland Participation Manager Ms. Aimi Baker said: 

“The Brazilian Gymnastics Federation did such an excellent job delivering a wonderful 4 days of sharing and learning with the GfA family from all around the world. What a week and what energy and motivation from everyone. It was a great opportunity for us to share what work we are doing in the area of GfA in Ireland, and Gymnastics Ireland will be using everything we learned to further develop and expand the GfA programme here in Ireland”.

The discussion included the review of the World Gymnasestrada 2023 and the planning of World Gym for Life events of 2025. With a new cycle coming into view (2025-28), Rogerio Valerio (FIG GfA President) said the latter discussion was a chance to ponder ways of developing GfA in the future:

“The world has evolved and Gymnastics for All too. How can our message and our sport be stronger?” he said.

Other topics included the importance of research projects on Gymnastics for All, with an opening presentation titled ‘Building scientific evidence of GfA impact’, as well as the importance of working with Universities.

For this session, Gymnastics Ireland representatives delivered a presentation discussing their Women In Sport Research peace titled ‘The Gymnasts Voice - Harnessing opportunities to retain teenage girls in gymnastics’ which was launched in 2023.

“This was a huge honour for me and GI to be asked to present, and it was a great opportunity to share our research work with the FIG gymnastics community. Many of the other federations expressed similar issues in their countries, and several countries, specifically Brazil, Australia, South Africa and Quatar, expressed interest in replicating what we did and comparing and contrasting findings”. Said Participation Manager, Aimi Baker.

You can read more about it here: https://www.gymnasticsireland.com/about/structure-policy/women-in-sport

Mre information about Gymnastics for All (GfA) in Ireland and abroad, check out our GfA webpage https://www.gymnasticsireland.com/disciplines/gymnastics-for-all