Writing for Sport Industry Group, British Gymnastics CEO, Sarah Powell, discusses the new direction for the gymnastics that has seen the national governing bodies across all four home nations come together to put positive experiences at the heart of the sport.
I was really proud last week to announce the launch ‘Leap Without Limits’, featuring a new vision for gymnastics in the UK – to deliver an uplifting gymnastics experience for all.
Leap Without Limits has been created to build on and reinforce the good things happening in the sport already, but also drive change and reform where it is needed. We lost sight of the true power of gymnastics, and so this is an opportunity for us to learn from the past and reset, refocus and rebalance.
It marks the start of new era for our sport, and it has been a wholly collaborative process. For the first time ever, British Gymnastics and the Home Nation organisations – Scottish Gymnastics, English Gymnastics, Welsh Gymnastics and Gymnastics Northern Ireland – have come together to commit to a single joint vision and direction for gymnastics, one that puts positive experiences at its heart and recognises the benefits gymnastics can provide for individuals, communities and society.
Every part of our sport was included and absolutely vital in shaping this vision. It has been created with input from gymnasts past and present, parents, coaches, judges, volunteers, staff, and partner organisations across the UK. We needed to understand what was important to them, what needs to change, what makes gymnastics special, and the role it could and should play in our society. Putting the needs of the community at the centre of what we do going forward will be vital to create a culture where gymnastics is enjoyable, safe, and open to everyone.
I want to extend a sincere thank you to everyone in the gymnastics community who contributed their knowledge, ideas and experiences to the development of Leap Without Limits, and all those who have already shown their support for it. We want to recognise the fantastic work already being done by so many coaches, clubs, schools and leisure centres across the UK, but also explore how we can do more to ensure that everyone involved in our sport has a positive experience, and that the fantastic benefits of gymnastics can reach far and wide.
For so many of us, gymnastics can be our first introduction to sport and physical activity. We are proud to have that unique responsibility of making sure young people have an amazing first experience that inspires them to stay active for life. Whether they continue in gymnastics, or use the skills they have learnt to explore other sports and activities, we know gymnastics exists as an essential foundation activity that builds not just balance, strength and coordination, but also confidence and character skills, and creates positive experiences that can stay with you for life.
This new vision is more than just words – it’s about practically making the sport more accessible, inclusive and welcoming to all. We will be making proactive changes to make gymnastics easier, safer and more enjoyable for deliverers to run and increasing capacity and capability so that more people can benefit from the sport. Understanding that gymnastics can have a life-long positive impact for those who participate, we will be relentless in our pursuit of inclusion and accessibility in gymnastics.
We will also be further developing a culture of ‘performing well’ across the high-performance programme. It’s about so much more than results and medals. Our role is to support our amazing athletes, coaches and support staff to perform the best they can, provide the right environment for them to thrive, and ensure that everyone can look back on their time in our sport fondly having had positive experiences and opportunities. Within that, we must not forget the important role parents play and we need to ensure they are supported and recognised too.
The vision specifically uses the word ‘all’, and underpinning the work we will do is a commitment from British Gymnastics to being relentless in our pursuit of inclusion and accessibility in gymnastics. There is no limit to who can benefit from our sport – as is demonstrated by our British Gymnastics Foundation’s fantastic Love to Move seated gymnastics programme which has been shortlisted for this year’s FEVO Sport Industry Awards as recognition of the impact it has had for older people and those with dementia.
We also recognise the particular role gymnastics plays in helping to get more women and girls involved in and staying in sport – as participants, coaches, administrators and leaders – and will be doing what we can to continue to drive that. There is more we can do with regards to disability gymnastics too. Last week we also announced our goal to help establish international competition for disability gymnastics to provide opportunities for Britain’s leading disability gymnasts to compete on the world stage, and it would be brilliant if gymnastics could ultimately become a Paralympic sport.
We believe our new vision is a significant step towards delivering genuine lasting and positive change in gymnastics. Development of it was one of the 40 actions we committed to last year as part of our Reform ’25 action plan in response to the Whyte Review, for which our first six-month progress report will be published next month.
All of us at British Gymnastics are working hard to ensure we continue to make genuine progress in bringing about the cultural change needed over the next two years.
These ongoing areas for reform include education, policy, welfare and safe sport, which will all form part of the activity delivered under the new vision. Leap Without Limits is about putting these fundamental changes in place and taking decisive and proactive steps to deliver uplifting experiences for everyone in our sport.
But we can’t do it alone. To deliver on our vision, we need the entire community to join us and work together to ensure gymnastics is enjoyable, safe and open to everyone, as well as creating opportunities for us to work collaboratively with and learn from other sports and organisations.
As an example of that, we used last week’s British Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool to host a round table session on the importance of and the challenges and opportunities around sport and physical activity for children and young people. It brought together representatives of organisations across the sector including other sports such as tennis, athletics and swimming, sports charities including the Youth Sport Trust and Women in Sport, and clubs and coaches from the gymnastics community. It’s a topic we see as being central to our vision and recognises the unique role gymnastics can play in this area.
We have also already been working closely with UK Sport, Sport England, sportscotland, Sport Wales and Sport NI, who are all very supportive of the new direction. The new vision has already received funding-partner backing in Scotland, with Scottish Gymnastics awarded a significant uplift in funding (by a third) by sportscotland to deliver key projects over the next four years and create more opportunities for people all over Scotland to experience the benefits of sport and physical activity.
If we can successfully deliver our new vision and purpose, we will see wide ranging benefits not just for everyone involved in our sport, but also for communities and society more broadly – more people enjoying the sport and its benefits, more inspirational moments that are seen, shared and enjoyed by more people, and everyone feeling safe, supported and able and confident to speak up, whatever their role or involvement in gymnastics.
We want our members to feel connected to British Gymnastics and trust us to be positive custodians of this incredible sport, and to ultimately see a united sport, where everyone is working together to ensure that collectively we deliver an uplifting gymnastics experience for all.
Real, deep cultural change takes time, but we are starting to see the early signs of progress and the positive impact of the actions we are taking. There is much more to do, but we are excited to be forging a bright future for gymnastics across the UK and working towards harnessing the power of our sport to change lives, enrich and connect communities. The launch of Leap Without Limits has been a big step forward towards that.
British Gymnastics CEO, Sarah Powell
