BAKU, Azerbaijan, Dec. 20
By Jani Babayeva – Trend:
Baku Gymnastics School hosted a meeting with members of the Azerbaijani national rhythmic gymnastics team, athletes performing in the group exercises Siyana Vasileva, Aliya Pashayeva and Zeynab Hummatova, Trend reports.
About 80 representatives of the Baku Gymnastics School aged 4-13 attended the event.
During the meeting, the representatives of the Baku Gymnastics School had an opportunity to ask athletes questions. They were interested in the reason of choosing rhythmic gymnastics by Vasileva, Pashayeva and Hummatova, asked them to talk about participation in international championships and the way of coping with excitement when appearing on the carpet and much more.
The members of the Azerbaijani national team shared the experience and knowledge with pleasure, gave the necessary recommendations and advice.
Further, the members of the Azerbaijani national team gave autographs.
In an interview with the media representatives, Hummatova stressed that Azerbaijan is showing great interest in gymnastics.
“It is pleasant that this can be observed not only in Baku, but also in the districts of our country, where gymnastics is actively developing,” Hummatova added. “During the meeting, we felt tremendous inspiration of young gymnasts. They showed great interest, actively asked questions. But this meeting is also important for us because children take an example from us, we feel their love and support."
"I can say that I have recently started to work at the Baku Gymnastics School and I already know most of the children participating in the meeting,” Pashayeva said. “It is pleasant that they all were attentive during the meeting. They are really interested in learning more about the development of coaches and leading gymnasts in the country. Azerbaijan pays great attention to the development of sports, including gymnastics.
“Rhythmic gymnastics has become very popular, there are many talented children who demonstrate good results,” Pashayeva added. “I would like to tell all parents who want their children to be involved in gymnastics that this is a very good idea. Sport is health, and rhythmic gymnastics for a girl is also elegance and beauty the whole life.”
Vasileva emphasized that she was very pleased to share her knowledge and experience with young athletes.
“I hope that everything that I talked about was useful to them,” Vasileva added. “For me this is the second meeting with the little gymnasts. Previously, there was a meeting at the Ojag Sports club. I hope that this practice will continue and such meetings will be organized in the future. I think this meeting is very important for young gymnasts because I remember myself at their age.”
“It would be important for me to meet with famous athletes, listen to their stories about the gained experience,” Vasileva added. “I would like to advise young athletes not to quit their studies because some people think that if you are involved in professional sports, there is no need to study. But this is not so. Studying greatly contributes to success in sports."
“The public’s interest in gymnastics greatly arose,” Vasileva added.
“A big audience is watching the local competitions,” the athlete said. “There is always a full auditorium at the competitions in the National Gymnastics Arena.”
During the 37th Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships on September 16-22 in Baku, the Azerbaijani team in group exercises won a license for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
