Gymnastics is a sport involving the performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, power, agility, coordination, grace and balance. Internationally, all of the competitive gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG). Each country has its own national governing body (BIW) affiliated to FIG. Competitive artistic gymnastics is the best known of the gymnastic sports. It typically involves the womens events of uneven bars, balance beam, floor exercise, and vault. Mens events are floor exercise, pommel horse, still rings, vault, parallel bars, and high bar. Gymnastics evolved from exercises used by the ancient Greeks that included skills for mounting and dismounting a horse, and from circus performance skills. Other gymnastic disciplines include: rhythmic gymnastics, trampolining, Team Gym, tumbling, aerobic gymnastics and acrobatic gymnastics. Participants can include children as young as 20 months old doing kindergym and childrens gymnastics, recreational gymnasts of ages 5 and up, competitive gymnasts at varying levels of skill, and world class athletes. Etymology The word gymnastics derives from the common Greek adjective γυμνός (gymnos) meaning naked,[1] by way of the related verb γυμνάζω (gymnazo), whose meaning is to train naked, train in gymnastic exercise, generally to train, to exercise.[2] The verb had this meaning, because athletes in ancient times exercised and competed without clothing. 1570s, from Latin gymnasticus, from Greek gynmastikos fond of or skilled in bodily exercise, from gymnazein to exercise or train (see gymnasium). History In 1569, Girolamo Mercuriale from Forlì (Italy) wrote Le Arte Gymnastica, which brought together his study of the attitudes of the ancients toward diet, exercise and hygiene, and the use of natural methods for the cure of disease. De Arte Gymnastica also explained the principles of physical therapy and is considered the first book on sports medicine. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Germany, three pioneer physical educators – Johann Friedrich GutsMuths (1759–1839) and Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (1778– 1852) – created exercises for boys and young men on apparatus they had designed that ultimately led to what is considered modern gymnastics. Don Francisco Amorós y Ondeano, marquis de Sotelo, was born on February 19, 1770 in Valence and died on August 8, 1848 in Paris. He was a Spanish colonel, and the first person to introduce educative gymnastic in France. Jahn promoted the use of parallel bars, rings and high bar in international competition.[3] The Federation of International Gymnastics (FIG) was founded in Liege in 1881.[4] By the end of the nineteenth century, mens gymnastics competition was popular enough to be included in the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. From then on until the early 1950s, both national and international competitions involved a changing variety of exercises gathered under the rubric, gymnastics, that would seem strange to todays audiences and that included for example, synchronized team floor calisthenics, rope climbing, high jumping, running, and horizontal ladder. During the 1920s, women organized and participated in gymnastics events. The first womens Olympic competition was primitive, for it involved only synchronized calisthenics, was held at the 1928 Games, in Amsterdam. By 1954, Olympic Games apparatus and events for both men and women had been standardized in modern format, and uniform grading structures (including a point system from 1 to 15) had been agreed upon. At this time, Soviet gymnasts astounded the world with highly disciplined and difficult performances, setting a precedent that continues. The new medium of television has helped publicize and initiate a modern age of gymnastics. Both mens and womens gymnastics now attract considerable international interest, and excellent gymnasts can be found on every continent. Nadia Comăneci received the first perfect score, at the 1976 Summer Olympics held in Montreal, Canada. She was coached in Romania by coach, (Hungarian ethnicity), Béla Károlyi. Comaneci scored four of her perfect tens on the uneven bars, two on the balance beam and one in the floor exercise.[5] Even with Nadias perfect scores, the Romanians lost the gold medal to the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, Comaneci became an Olympic icon. In 2006, a new points system for Artistic gymnastics was put into play. With an A Score (or D score) being the difficulty score, which as of 2009 is based on the top 8 high scoring elements in a routine (excluding Vault). The B Score (or E Score), is the score for execution, and is given for how well the skills are performed.[6] International competitive gymnastics Artistic gymnastics Main article: Artistic gymnastics Artistic gymnastics is usually divided into Mens and Womens Gymnastics. Men compete on six events: Floor Exercise, Pommel Horse, Still Rings, Vault, Parallel Bars, and High Bar, while women compete on four: Vault, Uneven Bars, Balance Beam, and Floor Exercise. In some countries, women at one time competed on the rings, high bar, and parallel bars (for example, in the 1950s in the USSR). Though routines performed on each event may be short, they are physically exhausting and push the gymnasts strength, flexibility, endurance and awareness to the limit. In 2006, FIG introduced a new points system for Artistic gymnastics in which scores are no longer limited to 10 points. The system is used in the US for elite level competition.[6] Unlike the old code of points, there are two separate scores, an execution score and a difficulty score. In the previous system, the execution score was the only score. It was and still is out of 10.00. During the gymnasts performance, the judges deduct from this score only. A fall, on or off the event, is a 1.00 deduction, in elite level gymnastics. The introduction of the difficulty score is a significant change. The gymnasts difficulty score is based on what elements they perform and is subject to change if they do not perform or complete all the skills, or they do not connect a skill meant to be connected to another. Connection bonuses are the most common deduction from a difficulty score, as it can be difficult to connect multiple flight elements. It is very hard to connect skills if the first skill is not performed correctly. The new code of points allows the gymnasts to gain higher scores based on the difficulty of the skills they perform as well as their execution. There is no maximum score for difficulty, as it can keep increasing as the difficulty of the skills increase.
Posted on: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 00:57:41 +0000