The inaugural edition of the Junior World Championships in artistic gymnastics took place in the summer of 2019 and was supposed to repeat every two years. However, the International Gymnastics Federation has announced that the 2021 Junior Worlds will be canceled in order “to avoid overloading the 2021 calendar”.
The 2021 artistic gymnastics calendar is indeed promising to be very busy (assuming the worst of the pandemic will be over by that time) – for senior gymnasts. They will have continental championships, World Cups, World Championships, and the Olympics all in one year. That isn’t necessarily the case for juniors. For example, European juniors will not have any big competitions next year. The Junior European Championships are held biannually and were supposed to happen this year. As the next year’s senior Euros will have MAG and WAG competing together, there is simply no time and space to fit a junior competition into it. And the European Youth Olympic Festival that was supposed to happen in 2021 has been postponed until 2022 in order not to clash with the Olympics. Junior Worlds still seem like they are more of an afterthought for the FIG and not a prestigious event in its own right. Last year, for example, there was no live stream for the first days of the competition (qualifications that also served as a team and all-around finals) and the competition itself was held during the gymnastics competition at the European Games and shortly before the Universiade (wasn’t that slightly overloading the calendar?).
