WHAT

According to Gymmedia.de (translated from German to English by Ingrid on WWGym), the FIG Executive Council voted to reduce the team size from six members to five. It still has to go in front of the FIG Membership and be approved or vetoed, but from what I hear, they usually never go against the EC. This could possibly go into effect for the 2009 Worlds (though aren't the Worlds the year after the Olympics EF-only).

Now what benefits could this possibly bring to gymnastics competitions? The only reason this was done was so more spots would be open for previous World medalists to get Olympic spots, but I'm sure there could have been a better solution than further damaging the team aspect of gymnastics.

The number of people on a team didn't necessarily need to be changed; it was the format that needed to (and keeping the format constant in a major competition; having 6-5-4 in qualifications and 6-3-3 in finals is ridiculous and detrimental to countries without a lot of depth). The format should have been changed to 6-5-4, 6-5-5, 6-6-5, or 6-6-6 if you wanted to be sadistic. Something to make it a team final, not *the star of the team* and friends.

Are they really trying to get rid of the team aspect when that is what has taken precedence over the AA in recent years? Specialists have become so ingrained already that I don't see the AA become as important as it once was again (at least, not soon).

And really, the team final is what fills the most seats, the AA second.