Glasgow Win Race to Host 2015 World Gymnastics Champs

An announcement made in San Jose, California today, May 23, confirmed that the Scottish city of Glasgow has been awarded the rights to host the 2015 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, beating rivals from Paris and Orlando.

Paris were eliminated in the first round in the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) Council meeting before the body voted 23-13 in Glasgow’s favour over Orlando in the second round.

The event will be the main qualifying competition for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and is scheduled to be held in the National Arena Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre (SECC), that is due to open in 2013 and host the gymnastics at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, which the city is hosting.

The bid was developed by British Gymnastics with the support of UK Sport, Event Scotland and the City of Glasgow’s major event teams and it will be the third occasion that Britain has staged the event, which has been held annually since 1903 – except in Olympic years.

Britain first held it in Birmingham in 1993 and then again in 2009 in London, when they took place in the O2, which is due to host gymnastics during next year’s Olympics.

Glasgow’s bid is underpinned by US$3m of public funding and would be held between October 18 and November 2, 2015, in the $78m SECC arena, holding up to 12,000 spectators.

The 2015 World Rhythmic Gymnastics Championships were awarded to Stuttgart and the 2015 Trampoline World Championships to Odense in Denmark.