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Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 25 / Trend M. Aliyev /
Azerbaijan's First Lady, President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, Goodwill Ambassador of UNESCO and ISESCO, MP Mehriban Aliyeva was re-elected the President of Azerbaijan Gymnastics Federation. The decision was made at the report-election conference of the Federation on Saturday.
Altay Hasanov was re-elected the vice-president by voting, Rauf Aliyev, Rafiq Behbudov and Arif Gafarov the members of the executive committee during the conference.
A decision was made to adopt a new charter of the Federation, according to which the final conferences and the elections of the administrative board will be held every five years (previously every four years).
Addressing the conference, the Minister of Youth and Sports Azad Rahimov noted that the gymnastics has had a special place in the sports life of Azerbaijan over the last four to five years. "Due to significant achievements of our gymnasts, Azerbaijan has been holding a high place on this kind of sports throughout the world over the recent years," said Rahimov.
The minister said currently Azerbaijan Gymnastics Federation has achieved large-scale spread of this kind of sports - the sections of the gymnastics are created in the country's regions. "A section of gymnastics, which has already enrolled 25 girls, has been opened at the Olympic complex in Goychay district," said Rahimov.
Rahimov said that next year the national gymnastics team is expected to obtain licenses for the 2012 Olympic Games.
Vice president of the National Olympic Committee of Azerbaijan Chingiz Huseynzadeh said that the gymnastics team became the first team to represent Azerbaijan at the Olympics. "The Azerbaijani athletes have achieved successes in individual sports, but the gymnastics team has successfully performed in the team composition, and gained an access to the final stage at the Olympics in Beijing," said Huseynzadeh.
Amongst the successes of the Gymnastics Federation, Huseynzadeh also mentioned organizing the European Championships in Rhythmic Gymnastics and international competitions on a high level in Baku.
A gala concert was performed as a result of report-election conference of the Gymnastics Federation.
Development of gymnastics in Azerbaijan takes the beginning since 40th of the last century. As a result of popularization of this kind of sports for a very short term, organization has appeared, and in 1956 the Azerbaijan Gymnastics Federation was created. At that time the federation consisted of only two disciplines: acrobatics and rhythmic gymnastics. After in 1991 Azerbaijan has got independence, the national federation of gymnastics became in 1993 a member of the International and European Federation of Gymnastics. In 1998 in federation structure such discipline, as sports acrobatics, and in 2000 tumbling has appeared. There are four types of this sport in Azerbaijan Gymnastics Federation, they are: men's artistic gymnastics, acrobatics, rhythmic gymnastics and tumbling.
The International Federation of Gymnastics has highly estimated fruitful activity of Azerbaijan Gymnastics Federation and gave the consent to realization of the World Championships on rhythmic gymnastics in 2005 and European Championships in 2007 and 2009 in Azerbaijan.
