Bruno Grandi

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Bruno Grandi (born May 9, 1934) is an Italian sportsman, currently president of the FIG (Federation Internationale de Gymnastique) since 1996 and a member of the International Olympic Committee since 2000. He was also an Italian junior gymnast, but has achieved more gymnastics success in a non-performing capacity, rising to become president of the FIG.

[edit] Biography

A native of Forlì, Emilia Romagna, Grandi served as Professor of Physical education at the High Institute of Physical Education in Rome. He was a member of the Italian Artistic Gymnastic Juniors team, national coach of the Italian Men's junior's team and the long-time President of the Italian Gymnastics Federation (1977-2000). He pioneered the use of the 6-3-3 system in team finals which is intended to expand the number of countries who can win medals by making it possible to succeed with a smaller pool of gymnasts.

Perhaps as a consequence of this, more nations have achieved gymnastics success during his tenure than did before: Brazil, France, Australia and Britain are now regulars on the podium. That said, they tend to win medals in individual finals rather than team events (in women's gymnastics, only once in the past 10 years has a world team medal been won by any nation other than Romania, Russia, China and the USA, and never an Olympic team medal). In comparison, since 2000 the sport has seen female world and Olympic individual champions from the likes of France, Spain and Brazil. So at present, it would seem that the diversity in medal winning nations does not stretch across the whole sport, the team event still tending to remain the preserve of the sports traditional powers.

During Grandi's tenure, the sport has gone through many controversies, notably those at the 2004 Olympics. The men's high bar fiasco surrounding Alexei Nemov and the Paul Hamm / Yang Tae Young dispute garnered the most publicity. In 2004-2005 the FIG and its president Grandi developed a new scoring system, in which an open ended scoring will be used, so that the marks are theoretically limitless. The majority of the FIG did vote in favour of the new Code. This was a controversial move: many fans and athletes alike campaigned against it, speaking out in opposition^{[citation needed]}

The new code took effect in 2006. The 2006 Commonwealth Games were completed under the new Code. The results at this competition were somewhat controversial, primarily because of the women's all-around results^{[citation needed]} A tie for first place was decided by taking the highest three scores, and local gymnast Hollie Dykes of Australia was able to win bronze despite falling on every piece. No official protests were filed, but the British federation seemed unhappy, and complained on the official British Gymnastics website http://www.british-gymnastics.org/ (see Commonwealth Games section, articles from March 18 and March 20 by Trevor Lowe and Barry Davis). Still, the result did stand.

In 2001 Grandi was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame. ^[1]