An open letter from IRV President Henning Henningsen

Dear friends of #WheelGymnastics,

In the last couple of years, the voluntary members of the IRV board have worked towards a modern and attractive future for our sport. Openness, transparency, cooperation, equality, and effectiveness have become decisive factors for us, even if we are not yet able to cover all points completely. We are working on it!

With the “Agenda 2020” and its adjustments in the “Next Level 2020”, we have laid a foundation for the future of #WheelGymnastics. This foundation is based on an adaptation of the World Championships format and a reorganisation of the Code of Points.

The changes to the World Championships format will already bear fruit at our next major event in the New York metropolitan area in 2020. The best gymnasts in the world will compete for individual titles and medals. At the same time, they will score important points for their national teams as they strive to qualify for the 2021 Team World Championships in Leipzig, Germany.

Furthermore, the Code of Points team is working towards a planned implementation of a new Code of Points for Gym Wheel in January 2022.

My first term of office as President of the IRV

I was lucky to have the support of many experts on the IRV board after my election as IRV President in 2015. It is not a straightforward task to work on a voluntary basis for a small sports community like the #WheelGymnastics family. I’d like to thank all coaches, judges, athletes and supporters for their tireless dedication to our sport. The interaction between different cultures, ideas and experiences is what makes this sport so attractive to me and inspires me to offer my services for a second term office as IRV President (2020-2024).

In addition to the initial changes in recent years, I still see new opportunities for our federation, for example in the growth of our member organisations, in the intercultural cooperation of experts and the transfer of knowledge across countries.

We need to shape the future of #WheelGymnastics together!

I am convinced that every one of us – in his or her personal sphere – has ideas and activities to make our sport even better. Whether in the gym with the athletes, planning an event, or creating videos and training documents at home, we all grow with the knowledge we exchange with others.

It is not only the actual numbers of Gym and Cyr Wheel enthusiasts that should grow. I am convinced that the sport also serves the personal growth of every person who plays an active role in it. We as the IRV want to support this growth with our activities in order to generate added value for our sport and all those involved in it.

At the IRV annual meeting in autumn 2019, we wrote down key aspects on which we would like to increase our focus in the coming years:

We are already working on some of these focus areas. For others, we lack the time in our voluntary work. We would therefore like to open our focus topics to people who want to support the development of our sport in specific areas. In the website section for “IRV Volunteers” we have presented an initial selection of possible working areas. We will post job offers on a continuous basis and look forward to receiving your applications.

In addition to the above-mentioned focus topics, we see it as our responsibility as representatives of the federation to develop a framework for our principles, goals and collaboration. We do not want to develop this framework exclusively within the IRV board and are currently planning to invite representatives from member countries to a workshop weekend in autumn 2020 to discuss our idea of a “Wheel Gymnastics Manifesto” that can serve as a basis for us to work together on the future of our sport across continents.

I wish you a peaceful and relaxing time for the upcoming Christmas and holiday season and a happy new “World Championships Year” 2020. My IRV colleagues and I look forward to seeing you many of you in July 2020 in the metropolitan area of New York.

Sporting greetings, Henning