The 2nd European Team Championships in artistic and rhythmic gymnastics were held in Moscow, Russia, in May 2003.
A combined format
Most European Championships are organised discipline by discipline. The European Team Championships took a different approach: national teams combined men’s artistic, women’s artistic and rhythmic gymnasts in a single competition, so a nation’s result depended on its strength across the disciplines rather than in one of them.
Why the idea was tried
A combined team event rewards federations with balanced programmes and gives spectators a more varied show. It also creates a clear national ranking, which is attractive to broadcasters and sponsors.
What happened next
The team format did not become a permanent fixture of the European calendar. Instead, European Gymnastics moved to individual European Championships in the year after the Olympics, starting in Debrecen in 2005, and later to multi-sport events such as the European Games and the European Championships of 2018 and 2022.
Related
See the 2005 individual Europeans in Debrecen and the 2015 European Games in Baku.
