Pam Americans in Daytona

I just wanted to post an additional note about the Pan American Championships for Trampoline and Tumbling that is scheduled for Daytona, Florida in March.

Originally after receiving a mass e-mail from our High Performance Director at Gymnastics Canada, Stephan, Duchesne, I was under the impression that any athlete who fit into an Age Category (11 to 18 years old) could attend without any special requirements. I was uninformed at that point. I am posting the correction that was sent out to us from Gymnastics Ontario and was further clarified for me by the High Performance Director himself.

Please read it carefully and understand that only those athletes who have been to Nationals or who have made the National qualification score for their level will be permitted to attend and even then they will have to obtain and FIG Licence to participate. Let me explain: FIG stands for Federation Internationale de Gymnastique, so the International Gymnastics Federation. Any athlete who wishes to compete outside of their country for an international meet must have this licence. In essence the Age Scandal from the Beijing Olympics where some Chinese gymnasts were accused of lying about their ages prompted the FIG to require athletes to register their birth date information so that ages cannot be changed or lied about at later competitions. We will be asking to register our athletes in the next couple months so that they have an FIG Licence prior to Pan American Championships.

Please note this prevents any of the Provincial athletes from participating in Pan American Championships or from competing anywhere outside of our country.

I hope this provides some clarification for all of those who read this blog. My apologies for the confusion.