With its creation (actually adaptation from a German series of competitions) of the World Cup competitions, the FIG has come to dominate the international gymnastics competition calendar in terms of attracting the best gymnasts in the world.  Before this, gymnasts gained international experience and recognition at any number of large international invitational competitions, like the American Cup in the U.S., the Chunichi Cup in Japan in addition to the international championships like the European Championships.  World Cup competitions now seem to take precedence over many of those invitational meets or those meets also become World Cup events.

There are two types of FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Cup competitions.  The “A Category” of FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Cup competitions are a series of All-Around competitions where the best top eight gymnasts, based on the ranking from last year’s World Championships, are invited to compete against each other at six different meets on three continents to determine the All Around World Cup Champion. Qualifying rounds choose gymnasts who then compete to improve their standings in the World Cup series and are then eligible to win prize money at the end of the World Cup series.

The 2011 FIG World Cup is a series of 6 competitions hosted in 6 countries. The series includes 100,000 CHF (Thats about $107,000 US Dollars) in prize money and is televised.

Because World cup competitions are so frequent, may conflict with gymnast’s training schedules for the most important meets, like the World Championships and the Olympics and because of conflicts with other international meets, attendance by the best gymnasts at world Cup events has been somewhat haphazard.  For example, almost all of the American Elite women’s gymnasts, both Juniors and Seniors, attended the 2011 City of Jesolo Trophy Gymnastics meet instead of the 2011 French Internationals World Cup.

2011 FIG World Cup Series Competitions

At FIG “B Category” World Cup competitions, the format is a Challenge Cup type of event, where the competition includes individual event competitors. Because of the significantly larger number of gymnasts participating in these meets, the number of finalists is eight gymnasts instead of four gymnasts like the “B Category” events.