The 18th European Championships in Rhythmic Gymnastics will take place as a competition for individual gymnasts. Medals will be handed out in the team competition (Saturday) and the individual all- around (Sunday).

The organiser European Gymnastics Union (UEG) has modified the modus of the competition this year. Individual apparatus finals won't take place at individual European Championships anymore. Those finals will then be held at Group European Championships in the years in between. For them, the 16 best gymnasts per apparatus will be invited. The next European Championships for groups will take place in Riesa (GER) from April 2nd - 4th, 2002. The previous European Championships for groups took place in June 2001 in Geneva (SUI).
(Please look for reporting on them in "reports")

The favourites come from Russia

The Russian gymnasts are the title holders in the team competition as well as in the individual all-around (Alina Kabaeva). Kabeva and fellow gymnast Irina Tchachina are allowed to compete despite of the pending doping- proceedings as the international Court of Arbitration of Sports CAS has interrupted their suspension. A decision in the proceedings will only be made after the ECh's on November 13th.
Irina Tchachina who already didn't take part in the last Grand Prix tournaments due to an injury hasn't travelled to Granada. However, nobody doubts that Alina Kabaeva and her fellow gymnasts Lyasan Utyacheva and Sarina Gizikova will dominate the team competiton anyway. In the individual all-around also the gymnasts from Ukraine Tamara Yerofeeva, the reigning World Champion, and Anna Bessonova as well as Simona Peycheva from Bulgaria and Yelena Tkachenko from Belarus will have chances to win a medal. It is still open if and how the 2nd placed from the last Olympic Games Yulia Raskina, who can be found on the entry list, will present herself as she has been away from the international competiton scene almost completely since the Olympic Games.

First European Championships without German participation

For the first time in the history of the European Championships the competitions will take place without German participation. After the Group World Championships in July the RSG officials have decided to concentrate all power on the development of a strong group in order to manage the qualification for the Olympic Games in 2003.
For this reason the two individual gymnasts Olga Lukjanov (Wattenscheid) and Isabell Piepiorra (Schmiden) have joined the group. In addition to this, Lena Asmus (Wattenscheid), a participant of the last Olympic Games, has finished her carreer.