The Floor

Victoria Komova (Russia) at the 2012 Olympics

The floor originated as a 'free form' excercise for men. Women werent allowed to compete on floor until 1948.
Gymnasts compete on the floor by performing a specially choreographed routine made of leaps, tumbles, and dancing, that moves all over the floor area. The floor is square in shape, and sprung underneath.
Womens floor routines are up to 90 seconds long, and are always performed to music.

Scoring

Gymnasts are scored on a number of different things;
The difficulty of the tumbling and leap series they perform,
How well they perform the moves,
Artistry in the dancing,
How well the routine relates to the music

International routines

Routines can include up to four tumbling lines, and several dance elements, turns and leaps. A floor routine must consist of at least:

• A passage of dance with at least two different leaps or hopsOne acro line with two different saltos
• Salto forward/sideward and backward
• Salto with double BA and salto with LA (minimum 360°) turn
• Dismount (the final salto performed, although it doesn't have to be the final element)

The Vault

LinLin Deng (China) on vault

History

The vault first began as a version of the mens pommel horse, without the handles. It was placed perpendicular to the run, as pictured below.





The vault stayed with this configuration for over a century in the Olympic games, but it was blamed for many serious and sometimes fatal accidents. FIG, the International Gymnastics Federation decided it was too dangerous and re-evaluated and changed the apparatus, citing both safety reasons and the desire to facilitate more impressive acrobatics. The new vaulting table still in use today, was first introduced at the 2001 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships.

Routines

In competitions, gymnasts perform on the vault by running at high speed down a padded runway. They jump onto the springboard and are launched onto the vaulting table onto their hands.

For vaults such as the Yurchenko, the gymnast will put their hands onto a mat that is placed before the springboard, round-off onto the board and do a back handspring onto the vault. The off-flight may be as simple as leaping over the apparatus or as complicated as executing several twists and turns in the air. The gymnast then lands on the mat on the other side of the apparatus.



The Uneven Bars

Gabby Douglas- 2012 Olympic All Around Champion

History Of the Uneven Bars.

The uneven bars, also known as the assymetric bars, originally consisted of mens parallel bars set at different heights. This meant that the two bars were very close together.
Routines of the early 1950's were mainly made up of moves that involved swinging around each of the bars, and moving from one bar to another. 
In the late 1950's, the design of the bars was changed, moving them further apart. Many of the moves popular before then, such as beats (bouncing the body off the low bar while hanging from the high bar), and wraps (wrapping the body around the low bar while hanging from the high bar) , were no longer possible.
Release moves and dismounts were introduced, and the difficulty was raised.  In 1972 Olga Korbut pioneered the Korbut flip, the first high bar release move. Nadia Comaneci continued the trend with her original Comaneci salto at the 1976 Olympics and advanced handstand elements four years later. The giant swing, was also adopted into the Code of Points, and quickly became a basic uneven bars skill.

Routines.

Routines start very simply, and the easiest bars routines are performed on a single high bar, and involved swinging back and forth. Routines develop into very complex performances, and include release moves from one bar to another, and dismounts of twisting somersaults.
International level routines must include:

• Flight element from high bar to low bar and vice versa
• Flight element on the same bar
• At least two different grips, and a close bar circle element
• Non flight with a turn on the bar, for example turning handstands
• Dismount



The Beam

Nastia Liukin- 2008 Olympic All Around Champion

On the beam, routines are made of a series of leaps, acrobatic skills, dance elements and poses.
Every beam routine must begin with a mount onto the beam, and a dismount off the beam.
Routines start off very easy, and can include walking 5 steps, turning, and simple straight jumps.
They can also be very advanced, with gymnasts turning somersaults, backflips and walkovers.
Once a gymnast can perform the most difficult moves on the beam, they begin to combine moves one after another to increase the difficulty level.
International level routines must include:

• A connection of two dance elements, one a leap, jump, or hop with legs in 180 degree split
• A full turn on one foot
• One series of two acrobatic skills
• Acrobatic elements in different directions (forward/sideward and backward)

Beam routines can last up to 1.30 minutes, and after 90 seconds is up, a deduction is taken from the score. 
 Several different things decide the gymnasts final score. Judges add up the scores given for each move and combination the gymnast performs. They then deduct marks for falls, balance checks, and failure to fulfill the required code of points elements (leaving something out).

2012 London Olympics Results

Team All Around

1st  Team USA  183.596
Gabby Douglas, McKayla Maroney, Jordyn Weiber, Aly Raisman, Kyla Ross

2nd  Team Russia 178.530
Ksenia Afanasyeva, Anastasia Grishina, Victoria Komova, Aliya Mustafina, Maria Paseka

3rd  Team Romania 176.414
Diana Bulimar, Diana Chelaru, Larisa Iordache, Sandra Izbașa,  Cătălina Ponor

Individual All Around

1^st- Gabby Douglas - USA - 62.232
2^nd- Victoria Komova - Russia - 61.973 

3^rd- Aliya Mustafina - Russia - 59.566

Bars

1st- Aliya Mustafina- Russia-  16.133

2nd – He Kexin- China- 15.933

3rd- Beth Tweddle- Britain- 15.916

Beam

1st Deng Linlin - China - 15.600

2nd  Sui Lu - China - 15.5003

rd Aly Raisman - USA - 15.066

Vault

 1st Sandra Izbașa - Romania - 15.191

 2nd McKayla Maroney - USA - 15.083

 3rd Maria Paseka - Russia - 15.050

Floor

1st   Aly Raisman - USA  15.600 

2nd   Cătălina Ponor - Romania - 15.200 

3rd   Aliya Mustafina - Romania - 14.900 

What is Gymnastics?

Gym~nas~tics

noun (plural) Phonetics- /Jim-nas-tiks/ Gymnastics, plural Exercises developing or displaying physical agility and coordination. The modern sport of artistic gymnastics typically involves exercises on uneven bars, balance beam, floor, and vaulting horse (for women), and horizontal and parallel bars, rings, floor, and pommel horse (for men)

Origins Of Gymnastics

Gymnastics first originated in Ancient Greece, and the name originally came from 'Gymnos', A Greek word meaning naked. It was so called because gymnasts would usually compete naked.
The Ancient Greeks developed the sport because they believed that gymnastics was the perfect balance between mind and body.
Gymnasts not only trained in physical Gymnastics, they also recieved training in Music, Literature and Philosophy. Gymnastics was used for many different things by the Greeks, including skills for mounting and dismounting a horse, and circus performance skills.
Roman Soldiers training for battle also followed a gymnastic-like training regime.

The phrase 'Artistic Gymnastics' was not used until the 1800's. It was coined to differentiate between the type of gymnastics we know today, and the gymnastic techniques that were used in the military to train soldiers.

The governing body of Gymnastics around the world, The Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique, also known as FIG, was formed in 1881 to write up a set of internationally recognized rules. Each country has its own national governing body affiliated to FIG.
For example, in Ireland, it is known as 'Gymnastics Ireland.'
 Link to the website is here -->   http://www.gymnasticsireland.com

The Gymnastics we know today was slowly formed and developed over the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries, and by 1954 the international rules regarding apparatus and skills grading, 
had been standardized and modernized. 
The sport continues to evolve, with new moves and skillsets being changed and added. 

Introduction

My name is Sadbh, and this is my blog on the geography of Artistic Gymnastics. I will be blogging about the origins of Gymnastics, the Olympics, and how the sport has developed over time. I will also have posts about the different training techniques in different countries, scoring and rules, and informations about different elite gymnasts from all over the world.