LAUSANNE (SUI), August 30, 2010: At the beginning of August, Senegal hosted the third FIG coach education event within one calendar year. Last year, that country hosted a Foundations of Gymnastics Course and a few months later an FIG Academy for Artistic Gymnastics accompanied by a training camp. This year it was a Level 2 Academy for Artistic Gymnastics followed immediately by a training camp for Senegal gymnasts and coaches. All three events were held in the city of Thiès.

This Academy/Camp was funded through the FIG Development Fund for Region 2 of Africa. It was intended for the coaches of French speaking countries of Central Africa who had successfully completed a Level 1 Academy. None of the other countries except Sénégal chose to accept the invitation to participate.

A total of 18 coaches (10 MAG and 8 WAG) from Senegal attended.

The experts for this course were Josée Cyr of Canada who served as course leader and taught several women’s apparatus, anatomy and psychology; Bruno Franceschetti (the former coach of Yuri Chechi) from Italy taught all of the men’s apparatus; Ferenc Donath, the head women’s coach of Switzerland and former Hungarian Olympian taught the women’s apparatus and several theroy lectures; and Rietje Bijlholt of the Netherlands came for several days to teach artistic preparation for Floor and Balance Beam.

Josée Cyr and Bruno Franceschetti stayed to lead the training camp after the academy finished.

The best results following the theoretical and practical examinations for MAG and overall were achieved by El Hadji Boubacar Diagne. For WAG the best result was achieved by Souleymane Diatta.

Congratulations and thanks are extended to the Senegal Gymnastics Federation for hosting this successful Academy/Camp and to the Sénégal Technical Director, Léandre Forbis who due to tragic family circumstances was unable to attend even though he had done all the preliminary organisation. Special thanks go to Albertine Gonçalves who took over on short notice and was a constant presence and assistance to assure that all things went well.