Russia Wants Rhythmic Men to Compete Under FIG!
Yesss! I have been saying this for the longest time. There is no other sport at the Olympics that is single gender and
if that's gonna be the case, the entire discipline
should be removed until they give equal opportunity to both sexes. It's amazing to see how hard
men's rhythmic gymnastics has worked to organize itself into a
cohesive discipline, outlining their own code of points and detailing the specifications of each apparatus, without FIG assistance. It's most popular in Japan, but recently several other countries like China, Korea, Russia, USA, and Australia have gotten heavily involved. The FIG says that because there's no interest in
men's rhythmic outside of Japan they're not going to
include it under its umbrella protection, which is exactly the
mindset you want a progressive establishment to think about the sport
it governs. I'm happy that Irina Viner has come around to accepting the idea of
men's rhythmic because she was once hostile to the
idea. Rhythmic gymnastics has been on the chopping block after every Olympics
since the late 90's and, much as I love RG, if the discipline is not going to adhere to the IOC's gender integration policy, then
another gymnastics discipline should be given its placement (I think acro
deserves it, but tumbling would be fine as well). I don't mean to punish the participants of RG for the FIG's stupidity, but the bigger picture needs to be seen and what's fair is fair. The sport should continue at the World's level and let acro get bumped up to Olympic status. And in the meantime, begin the process of regulating RG to have equal gender access at all participation levels. It is supremely ridiculous that in FIG newsletters they include men's rhythmic gymnastics happenings, while not officially recognizing it. Also, they're still trying to make TeamGym happen after 9 years, but don't have time for men's RG? What do you think should be done?
Some men's RG love: [click here]
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