A Gymnastics Blog
Posts tagged irish gymnastics
The Couch Gymnast Magazine
Aug 30th
I was so delighted this morning when I opened my reader and saw The Couch Gymnasts latest magazine issue, and was even more so delighted when I read that it featured a section on Irish Gymnastics. I’ve spoken before about the problems that Irish Gymnastics has with funding, I think Ariel Edesses of Renmore GC has given a fantastic explanation in her interview, as to why you don’t see Irish gymnasts in the Olympics, coach education in Ireland and the levels of fundraising done for clubs and why.
Check the full article out here.
Is it self-funding? How much of a problem is sports funding for Irish gymnastics in your opinion?
We are a non-profit company meaning we’re eligible for grants. However, as gymnastics is still such an unknown sport in Ireland, we’re constantly fighting to get any money at all as it all goes to the more well known sports such as Gaelic Football.
Every year, we have a goal to fundraise a certain amount which we do lots of ways such as a sponsored tumble (where the kids get people to sponsor them in tumbling for a certain amount of time), a public display (we set up some mats in the middle of the pedestrian streets in Galway and the kids have fun performing), among other more traditional ways. However, funding is definitely our biggest challenge.
How hard/easy is it stay on top of coaching education in Ireland?
Right now, very easy!! However, that is only very very very recent as the coaching education office in this country has taken a serious interest in bringing Irish (and foreigners living in Ireland) coaches up to speed with coaching qualifications.
While the final level available for a coaching course is still quite low in comparison to other countries, the main concern has been bringing current coaches up to date and raising the overall level. People who have only ever coached or done gymnastics in Ireland wouldn’t be as familiar with a lot of big skills because the level has only significantly increased in the last couple of years.
At Renmore, we’re lucky enough to have a very international coaching staff (I’m from America, Sally is from England, and we also have a men’s coach from Germany, a rythmic coach from Latvia, and another American coach), so our education about coaching gymnastics covers a wide part of the world. I think this also helps the coaches who wouldn’t have the background of high level gymnastics to get into it a bit more.
Gymnastics & Funding
Jul 28th
Over the last few years, the interest in gymnastics seems to have increased. There are many possible reasons for this, obviously Spelbound winning Britains Got Talent has caused a surge in interest in gymnastics among children in the UK and Ireland. I think another major factor that has added to this interest is the new level of competition involved in the sport at Olympic level. For many years it was the Romanians, USA and Russia etc dominating the sport but as we have seen in the last few months, countries like the UK are catching up quickly and making things a lot more interesting, thus the media becoming more interested in gymnastics!
With that in mind, it makes me think about funding in gymnastics. I was reading this article from the BBC Sport website yesterday which includes a small section about the amount of funding given to gymnastics and what it means to the sport. Sport England has allocated £11,388,481 to gymnastic national governing bodies for 2009 until 2013, with the hope that the numbers increase and gymnasts perform better although gymnasts such as Daniel Keatings and Louis Smith are still waiting for their gyms to be refurbished, with the Olympics coming closer and closer, they’d want to secure funding very soon to move passed the initial phase.

Admittedly, I haven’t looked too much into it but how much funding does gymnastics receive from governments / sports bodies in your country? We can see above what BBC Sport have reported, I’m sure there is more to find out. In a previous post, Irish Gymnastics secured an allocation for 2010 of €169,545 for the sport – encouraging as gymnastics was one of only 11 sports out of 59 funded that maintained their funding levels this year in a year where the Irish Sports Council’s budget was cut by 4%. In Ireland, gymnastics is considering more of a minority sport as the country has it’s main sports rugby, football and the GAA sports (Gaelic and Hurling). It would be interesting to see how much more successful Irish gymnasts could be if more money was pumped in, providing better training facilities and national support etc. I’d love to know how much funding USA Gymnastics, Australian Gymnastics etc receives and how the money is spent.
So it leaves me asking:
How much funding does gymnastics receive in your country?
What difference do you think more funding could make to gymnastics in your country?
Do you feel that the allocated money is being wasted and could be used more resourcefully?
If it was you who makes the decisions, what would you spend more money on? better coaches? better facilities?
I’d love to hear your comments and thoughts.
Little Links 12/7/10 – Acro, iPhones & Shawn Johnson
Jul 12th
Irish girls Leigh Lehane & Roisin O’Shea from Ballincollig Gym Club have finished 5th in the Acro World Age Group in the 11 – 16 girls pairs finals in Wroclaw, Poland. Well done!!
Shannon Miller speaks out to help with funding for the University of Missouri Extension office.
Shawn Johnson and Mario kick off Wii Games Summer 2010
Now, for something completely different! This video has been doing the rounds in emails / Facebook today of an Irish band called The Brilliant Things who were the first band to do a live guitar solo on an iPhone at a music festival Oxegen, in Ireland last weekend. I love my iPhone and technology so the nerd in me LOVES this!!
Gymstars GC in Ireland need your votes!
Jul 7th
13 Members of the Gymstars Gymnastic Club, Wexford have made it to the final four in TV3’s The Morning Show, “Get your Glee on” competition. The group have had to put together a singing, Dancing and Gymnastic routine. The winning act will perform at the Childline Concert in the 02 arena in Dublin this coming December.
European Championships Photos
May 7th

I’m delighted to have come across a collection of pictures of Irish girls, Sarah Wedel and Rebecca Wallace at the European Gymnastics Championships. Lovely stuff! There’s also a large collection of photos, both mens and womens as well as some general pictures of out and about in the competition arena.
Little Links 30/4/10
Apr 30th
Irish WAG Seniors complete Euro Qualifiers
Irish WAG Juniors complete Euro qualifiers placing 20th
“Seismic Leap” for Britain’s Men strengthens Olympic belief
2009 Vault Champion Kayla Williams splits with her coach
GB’s Daniel Keatings explains why he will miss the Commonwealth Games