From Small to Great; the development of high-level gymnastics in small European countries

Background As we are five small countries we all have our challenges to compete with large countries with an high population number. We all experienced the negative effects of tough and unfriendly training methods from some big foreign countries. We had the assumption that it was possible to compete on the highest level of gymnastics with a more human oriented approach. Our project strengthened our believes in that as we met new friends with the same approach. Objectives The main objective was: “to empower small countries with high ambitions in high-level gymnastics. Not by copying ways and manners from big countries but by sharing knowledge and good practices with other small countries. This with special concern for the well-being, health and safety for (young) gymnasts. “If you have little, you can’t afford to lose a lot!” Implementation We organized five Invitational Conferences (IC's) in five different countries. A delegation of all participating countries was invited on every IC. We formulated three theme's on the first IC and assigned them to the next tree IC's. We spoke about: Athletes Health/Welfare (IC2), the Culture of gymnastics (IC3), Talent selection and development (IC4). During IC5 we did an evaluation and made plans for future colaboration together. Achievements As result from our project we launched the website www.fromstog.eu that gives a good impression of all the activities. We shared good practices and bad experiences of each country as well. Presentations are preserved and accessible for the public. On the end of the project we signed a Friendship Agreement. We also started a FROMSTOG alliance, with a new partner already, to build future projects together. Other results are: presentations, articles, banners and a t-shirt from the project.