WGI Vice-President Michael Krüger at the German Gymnastics Festival
WGI Vice-President Prof. i.R. Dr. Michael Krüger actively participated in the International German Gymnastics Festival in Leipzig at the end of May. In addition to his active participation in the mixed multi-event competition (gymnastics, swimming, athletics), he used the gymnastics festival for international networking. In various meetings and discussions, he exchanged ideas with colleagues on the history of gymnastics and Olympic sports, the establishment of an international gymnastics museum, and the pedagogical problems in Olympic elite gymnastics, which have been brought to public attention not least by Kim Bui, IOC member and former Olympic elite gymnast.
At a meeting of the German Working Group of Sports Museums, Sports Archives, and Sports Collections, he represented the WGI and welcomed the former chairman of the Technical Committee of the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG), Hardy Fink from Canada, and discussed with him the possibility of establishing an international gymnastics museum in which Olympic gymnastics plays a central role as a core Olympic sport. A special highlight on the sidelines of the gymnastics festival: Professor Dr. Toshiyuki Ichiba from Chuo University in Tokyo presented the Leipzig Sports Museum with the original copy of the Japanese translation of Kurt Meinel’s Movement Theory from 1960 by Japanese gymnastics professor Akitomo Kaneko. Kaneko (1927-2024) is considered the father of Japanese artistic gymnastics. In his gymnastics teaching, he referred to the movement theory of Leipzig movement analyst Kurt Meinel (1898-1973). Kaneko shaped a special aesthetic of artistic gymnastics, which to this day is the basis for Japan’s great successes in artistic gymnastics, including at the Olympic Games.