Festival flower Gran Canaria

The international sports festival Flower Gran Canaria takes place every year in the last week of November on the Canary Island of Gran Canaria . Under the umbrella brand of the International Festival for General Gymnastics “Flower Gran Canaria” , the festival has developed into a large-scale sports- oriented event in which a variety of sporting and cultural events take place.

history

The international sports festival "Flower Gran Canaria" was launched in 1960 by Jesus Telo Nuñez in memory of the late Spanish gymnast Joaquín Blume . Since then, the festival has developed into an international mass sports event with a gymnastics and dance profile. Other sports are also integrated into the program.

In the first few years, the program design focused on the demonstrations of the clubs and schools from the Canary Islands, in order to give them the opportunity to present themselves to the public and in this way to popularize popular sport. Since the end of the 1990s, the activities of the organizing committee have increasingly focused on making the festival known internationally. For example, the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria took part in a congress of the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG) in Cape Town (South Africa) in 2003 and presented the festival on Gran Canaria as a suitable framework for the FIG- Congress 2004. With the increasing participation of foreign groups, the international character of the festival grew. By 2009 around 14,000 foreign participants from 40 countries and five continents had taken part. At the same time, the organizing committee came to the conclusion that the development of senior sport, the further dissemination and support of the Team Gym competitions in Spain (from 1999) and the inclusion of other towns and villages on the island in the festival events are development factors for the stabilization and expansion of popular sport in Spain and especially in the Canary Islands.

In 2005 the "First Golden Age Festival 2005" was held in Gran Canaria in conjunction with the Festival of the Union Européenne de Gymnastique (UEG). The Golden Age Festival was aimed at the elderly with workshops and stage performances and was a success due to the high number of participants, so that the UEG decided to repeat the Golden Age Festival every four years. The idea of ​​combining a festival for the elderly with the Flower Festival Gran Canaria was retained in the following years. Under the former national gymnastics supervisor for older people in the German Gymnastics Federation , Bärbel Schöttler, the festival was expanded to include an offer for senior citizens. Under the name “International Gymnastics Festival 50+” (IGF 50+), a senior program was included in the overall Flower Gran Canaria program.

In 2008, the European Gymnastics Union again awarded the Golden Age Festival to Gran Canaria with a program similar to that in 2005 , and again with the Festival Flower Gran Canaria, a festival for older people took place on the island with a slight delay. In 2009 and 2010 the process of organizing the Festival for the Elderly (IGF 50+) as part of the Flower Festival was reverted to. In 2011, as part of the International Gymnastics Festival 50+, an attempt was made for the first time to better integrate the local sports groups of Gran Canaria into the IGF 50+. The speakers drove to the hometowns of the athletes and held their workshops on site in the second half of the morning in Arucas , El Tablereo, Mogan and Telde . A total of around 350 older female athletes from various senior groups on the island took part in the 4 events. Wheelchair athletes from Wales and Munich are traditionally present, as are the presentations by the Spanish group “Civitas” with mentally handicapped people at the opening events.

program

The Flower Gran Canaria Festival sees itself as a mass sports festival in which all sports and disciplines, trends and especially group presentations can find their place. In 2010 the program of the festival week contained 40 items. The range of events extends from a bridge tournament and judo demonstrations to art exhibitions to the main program items, the stage performances, workshops and the team gym tournament.

Stage performances

Stage event 2006

The stage programs take up the broadest framework in the festival program. The basic idea of ​​the festival was originally to offer sports groups from the Canary Islands and mainland Spain, and later also international show groups from sports clubs and schools, an opportunity to present their stage programs. Since then, national and international groups of all ages have been showing their show programs on the stages of various places on the island. The highlights of Gran Canaria during the festival week are the evening show programs on the stages in front of the CC Yumbo and on the Plaza Maspalomas in Playa del Inglés . The program is differentiated according to the stage conditions. On the Plaza Maspalomas it is mainly the groups with gymnastics-acrobatic programs that perform, while on the stage in front of the CC Yumbo the dance-gymnastic groups are in the foreground. The gala Jesus Telo Nuñez in the sports hall in the Centro Insular Deportes in the island's capital Las Palmas de Gran Canaria is the highlight of the festival week. Local and international groups show their demonstrations in a program.

IGF 50+ workshop program

Ninja gymnastics workshop 2010

In the morning hours of the festival week (Monday to Thursday) workshops of 45 or 90 minutes are offered in the areas of gymnastics and dance, folklore, relaxation, leisure games, water offers. The workshops take place in the local sports facilities of San Bartolomé de Tirajana .

Team gym

Parallel to the above-mentioned events, a tournament for teams in the TeamGym takes place as part of the Flower Gran Canaria Festival . The tournament is open to both youth and adult teams and is open to athletes of both sexes. The tournament has been held since 1999. It is part of the sport's international competition calendar. According to the international rules of valuation, the competition includes:

1. Acrobatic jump sequences of the team on the tumbling track (elastic acrobatic track from 13 to 15 in length, plus a run-up track of 20 m in length and a landing zone of 6 m in length).
2. Individual jumps of the team at the vaulting table, jump from the mini tramp
3. Individual team jumps on the mini trampoline
4. Gymnastic group exercise on a floor area of ​​20 × 14 m

The team strength is up to 10 people on each jumping device. Only a certain number of people are included in the rating.

statistics

Since 1960, more than 130,000 participants have attended the festival. The highest number of participants was reached by the island of Gran Canaria itself with 137,771 participants. Of these, 10 municipalities and cities had more than 1,000 participants and 4 of them had more than 5,000 participants.

local community	Frequency of participation	Attendees
Arucas	33	10296
Ingenio	25th	2572
Mogan	21st	2299
San Bartolomé de Tirajana	31	6975
Santa Brigida	22nd	2136
Telde	33	15090
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria	59	97282

The participation of the individual countries is shown in the following table.

Nº	country	Frequency of participation	Attendees	Participation over the years
1	Albania	2	2	2003, 04
2	Australia	2	32	2000, 2010
3	Belgium	7th	142	90, 91, 93, 2007, 08, 15-18
4th	Denmark	34	5300	86 to 2019
5	Germany	39	6044	69, 71, 75, 76, 85-2019
6th	Estonia	2	37	1999, 2008
7th	Finland	13	353	88, 90-93, 96, 01, 04, 06-08, 2015, 16
8th	France	11	194	63, 67, 81, 2005 and 07, 08, 13-18
9	Greece	8th	154	97, 99, 2000, 02-04, 08, 12
10	Great Britain	37	4942	60, 68, 78, 81, 87-2019
11	India	7th	99	97-04
12	Ireland	12	365	94, 99, 01, 03, 05-12
13	Iceland	7th	110	2001, 04-08, 12.14
14th	Israel	2	72	98, 99
15th	Italy	15th	280	98, 99, 2000-04, 06-08, 10-14, 16-19	16	Japan	5	148	88, 89, 90, 2000, 2010
17th	Canada	3	19th	92, 96, 99
18th	Cape Verde	9	211	95, 02, 05-07, 11, 15-18
19th	Cuba	5	15th	99-2001, 05-06
20th	Liechtenstein	1	2	2007
21st	Lithuania	7th	100	2006-08, 13, 17, 19
22nd	Luxembourg	1	2	1962
23	Mali	1	1	2003
24	Moldova	6th	39	2000, 03, 04, 06, 19
25th	Netherlands	3	212	2000, 07, 08
26th	Nigeria	1	3	2006
27	Norway	13	564	82-84, 89, 97, 00, 01, 04, 07-12
28	Austria	17th	431	87, 93, 94, 02, 04-06, 08-19
29	Portugal	20th	274	61, 64, 66, 70, 72, 73, 80, 87–90, 94, 97, 99–01, 04, 07, 15, 16
30th	Russia	8th	147	06-09, 14, 13-19
31	Sweden	24	1256	70, 74, 85, 90, 97, 98, 99, 01, 04-19
32	Switzerland	11	138	61, 85, 91, 96, 99, 04, 05, 07, 08, 11-13
33	Slovenia	6th	241	95, 02, 04, 2010, 15, 17, 19
34	Slovakia	3	55	2007, 08, 10
35	Spain	59	60-2019
36	South Africa	1	18th	2000
37	Czech Republic	19th	556	95, 99, 2000, 02-11, 13-19
38	Turkey	2	2	2000 and 07
39	Hungary	7th	106	98, 99, 2005 and 07, 08, 16, 18
40	Venezuela	2	38	1964, 2011

literature

• Jesus Telo; E. Fischer; Detlef Schmidt: Flower Gran Canaria 50 años de historia haciendo gimnasia. Ediciones BGC, 2010.
• Jesus Telo: De Londres a Seúl. Las 61 participaciones canarias en los Juegos Olimpicos. Cabildo Insular de Gran Canaria, 1992.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ J. Telo; E. Fischer; D. Schmidt: FLOWER GRAN CANARIA 50 años de historia haciendo gimnasia. Ediciones BGC 2010, p. 3
2. ↑ Program 2010 ( Memento of the original from October 25, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ international evaluation rules  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ Source: Organizing Committee Flower Gran Canaria

Web links

• http://www.blumegrancanaria.com