Artistic gymnastics is a discipline of gymnastics in which athletes perform short routines on different apparatuses. The sport is governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG), which designs the Code of Points and regulates all aspects of elite international competition. Within individual countries, gymnastics is regulated by national federations like British Gymnastics and USA Gymnastics. Artistic gymnastics is a popular spectator sport at many competitions, including the Summer Olympic Games.
History
The gymnastic system was mentioned in writings by ancient authors, including Homer, Aristotle, and Plato. It included many disciplines that later became independent sports, such as swimming, racing, wrestling, boxing, and horse riding. It was also used for military training.
In its present form, gymnastics evolved in Bohemia and what is now known as Germany at the beginning of the 19th century. The term "artistic gymnastics" was introduced to distinguish freestyle performances from those used by the military. The German educator Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, who was known as the father of gymnastics, invented several apparatuses, including the horizontal bar and parallel bars that are used to this day. Two of the first gymnastics clubs were Turnvereins and Sokols.
The FIG was founded in 1881, and it remains the governing body of international gymnastics. The organization initially included only three countries and was called the European Gymnastics Federation until 1921, when the first non-European countries joined and it was reorganized into its present form.
Gymnastics was included in the 1896 Summer Olympics, but female gymnasts were not allowed to participate in the Olympics until 1928. The World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, held since 1903, were only open to men until 1934. Since then, two branches of artistic gymnastics have developed: women's artistic gymnastics (WAG) and men's artistic gymnastics (MAG). Unlike men's and women's branches of many other sports, WAG and MAG differ significantly in technique and in apparatuses used at major competitions.
Women's artistic gymnastics
As a team event, women's gymnastics entered the Olympics in 1928 and the World Championships in 1950. Individual women were recognized in the all-around as early as the 1934 World Championships. The current women's program—all-around and event finals on the vault, uneven bars, balance beam, and floor exercise—was introduced at the 1950 World Championships and at the 1952 Summer Olympics.
The earliest champions in women's gymnastics tended to be in their 20s, and most had studied ballet for years before entering the sport. Larisa Latynina, the first great Soviet gymnast, won her first Olympic all-around medal at age 22 and her second at 26; she became world champion in 1958 while pregnant. Věra Čáslavská of Czechoslovakia, who followed Latynina and became a two-time Olympic all-around champion, was 22 when she won her first Olympic gold medal.
In the 1970s, the average age of Olympic gymnasts began to decrease. While it was not unheard of for teenagers to compete in the 1960s - Ludmilla Tourischeva was 16 at her first Olympics in 1968 - younger female gymnasts slowly became the norm as the sport's difficulty increased. Smaller, lighter girls generally excelled in the more challenging acrobatic elements required by the redesigned Code of Points. The 58th Congress of the FIG — held in July 1980, just before the Olympics — decided to raise the minimum age for senior international competition from 14 to 15. However, the change, which came into effect two years later, did not eliminate the problem. By the time of the 1992 Summer Olympics, elite gymnasts consisted almost exclusively of "pixies" — underweight young teenagers — and concerns were raised about athletes' welfare.
In 1997, the FIG responded to this trend by raising the minimum age for international elite competition to 16. This, combined with changes in the Code of Points and evolving popular opinion in the sport, led to the return of older gymnasts. While the average elite female gymnast is still in her mid to late teens, and below-average height and weight, it is now common to see gymnasts competing well into their 20s. At the 2004 Olympics, both the second-place American team and the third-place Russians were captained by women in their mid-20s; several other teams, including those from Australia, France, and Canada, included older gymnasts as well. At the 2008 Olympics, the silver medalist on vault, Oksana Chusovitina, was a 33-year-old mother.