We now see that each team will have less gymnasts to comprise their World and Olympic Teams in the future World Championships and Olympic Games. Does this start to diminish the importance of the team competition? When is the number too small and it is no longer a team competition? Does this give an advantage to some countries over others.
These are interesting questions that will be answered in the future. It would appear that by lowering the number on team members on a team it will only make the best teams stronger. This would weaken the team competition down the road. However, maybe the sport is heading into just an individual event sport and the team competition will fade away in the years to come. I guess only time will tell but a change is coming and over the long term the face of gymnastics is going to change.
There was a time when the team competition had a 7-6-5 format and the numbers for the Olympic Games were at the highest for the sport. These numbers continue to drop or are being reshaped.
Probably the more important task, is how do you keep interest in the sport of gymanstics after the Olympics has ended? The World seems to forget and waits another four years to watch. So the biggest task like all sports is to increase marketability. What would you say has been the biggest change in the sport to improve entertainment value for the spectator and the media? Has this marketing effect worked? Are the number of people watching gymnastics increasing, decreasing or staying the same? This is an interesting topic and survey to explore. If you have a comment on this please post it here.
Talk to you soon…………………………………
