Two more days of competition for 2010 Artistic Worlds!

ROTTERDAM (NED) - LAUSANNE (SUI), FIG Office, March 11, 2010: The competition programme for the 2010 Worlds has undergone some changes. Due to the significance of the event and the overwhelming number of countries who have expressed an interest in competing in it, the organisers have decided to add two days of competition.

The 42nd World Championships will now be held from Saturday, 16th October to Sunday, 24th October.

The 2010 Worlds are a hit, both with the fans and with the gymnasts themselves. If preliminary registrations are anything to go by, each and every gymnastics nation on earth is planning to send some representatives to the Rotterdam event, which marks the beginning of the 2012 Olympics qualification cycle. The enormous number of competitors expected to compete in Rotterdam could easily have resulted in extremely long competition days and a very tight schedule, especially for gymnasts who manage to qualify for team finals, all-round finals and event finals. To prevent overburdening the athletes, the organisers of the 2010 Worlds Championships, at the request of the FIG, have made some changes to the competition schedule. Instead of a seven-day event, the 2010 Worlds will now be a nine-day event.

New schedule

Under the new schedule, the 2010 Worlds will kick off on Saturday, 16th October, two days earlier than originally planned. Among other things, the programme changes will allow event finals to be contested over two days rather than one day, which will give the gymnasts a better chance of performing to the best of their abilities. Thus, the two added days of competition will likely make the event more attractive to gymnasts and spectators alike.

Final Schedule,

• Saturday, 16th October: Women’s qualifying competition
• Sunday, 17th October: Women’s qualifying competition
• Monday, 18th October: Men’s qualifying competition
• Tuesday, 19th October: Men’s qualifying competition
• Wednesday, 20th October: Women’s team final
• Thursday, 21st October: Men’s team final
• Friday, 22nd October: Men’s and women's all-round finals
• Saturday, 23rd October: Women’s event finals (vault, bars); men’s event finals (floor, pommel horse, rings)
• Sunday, 24th October: Women’s event finals (beam, floor); men’s event finals (vault, bars, high bar)

Ticketing

As a result of the programme changes, certain parts of the competition will no longer be contested on the dates originally announced. The Royal Dutch Gymnastics Federation and the International Gymnastics Federation realise that this may cause some inconvenience to fans who have already bought their tickets, and would like to apologise for this inconvenience. However, the FIG and the KNGU would also like to reiterate that the new schedule is likely to improve the standard of the competition considerably. The programme changes are also good news for all-sessions ticket holders, as they will get two days’ worth of action for free, and will now be able to enjoy nine days’ worth of action with their one ticket!

If you ordered any tickets before the schedule changes were implemented, you will be notified of the changes and what they mean for you. Please keep an eye on your e-mail inbox.

Tickets will go on sale again in the second half of March.

(source: Royal Dutch Gymnastics Federation)