World Acrobatics Society Inducts Class of 2024 into Hall of Fame
Las Vegas, NV (9/7/2024) - - The World Acrobatics Society (WAS) celebrated its 28th anniversary (1996-2024) at its annual “Hall of Fame” banquet on September 7, 2024, at the Tuscany Casino & Suites in Las Vegas. An audience of nearly 145 people honored the Class of 2024 inductees, who were selected for their high level of accomplishment and contributions to the acrobatic community. “It was an outstanding event!” proclaimed WAS President Scott Crouse as the evening’s festivities concluded.
Including these 9 honorees, the WAS Hall of Fame has inducted 334 individuals from around the world. These outstanding individuals have been selected for their excellence in their specific disciplines, with many continuing to stay involved in a professional and exemplary manner. In addition, they have contributed to society and the growth of acrobatics on a national and worldwide basis.
ACROBATIC GYMNASTICS - Eva Rucka
Rucka has played a pivotal role in acrobatic gymnastics, not only in Poland, where she represented her country winning multiple National titles, but also in the U.S. and Canada as a successful coach, who produced champion athletes. Rucka began her career in Warsaw, Poland, and quickly dominated the acrobatic Women’s Pairs event. She and her partner Ewa Anderszewka won the Polish National Championships in 1974, ’75, ’77, and ’78. They also won the silver medal at the First European Championships, in 1978, held in Riga, USSR, and won the bronze medal at the 1978 World Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria. Rucka's coaches in Poland, Konrad and Gizela Zielinski were well-known on the international stage and Konrad Zielinski is a 2005 WAS Hall of Fame Legend.
Arriving in the U.S. during the late 1970s, she spent the next four years coaching Acrobatic Gymnastics in Quincy, Illinois at Tri-City Acrosports where she coached numerous Age Group, Jr Elite, and Elite National Champions in women's pairs and trios. In 1983, her Elite women's pair won the USSF National Championships earning them a spot on the USA National Team for the World Cup.
In 1983, Rucka moved permanently to Canada where in 1998 she opened the very first acrobatics club in Canada, Les Gymnastes de L’Ile, located in Quebec. In 2008, her women's trio was the first to represent Canada in an international competition in Glasgow, Scotland. Then her women’s pair competed in the 2010 World Championships in Wroclaw, Poland.
After many tireless years of paving the way for this beautiful sport in Canada, it was a proud moment when in 2010 Rucka, along with her husband Andre Cichalewska, a FIG judge, received word that acrobatics was officially recognized as a discipline within the Gymnastics Canada Federation.
ACTION SPORTS – John Heiney
A champion aerobatic hang glider who in 1988, broke the Guinness World Record for performing 52 consecutive loops, and then again in 1998. Heiney was a four-time World Aerobatic Hang Gliding champion; in 1987, 1991, 1992, and 1997. In addition, Heiney excels in aerial photography and invented numerous camera mounts to capture the magic of flying. His photographs have been published in many international hang gliding and paragliding magazines as well as featured on the cover of Hang Gliding Magazine from 1981 through 2007. A prolific writer, Heiney’s interviews of iconic flyers and recounting of the history of hang gliding can be found in over 20 publications.
Heiney graduated with honors from Milwaukee School of Engineering in 1970 with an AAS degree and began hang gliding in 1978. His innate flying skills secured him a job as a Factory Pilot and Promotional Photographer for Delta Wing Gliders in Van Nuys, California. Over the next years, Heiney expanded into designing hang gliders, writing flight manuals, consulting for other companies, and even stunt flying for film, events and TV commercials, and sports shows. Heiney resides in San Marcos, CA, where since 2001 he has been a freelance photographer and operates the San Diego Hang Gliding School.
ARTISTIC GYMNASTICS – Vladimir Artemov
Artemov is a multiple Olympic and world champion in artistic gymnastics who continues to share his knowledge and skills as a coach and mentor to young gymnasts.
Born in the Soviet Union, Artemov won his first world title in 1983 and over the next years won a combined total of 18 world and Olympic medals—10 of them gold—from 1983 to 1989. Artemov's crowning achievement came at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, Korea, where he won four gold medals (team, all-around, parallel bars, and high bar) and one silver medal (floor exercise). During his prestigious career representing the Soviet Union Artemov was considered to be one of the greatest parallel bars gymnasts of all time.
Following immigrating to the U.S., Artemov spent the next 30 years coaching and producing champion gymnasts. He is a Brevet Judge for international artistic gymnastics competitions. Artemov lives with his wife Susan in San Antonio, Texas, and is a coach at San Antonio Gymnastics Academy.
DIVING – Michael Hixon
Growing up in Amhurst, Massachusetts, Hixon was introduced to diving by his mother, who was an All-American diver at Ohio State University and the diving coach at UMass. Being a youngster and able to train alongside the UMass divers ignited his love of diving. At the age of 12, he won the 1-meter competition at the 2006 National Championships and held that title for three years running. Following high school, Hixon set his sights on qualifying for the Olympics. Over the next six years, Hixon won numerous collegiate, national, and international titles including a two-time World Junior Championships medalist; 1-meter bronze in 2012, and synchronized 3-meter silver in 2010. NCAA 2014 Championships; 1-meter and 3-meter. A five-time national champion; two for 1-meter, one for 3-meter, and two for synchronized 3-meter. Hixon was a four-time Junior Pan American Championships medalist; 2011: gold, 3-meter; bronze 1-meter; 2009: bronze, 1-meter, and 3-meter.
Qualifying for the 2016 Rio Olympics, Hixon paired with Sam Dorman (WAS 2022 Diving Legend), to win a silver medal in a 3-meter springboard event. At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, he won a silver medal in the same event with synchro partner Andrew Capobianco.
Hixon earned an MBA from the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. He is retired from diving and married to Canadian Olympic swimmer Kennedy Goss. They live in NYC where Hixon is an investment banker.
PROFESSIONAL ACROBATICS – The Flying Caballerro Family
For the Caballero family, a sixth-generation circus family from Guadalajara, Mexico, home is where the big top is. The Circus Hermanos Caballero travels year-round across the U.S. and around the globe and incorporates various acts in its shows including music, dance, motorcycle cage, acrobats, and clowns. When the original Caballero family came to America from Guadalajara, Mexico, they were flying trapeze artists and worked for many years for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, ‘The Greatest Show on Earth.’ When it closed in 2017, Ruben Caballero Sr. decided to create their own circus show and tour America.
Certainly, the highlight of every show is The Flying Caballero trapeze act. Its members have broken several world records including, when Ruben Caballero Jr., who now is ringmaster and performance director, was only 17, he performed a quadruple somersault on the trapeze. His son Ruben III, made the Guinness Book of World Records as the youngest performer to manage a triple somersault on the flying trapeze, and in 2021, his brother Gunther Caballero performed a quadruple somersault at the age of 14.
The Flying Caballeros’ greatest acrobatic feat was accomplished in 2023 when brothers Ruben III, Gunther, and cousin Anru “threw and caught three quadruple somersaults" into the hands of catcher Marco in one show during the 11th Festival Internacional del Circ Elefant d'Or in Girona, Spain. Remarkably, the troupe repeated its “three in a row quads” in a second show on the same day.
TUMBLING/TRAMPOLINE – Dian Nissen
Dian Nissen is a multiple-world-title trampoline athlete, AAU All-American, health and fitness expert, and entrepreneur.
Growing up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and the daughter of George Nissen (WAS 2001 T&T Legend), Nissen’s involvement with competitive trampoline began at an early age. Competing internationally at the first World Age Group Trampoline & Tumbling Games in 1972 at the age of 12 and becoming the U.S. National Trampoline champion in 1977 in all three trampoline events: Individual Trampoline, Synchronized Trampoline, and Double Mini-Trampoline at the age of 16. Nissen competed at multiple World Age Group Games between 1974 through 1978, winning world champion titles in Trampoline, Double Mini-Trampoline, and Synchronized Trampoline. She won multiple Nissen-Eterna Cup titles in Switzerland, placed 4th at the 1976 World Trampoline Championships, and became the Japanese National Trampoline Champion in 1977.
During these years, she helped her father, George Nissen, promote his invention of the modern trampoline by performing in hundreds of exhibitions and educational trampoline clinics throughout the U.S. and worldwide.
A graduate of the University of Iowa, Nissen holds a double Master of Science degree in Health Education and Exercise Science. She is a certified Pilates personal trainer, Flexibility Coach, and an ACE-Gold Certified Group Fitness Instructor and Health Coach. In 1994, Nissen founded her company, Ageless Fitness, to promote health and wellness for people of all ages and abilities. She is a women's health advocate and expert on women's wellness, fitness, and achieving maximum health. In 2014, Nissen founded the Nissen Trampoline Academy specializing in recreational and competitive trampoline.
Nissen continues to give back to the sport of trampoline gymnastics through her work with consumer safety organizations as an advocate of trampoline safety, education, and awareness. She co-authored a Trampoline Park Risk Management & Operations book focusing on improving core safety practices, supervision, and enforcement for the industry. Nissen is a member of the Board of Directors of the World Acrobatics Society, and the National Association of Intercollegiate Gymnastics Clubs (NAIGC), and is also co-chair of the NAIGC Trampoline and Tumbling Rules Committee.
Inspired by her father’s quest to improve his invention of the modern trampoline, Nissen continued to seek out fitness trampolines that were safe and of the highest quality. The bellicon® fitness trampoline met her criteria and she is a certified bellicon® fitness trampoline instructor through the bellicon® Academy.
Nissen remains one of the most successful competitive trampoline athletes in history and continues to coach trampoline. She is still bouncing to this day — where the switch from daily competition trampolining training changed to fitness trampolining and educating the world on “all things trampoline."
GOLDEN ACHIEVEMENT AWARD - Dave Black
Black excelled in floor exercise and trampoline as a member of the Hinsdale (Chicago) Central High School Gymnastics Team (1968-1971), In 1974, while attending Southern Illinois University on a partial gymnastics scholarship and in pursuit of his degree in Graphics Design, Black enrolled in a class that ignited his interest in photography. Following graduation, while continuing to hone his photography skills, Black worked as a coach at an age-group gymnastics club in Colorado Springs, when in 1980 he received a phone call from the USA Gymnastics team office. They offered him the position of Official Team Photographer for the USA Men’s, Women’s, and Rhythmic Gymnastics Teams. He accepted and began a new career and life.
As a freelance photographer for over 44 years Black’s work has primarily centered on the sports industry Covering a myriad of sports both amateur and professional, Black has photographed 12 Olympic Games, the NFL, MLB, NBA, NASCAR, the Masters, the US Open, the Kentucky Derby, and many more. Black's photos have appeared in Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, Time, National Geographic, Golf Digest, International Gymnast, Olympian Magazine, and SPORT along with publications and archives for the United States Olympic Committee (USOC). Presently, he is serving as an Ambassador for Nikon USA cameras, Black is an accomplished national and international photography consultant, Nikon Ambassador lecturer, and instructor. His instructional book, The Way I See It … is highly acclaimed in both the US and abroad, and his latest book: SPORTS IMAGES with Backstories & Techniques is equally popular with both photographers and sports enthusiasts. Black continues to lecture at Universities and Colleges each year.
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD – Hardy Fink
Born in Canada in 1947, Fink learned gymnastics at the Hamilton Germania Gymnastics Club. He competed at the National Level in Canada from 1965 to 1974 and represented Canada at competitions in Austria, Germany, and the 1970 FISU Games in Italy. This was in addition to holding the positions of head coach, vice president, and publicity chairman for his gymnastics club. In the mid-1970s Hardy and his wife, Cynthia, established the Port Alberni Gymnastics Academy, the first super-gym in Canada with many of the safety features that serve as a model for the super-gyms that have become popular today.
Fink developed judge education programs, participated in the development of the Canadian coaching certification program, established two more gymnastics clubs, served in multiple volunteer positions both nationally and provincially, and wrote 140 issues of a national team newsletter, as well as “The Gymnastics Technician” magazine. From 1988 to 1998, Fink served as the Canadian men’s national team coach and high-performance director.
At the age of 21, Fink became the youngest judge ever to earn an international judging brevet for men’s gymnastics. Over the last five decades, he judged at 35 major international competitions, including eight Olympic Games, and 20 World Championships.
In 2005, Fink focused on building and teaching a worldwide coach’s curriculum. As the Director of Education and Academy Programs for the FIG, his courses have been presented in over 484 seminars, to 8000 different coaches from 139 countries. His Age Group Development and Competition Programs serve as a “recipe” for the many dozens of gymnastics federations that do not have the resources or expertise to develop their own.
As a lifetime advocate for fitness, in 2017 and 2022, Fink competed at German Turnfests, held in Berlin, for his 70th and 75th birthdays. Hardy and Cynthia are proud to dedicate much of their time these days to their family, which includes their two daughters and 5 grandchildren.
