The 2017 P&G Gymnastics Championships will be hosted in Anaheim, California, the first time in 10 years that the Orange County will host a major gymnastics competition.
The said competition will take place on 17th to 20th of August, 2017 at the Honda Center will distinguish the US athletes who will move forward to the 2017 World Championships in Montreal.
“I’m excited because so many people I grew up with never got the chance to watch me compete in person, and this gives them the chance to do that next year,” said an American artistic gymnast and 2012 Olympian Sam Mikulak, who is now training for multiple events in the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics. “I want my friends to be able to appreciate the sport beyond watching me on TV.”
Aside from Mikulak, also present in the announcement, which was held Tuesday at Downtown Disney was the 2004 Olympic all-around gold medalist Carly Patterson, 2012 Olympic team champion Kyla Ross and Romanian gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi.
The competition symbolizes the first major achievement for Sports Anaheim, a new program which is aiming to attract amateur events to the city in hopes of taking advantage of the flourishing sports-event industry.
The initiative was developed by a local visitor and convention marketing group – the Visit Anaheim. The organization will soon bring together an advisory council of local business and sports leaders to work on luring amateur sports tournaments.
The Honda Center and Orange County are not new to the world-class gymnastics.
The Honda Center, which was formerly known as The Arrowhead Pond, accommodated both the 2003 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships and the 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials. The World Championships was one of the most fruitful events for the Team USA as their competitors managed to take home five gold medals, which involves the women’s team title and the men’s individual all-around gold medal, which was won by Pau Hamm.
“I was the most impressed among everybody by this announcement because being in Anaheim brings back great memories of when we were here in 2003,” Karolyi stated. “That moment really started a really great line of winning, putting our athletes on the world scene level. I hope we see the same thing in 2017.”
Six months ago, the USA Gymnastics president Steve Penny talked to the officials of the Honda Center, asking whether the arena could possibly accommodate the event in 2017. Negotiations quickly advanced, basically because both sides were familiar with collaborating, said the President and CEO of Honda Center, Tim Ryan.
“When it comes time to bid on an event of this magnitude, and the relationships are already in place, it just makes everything so much easier,” Ryan said. “We hope the team does really well in Rio, and we can take that momentum straight out of the Olympics and here into Orange County.”
“Nationally, the sports industry generates nearly $9 billion annually – and Anaheim is ripe to cash in on some of that revenue” said Jay Burress, president and CEO of Visit Anaheim.
Prior to visiting Anaheim, Burress headed the visitors and convention bureau in Arlington, Texas, where he helped lure major events such as Super Bowl XLV and the NBA All-Star Game and move the Cotton Bowl Classic to the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium.
“This is a great announcement for us, and there’s more to come in the next couple weeks,” Burress said. “This puts us in a different league, and this is a great sign of the different types of events that we can bring to the city that make a huge impact.”
More news related to gymnastics can be accessed by subscribing to our educational blogs. Learn gymnastics for kids with us! Enroll today at Bianka Panova Sport and Art Academy and experience a fun and exciting way of learning gymnastics :)
No comments:
Post a Comment