Learn About, Olympics Gymnastics
About, Olympics Gymnastics
posted at Johannas Corner
Chinese fans are looking forward to the gymnastics competitions at the Beijing Games more than any other sport. Australian gymnasts arelooking to snare their first Olympic artistic medal in Beijing. Australia failed to qualify a full men’s team at the 2007 World Championships. 1
Gymnastics is defined as exercises for the balanced development of the body, or the competitive sport derived from these exercises. Olympic gymnastics is split into completely different disciplines for men and women. Men compete on pommel horse, rings, parallel bars, vault, horizontal bar, floor exercises, and on the trampoline. Women compete on the balance beam, vault, floor exercises, uneven parallel bars, in rhythmic gymnastics and on the trampoline. 2
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The first Australian Olympic gymnasts competed in Melbourne in 1956. Australia has never won a medal in artistic or rhythmic gymnastics, with a best placing of seventh coming from the women’s combined team at Barcelona 1992 and Sydney 2000. Ji Wallace received Australia’s first medal in gymnastics when he came second in the men’s trampoline in the sports’ debut at the Sydney Games. 3
Gymnastics appeared in the first Olympic Games of the modern era in Athens in 1896. The sport has been on the Olympic program ever since, with women first competing in Amsterdam 1928. The 1970s saw Olympic gymnastics, particularly for women change from being a physical display to entertainment. Rhythmic gymnastics which is for women only was added in 1984 and trampolining debuted at Sydney 2000. 4
This was followed in 1976 by Romania’s Nadia Comaneci becoming the first gymnast in Olympic history to earn perfect scores. She is regarded by many as one of the greatest athletes in the 20th century and the world’s greatest gymnasts of all time. At the tender age of fourteen, in Montreal, Quebec Nadia Comaneci became the star of the 1976 Summer Olympics. Not only did she become the first gymnast at the Olympics Games to receive the perfect score of ten (a feat she managed seven times), she also won three gold medals; for individual all-around, the beam and the uneven bars; a silver medal in the team all-around, and a bronze for floor exercises. Back home in her native Belarus, her success led her to be named a “Hero of Socialist Labor,” the youngest Romanian ever to receive that honour. 5
He won three gold, two silver and one bronze medals in men’s gymnastics at the 23rd Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 1984, making him the athlete winning the most medals at that Olympics. He became the only Asian member of the International Olympic Committee Athletes’ Commission in 1987. 6
Currently, the men’s program is rebuilding after USA’s crushing 13th-place finish at the 2006 World Championships. However, hopes dimmed in July when team leader Paul Hamm withdrew from the games due to a wrist injury just weeks before Olympics opening day. 7
There are eight teams competing in the team finals (for both men and women). Each team comprises six gymnasts with five competing on each apparatus and the top four scores counting towards the team total (preliminaries). For the final, each country nominates three gymnasts per apparatus with all three scores counting. The team with the highest score out of 240.00 points for men and 160.00 points for women wins the gold medal. 8
The Americans, who were in the running for the silver until their last two apparatus, won the bronze in Beijing with a roster patched together at the last minute. Brothers Paul and Morgan Hamm withdrew with injuries. 9
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Tags: australian gymnasts, balance beam, barcelona 1992, chinese fans, combined team, first olympic games, floor exercises, games 3, horizontal bar, montreal quebec, nadia comaneci, olympic gymnastics, olympic gymnasts, olympic history, olympic program, rhythmic gymnastics, sydney 2000, sydney games, tender age, uneven parallel bars
Tags: australian gymnasts, balance beam, barcelona 1992, chinese fans, combined team, first olympic games, floor exercises, games 3, horizontal bar, montreal quebec, nadia comaneci, olympic gymnastics, olympic gymnasts, olympic history, olympic program, rhythmic gymnastics, sydney 2000, sydney games, tender age, uneven parallel bars