Largest gymnastics festival World Gymnaestrada will be held again in A'dam after 32 years

Amsterdam will be the host of the World Gymnaestrada next week. This is the largest gymnastics festival in the world, held every four years. The event, which was last organized in Amsterdam 32 years ago, will be attended by 19,000 amateur athletes from all over the world.

Most parts of the festival will take place at RAI Amsterdam and the Olympic Stadium, where the opening ceremony will be held on Sunday at 4 p.m. Until Saturday, August 5, there will be shows ranging from acrobatic gymnastics and dance to freerunning and trampolining.

Although participants have trained for years to perform, the World Gymnaestrada is not a competition. According to the organizers, it's about "the overall experience, the celebration, and the sense of togetherness." The event also gives an Olympic feel as "participants represent their countries with pride and different cultures come together."

There will also be a large silent disco at the RAI on Wednesday night and several free shows and workshops at Vondelpark.

The first edition of the gymnastics festival was held in Rotterdam in 1953. After that, it was organized in countries such as Denmark, Germany, Finland, Austria, Portugal, Sweden, and Switzerland. The last time the festival was held was in Amsterdam in 1991.