Orlando Bids for Gymnastics Worlds; Team Triathlon; Gold for Figure Skating Host

Orlando Bids for Gymnastics World Champs

USA Gymnastics president Steve Penny tells Around the Rings Orlando’s bid for the 2015 world artistic championships presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for his sport.

"When you think about the combination of the Disney resources, the ESPN Wide World of Sports resources, the city of Orlando and the Amway Center, we’re going to bring all of those things under one big umbrella to celebrate the sport of gymnastics," he said.

The national governing body revealed to ATR late Thursday that the city in central Florida won out over nine others interested in the honor.

Now Orlando will compete against Paris and Glasgow at next month’s meeting of the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) Council. Members will vote for a host May 22 at the end of their week-long gathering.

"It’s not an easy peg to put in the hole," Penny said of FIG’s requirements for the annual showcase, the sport’s largest outside the Summer Olympics and a qualifier for Rio 2016.

The bid committee proposes staging the actual competition at Amway Center, the newly built home of the National Basketball Association’s Orlando Magic.

"It’s just the most magnificent and technologically advanced building in the marketplace and so we’re really excited to be able to showcase that facility to the world for such a high-level prestigious event," Central Florida Sports Commission CEO Sam Stark told ATR.

The NBA team’s practice facility would serve as a warm-up gym, ESPN’s Wide World of Sports as a training venue and the local Waldorf Astoria as FIG’s headquarters hotel during the 18-day event.

According to Penny, the championships could briefly displace the Magic during October’s NBA preseason but would not eat into regular season play.

The U.S. also played host to the artistic worlds in 1979, 1991 and most recently in 2003 when Anaheim, California held the largest edition to date.

Team Triathlon Positions Itself for Olympic Bid

Triathlon will merge three world championships to bolster its bid for an additional Olympic event.

Wednesday’s change means the world champs for both sprint and team triathlon are now part of the Dextro Energy ITU Triathlon World Championship Series, a competition in which athletes vie for the title of world champion while earning Olympic qualification points.

"This is another important step forward in our dream to have team triathlon included on the Olympic Games program," International Triathlon Union president Marisol Casado said in a statement.

"Both the sprint and team relay are exciting formats of triathlon and are sure to attract fresh interest in the sport."

In the sprint variation, triathletes swim 750m, bike 20km and run 5km – all half the Olympic distances. The winner of the world champs slated for Aug. 20 in Lausanne will take home $100,000.

In the relay, two men and two women per team each swim 275m, bike 6km and run 1.5km. $50,000 will be up for grabs at the Aug. 21 championships, also in Lausanne.

Only the sprint event will offer points towards the Dextro Energy Triathlon Series rankings, and neither will offer Olympic qualifying points because neither are Olympic events.

Both races will, however, assume the same branding as ITU’s flagship series and will benefit from the same live broadcast coverage.

Races kicked off in Sydney earlier this month and will resume in Madrid in early June after a Yokohama stop in May was postponed due to Japan’s ongoing nuclear emergency.

Figure Skating Fill-In Deserves Gold

The president of the International Skating Union says Moscow merits a "gold medal" for hosting this week’s figure skating world championships.

Voice of Russia reports that Ottavio Cinquanta made the comment Tuesday to Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin, in praise of his city’s willingness to step in for previous host Tokyo.

Originally scheduled for last month, the ISU moved the championships to Moscow following the March 11 earthquake.

Competition opened Monday and runs through Sunday at Megasport Arena, site of the 2007 ice hockey world championships.

WTF Championships

Gyeongju, Korea will host the world’s best taekwondo fighters beginning Sunday.

The World Taekwondo Federation will have its bi-annual world championships in the city from May 1 – 6.

Officials expect about 1,700 athletes and officials from a record 149 countries. That would be nearly doublethe number of entrants from the 2009 event in Copenhagen.

Taekwondo was created in Korea, and this will be the sixth world championship in Korea.

On April 30, the WTF General Assembly will take place at the Hyundai Hotel in Gyeongju. Participants will vote to approve five countries as new members of the WTF. The five are Cook Islands, Rwanda, Tuvalu, Guadalupe and Martinique. The approval would increase the WTF global membership to 197.

KBS TV, is the host broadcaster with plans to show live all the semifinal and final matches. Other broadcasters including PC TV Mexico, Globosat Brazil, ESPN 360 USA, CCTVB China, RAI Italy and NTV Russia will also show live bouts.

Open Water Event Cancelled

FINA, the aquatics federation, canceled an open water swimming event in Mexico due to "unsafe water conditions".

A statement posted on FINA’swebsite says the May 7 event in Sumidero Canyon, Mexico was cancelled following the recommendation of the FINA sports medicine committee.

"Given the importance of the health and safety of the open water swimming athletes, and in light of the official documentation on water quality provided by the Mexican Swimming Federation, it is evident that FINA should not expose its swimmers to these unsafe water conditions" FINA said.

The cancellation comes just days after a FINA report into the death of U.S. swimmer Fran Crippen at an open water even in 2010 due to warm water temperatures.

Table Tennis in Africa

Table tennis has a new broadcast agreement to have "mass TV coverage" throughout Africa.

Broadcaster SuperSport will televise the sport in Africa.

"I am delighted that ITTF events will now be available on African TV screens" said ITTF president Adham Sharara. This has been a long-term goal of our Federation to provide top event access to our African member associations."

"This is now a reality due to the great efforts deployed by our Marketing Division as well as our Marketing and Media partners TMS International and Total Sport Asia."

Fifteen SuperSport networks are broadcast in Africa.

No one from Africa is ranked in the top 100 for male or female players, according to the ITTF rankings.

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Written by Matthew Grayson and Ed Hula III.