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CULTURAL EVENTS
FOR THE XXIV EUROPEAN RHYTHMIC GYMNASTICS CHAMPIONSHIP
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On Tuesday, the 3rd of June 2008, at 3 pm, a round table discussion about “Psychological and technical aspects of Rhythmic Gymnastics at a high level” will take place at the Palazzo Ceriana – Corso Stati Uniti 27 inTurin.
Prof. Marina Piazza is the Technical National Director of Rhythmic Gymnastics.
Speakers:
Dr. Claude Ferrand of the University “C. Bernard” of Lion
Dr. Mauro Gatti of the Centre for Sport Psychology in Rome
Dr. Eunice Lebre, University of Oporto
Dr. Amalia Tinto, National Technician of Rhythmic Gymnastics
Dr. Daniela Delle Chiaie, UEG Vice President
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On Wednesday, the 4th of June, at 11 am, a tour guide for delegation chiefs and a technique for each nation at the Historic Exhibition of the first Italian Society, founded in 1844 in Turin, the Royal Society of Rhythmic Gymnastics of Turin, will take place. On this occasion, the book “The team exercise of Italy at the European Championships” by Maria Rosa Rosato and Amalia Tinto will be presented.
The exhibition will be open on the 5-6-7 of June, too, from 9 am to 7 pm.
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Fragments by well-known authors
The Rhythmic Gymnastics from a sporting
and cultural point of view
The first training of the National Modern Gymnastics Team – this was the name of the team in that time- took place in Turin, exactly in the gym of the Royal Gymnastics Club in 11, Magenta street.
Giovanni Arpino, a well-known writer in those days, visited the team and wrote an article about it put in La Stampa on 12th June 1969.
We will insert the text in successive stages on the website.
“ …something somewhere between a butterfly and an athlete ..” (Giovanni Arpino)
This is the way in which Arpino defined the figure of our gymnasts, extolling not only their lovely elegance and their great energy but also their solid athletic training. Arpino’s definition has come before that one devised by the Press nowadays: silver butterflies.
It suggests a figure characterized by strong agility.
“The secret is from Capo Kennedy but the room is furnished with the bare essentials. A small gym in the attic of a building in Magenta street in Turin: eight girls and their teacher have been meeting there since Christmas to get ready a rhythmic gymnastics performance. It will last three minutes and a half but the training is gruelling: it takes several hours to polish a jump, to sync arm movements, to reach a joint performance, which will vanish into the air a short time later.
Rhythmic Gymnastics is a pure sport, which does not aim for any gain, nor for the pure medals won by other amateur athletes, such as hundred-metre runners and vaulters, who sometimes can draw applause and photos in the paper. …”
“ …something somewhere between a butterfly and an athlete ..”
(Giovanni Arpino)
5th- 6th- 7th June in Turin… not only football…
The Turinese spectators will be for a time appealed by a sport of recent origins but with excellent results.
Turin, which is strictly connected to this sport, will play host to the XXVI European Rhythmic Gymnastics Championship.
Therefore, Turin will be again in the fore after the exciting Olympic Games.
To this Championship will take part about 500 gymnasts from 36 european nations. For a time we will watch the great performances of the best athletes in the world.
The three-day competition will offer us exciting top-level Rhythmic Gymnastics performances. It will end with the awarding of the European Championship Title.
Only two months after the exciting Olympics, we will watch the preview of the Olympic Games played by the main european nations.
“ …something somewhere between a butterfly and an athlete ..”
(Giovanni Arpino)
About Gymnastics
(Hieronymous Mercurialis “De Arte Gymnastica” Libri sex, from the Second Book, edited by Renata Freccero, Minerva Medica edition, Turin, 2000)
"…Because we have defined gymnastics as an art which knows the influence of all the exercises and teaches us the hard work in favour of a good health…"
Gymnastics is the origin of all the other disciplines. Considered as the pre-eminently sport in the second half of the XIX century, it held all the disciplines. Only later they became distinct sports.
Rhythmic gymnastics has recently joined the Italian Gymnastics Association.
The Italian Gymnastics Association boasts top-level Rhythmic Gymnastics champions in men’s competitions, such as Franco Menichelli and Juri Chechi, and recently in women’s competitions as well, such as Vanessa Ferrari.
Rhythmic Gymnastics is divided in individual and team events.
In the first case, the gymnasts compete by themselves; in the second case, teams are made up of a group of gymnasts (once they were 6, nowadays they are 5) who perform together following precise guide-lines.
The gymnastics apparatus consists of ropes, hoops, balls, clubs and ribbons.
All the gymnastic exercises are performed with musical accompaniment.
“ …something somewhere between a butterfly and an athlete ..”
(Giovanni Arpino)
Qualities of a good gymnast
A good gymnast must have physical and moral qualities which extoll his/her artistic aptitudes and enable him/her to reach a solid and durable motor equilibrium. These qualities allow athletes to face up the difficulties of training and, by extension, of life in a very equable way. They overcome all difficulties with abnegation and rework their limitations thanks to their sense of constructive criticism in order to make progress.
“ The virtue which makes a man honourable… is not the abstract idea of moral perfection created by a supreme God.
To be virtuos means to be qualified to do something, to be authentic and perfect to do something. This idea is similar to the Greek concept of arête, that is the virtues which make a man able to fight”
Therefore, courage, value, noble-mindedness and generosity are qualities of virtues.
The competitive spirit helps athletes to continue to be virtuos leading them to do their best during competitions.
(Huizinga, “Homo Ludens”, quoted by Livio Sichirollo in “The Ethics of Competitionin ancient Greece” XXX Conference CSEFF, Silvercopy, Turin, 1998)
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