Twenty-five federations participated in the 27th Congress and General Assembly of the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique in London (GBR). Among those elected and promoted to a variety of new functions and responsibilities figured a woman, Berthe Villancher. She was a Frenchwoman, born in Besançon in the Doubs department in 1908. She had just become the new secretary to the Women's Technical Committee.

One-hundred years later at the 2008 Olympic Games of Beijing (CHN), champions Cheng Fei and Nastia Liukin are likely unaware of the fact that this one woman's intelligence and pugnacity are the reasons for which female competitions exist today, and that it was because of her efforts that they can celebrate and savour the glory of their Olympic titles.

Artistic gymnastics has enjoyed competitive status since the 1896 Olympic Games. As early as 1903, the FIG would stage the discipline's first world championships in Anvers (BEL). But events were male-only, an illustration of the obstacles faced by women in countless fields at that time. Sport and gymnastics circles were no exception.

Yet voices rose up from the masses, particularly the voice of Berthe Villancher. A professor of physical education, Villancher took up the long and laborious journey of women's rights early on, advocating at the highest level of the sports hierarchy. Pugnacious, intelligent and passionate, she didn't discourage easily. Her first victory would come directly from the International Olympic Committee, who entered women's gymnastics competitions on the programme for the Games in Amsterdam (NED) in 1928. The FIG wouldn't budge, obstinate as its parallel bars.

Finally in 1934, the world championships were opened to women in Budapest (HUN). And although Berthe Villancher savoured the victory, she had a new vision. A female discipline, governed by women, for women. She would crusade alongside fellow protagonists for modern gymnastics, a sport which would later become Rhythmic Gymnastics. It held its premier world championships in 1963, also in Budapest, while the 1984 Games in Los Angeles would be the first to receive the sport under its Olympic standing.
Berthe Villancher passed away in 2000 at the age of 92 years, but not without having first been honoured and recognised by the IOC and FIG both. The federation owes a lifetime to this feisty bit of a woman; a true lady, she wielded her influence within the Women's Technical Committee for years.

Her legacy is immeasurable. The FIG owes a good part of its prominence to Berthe Villancher, whose fingerprint remains on the infrastructures of a great federation. The majority of the international elite are made up of female gymnasts, and nearly 50% of the federation's authorities and staff are women. As a poet once wrote, woman is the future of man!