MAY 01 2025
Gymnastics 2025: The Artistic Gymnastics World Championships are heading to Indonesia!
The world’s fourth largest country is throwing its doors open to host the World Championships this October in a first for gymnastics and for Indonesia.
Indonesia joined the ranks of nations that have produced gymnastics Olympians last summer, when Rifda Irfanaluthfi (INA) performed an Uneven Bars routine clocking in at just under 60 seconds at Paris 2024. A year after Irfanaluthfi's milestone, her country is readying to host the 53rd FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships, where the festivities will go on for a week.
A soft pink Floor Exercise mat, a color blending the red and white of the Indonesian flag, will be the central element on the field of play as the World Championships unfolds in Jakarta’s Indonesia Arena from 19-25 October. On it and the surrounding apparatus, new world champions will be made as Olympic superstars and emerging contenders battle for 12 world titles.
The Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in the Indonesian capital, the second-most populous urban area in the world after Tokyo-Yokohama, are the first to be held in southeast Asia and the first on the continent since Kitakyushu (JPN) hosted in 2021. Though a relative newcomer to Artistic Gymnastics, the city hosted the Asian Games in 2018, and the Brick Parkour Asian tour made a successful swing through Jakarta in 2023.
Flipping for gold
World Championships the year after the Olympic Games do not have team competitions, which gives individuals a chance to shine even more brightly on the world’s biggest stage. Countries may register as many as six men and four women to compete in Jakarta, with a maximum of three gymnasts competing on each apparatus.
Ten apparatus titles — six for men and four for women — will be up for grabs, and new men’s and women’s All-Around champions will be crowned too. Individual qualifications will take place over three days, with tentatively eight subdivisions of men’s competition on 19 and 20 October and 10 subdivisions of women’s competition happening 20 and 21 October. Men’s and women’s All-Around finals are scheduled for 22 and 23 October, with two days of apparatus finals after that.
In order to be age-eligible to compete this year, male gymnasts must have been born in 2007 or earlier, while female gymnasts must have been born on or before 31 December 2009.
As always, the top 24 all-around gymnasts will advance to the All-Around final, with a maximum of two per country permitted to compete. The best eight on each apparatus will also go through to the apparatus finals, again with a maximum of two per nation.
Jakarta is already buzzing. Irfanaluthfi was the first Indonesian to leave her mark on gymnastics; the 2025 championships aim to make sure she will not be the last.
"Gymnastics, as the mother of sports, is proud to contribute and we believe that the World Championships will serve as a catalyst for the further development of gymnastics in Indonesia,” commented Ita Yuliati, President of the Indonesian Gymnastics Federation. “It will inspire the younger generations to become elite athletes, strive for excellence and proudly represent our nation on the world stage .”
Read about the FIG’s Ageing Society Programme, which was presented last week in Jakarta and will make its debut across Indonesia for the 53rd FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships.
Source: FIG
Photo credit: FIG
