Artistic gymnastics

History

Performing movements similar to those used in artistic gymnastics today dates back to Ancient Egypt. However, historians point Greece as the birthplace of gymnastics. The search for the perfect body to practice sport and enhance military performance is at the core of the sport.

During the Middle Ages, after the fall of the Roman Empire, this concern for the perfect body lost steam and gymnastics was ostracised, being practically restricted to acrobats. It would remain so until the beginning of the 19^th century, when in 1811, Friedrich Ludwig Christoph Jahn from Germany founded the first outdoor gymnastics school.

Although Jahn’s goal was not sport – he intended on preparing young Germans physically to face Napoleon Bonaparte’s army -, the idea disseminated to other European countries, which started to adopt the exercises. Ludwig Jahn designed the pommel horse, parallel bars, balance beam and uneven bars. He also developed the jumping events for the sport. He is considered the ‘father of gymnastics’, despite having been persecuted and arrested after the sport was deemed dangerous and of a revolutionary nature.

But the seed sowed by Jahn had already grown and bore fruit. A lot of German gymnasts started disseminating the sport to other nations, with Brazil among them. After decades being prohibited, in 1881 the European Federation of Gymnastics (EFG) was founded in Liege in Belgium. The sport reached a new level, winning over more and more fans, fascinated by the gymnasts’ strength, precision and dexterity.

The events

Artistic gymnastics encompasses several events, in men’s and women’s competition. They are:

Men

• Floor exercise
• Pommel horse
• Rings
• Vault
• Parallel bars
• Horizontal bar

Women

• Floor exercise
• Vault
• Uneven bars
• Balance beam

Curiosities

Olympic tradition

Gymnastics is one of four sports that has been part of the Olympic programme since the first edition of the Games in the Modern Era, in Athens 1896. The others are athletics, fencing and swimming.

Simply perfect

Nadia Comaneci from Romania got her name in the history books at the Montreal Olympics in 1976. After a top notch performance on the uneven bars, she became the first gymnast in history (among men and women) to score maximum points with all the seven judges. In that edition of the Games, she won five medals, three gold (uneven bars, balance beam and individual), a silver (team) and a bronze (floor exercise).