How do gymnasts create a floor routine, with Great Britain's Alice Kinsella
The European Championships floor silver medallist spoke to Olympics.com about her favourite ever routine, who chose her music, and what it takes to perform under the intense pressure of competition.
Artistic Gymnastics
"It’s my favourite floor routine I've ever had to do," a beaming Alice Kinsella told Olympics.com having just won silver on the apparatus at the artistic gymnastics European Championships in Antalya, Türkiye in April.
"I think that was honestly the best floor routine I've ever done with tumbles, leaps and spins, and I just couldn't be any happier," said the Brit who was only beaten to the title by compatriot and defending champion, Jessica Gadirova.
The pair are renowned for their artistry on the apparatus, with Gadirova aiming to defend her floor title at the upcoming World Championships in Antwerp, taking place 30 September to 8 October.
Their high floor scores in Türkiye contributed to a history-making first-ever European women's team title.
The previous year was a best-ever British women's World Championship result, with second place behind the United States. Courtesy of the top-three finish, a quota berth was secured for Great Britain at Paris 2024, with a five-person team to be selected by the National Olympic Committee nearer Games-time.
Yet, after a fall from Kinsella on beam, the penultimate piece of apparatus in front of a home crowd in Liverpool, the team had it all to do to cement their silver medal.
With just the floor exercise to go, the trio of twins Jess and Jen Gadirova, and Kinsella, knew they had to perform flawlessly if they were to make history.
They did it, with the hard work put in by all three on the showpiece event that requires stamina, grace, personality and precision, reaping the rewards.
So, with the floor exercise such an inherent part of the 'artistic' in artistic gymnastics, how does a routine even begin to take shape? Who picks the music? What does it need to contain? Who creates the dance moves?
Kinsella was happy to enlighten us.
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Alice Kinsella, dancing queen
"I have a choreographer and she's absolutely amazing," said Kinsella of Nicole Wooder, who creates all the GB women's national squad floor routines. "She gave me the best artistry for me to do personally."
That last statement is revealing.
Gymnasts have varying degrees of dance training before focusing solely on gymnastics, from none at all to childhood ballet to dance classes.
Kinsella is naturally elegant, but there's a lot of hard work that has gone into her floor routine to a point where she can not only compete flawlessly under immense pressure but dazzle judges and audiences alike.
First up, the gymnast and coaches must refer to the world governing body's Code of Points (COP), the book of dos and don'ts and high-scoring moves, if you will, for that cycle.
These are strictly regulated.
For example, for the 2022-24 period, floor routines must last no more than 90 seconds, timed from the first movement – gymnasts must begin their routines as soon as the music starts – to the final pose. Any diversion from this, and points could be deducted.
Any genre of music is allowed but it must be instrumental. Audience members singing along to top tracks instead of fully focusing on the performance in hand would be distracting – for gymnasts and judges alike.
Any discernible lyrics or words and the routine will end a lot quicker than the gymnast anticipated.
Music is a fundamental part of the routine, not just background noise. Dance moves should keep in tempo and a blend of tumbling passes and leaps, necessitated by the COP, which states requirements such as a minimum of three dance elements and a minimum of three tumbling passes, must all be considered.
Knowledge of these intricacies is where the likes of former gymnast and specialist choreographer Wooder step in.
Alice Kinsella's floor mastery
First up, pick the music. Not as easy as it sounds – funky, classical, rocky, beat-heavy, balletic, quirky – anything goes.
In Kinsella's case it was her coach, Brett Ince who suggested a track called Miami from American violinist and composer, Josh Vietti. Kinsella loved it.
"He picks pretty much all of my music," said Kinsella, "because I don't want to do that myself. But you have to like it as well, don't you?"
You really do. Listening to your floor music on a loop for training session after training session, and sometimes in your dreams such is the repetition, would be difficult enough, let alone if the music was loathed.
Next up, a discussion with the coach regarding the dance elements, tumbles, spins and leaps required, which incrementally add bonus marks to make up the final score.
Each element has points attributed to it – via our friend the COP – with marks added together to make up the D-score (difficulty) with marks deducted from a starting point of 10 for the execution score, (E-score).
"Me and my coach get together and think what the best leaps, spins and tumbles to do," explained Kinsella, with the pair working out whether a tumble finishes facing forwards or backwards, from which the dance position needs to start.
Linking up with the choreographer then enables all the moving parts to seamlessly come together into a cohesive routine.
Then it gets simple – practice, practice, practice.
"It is pretty hard having to train 24-7 for it to be that good," said Kinsella at the Europeans, who had also secured a Commonwealth Games floor title to her collection in 2022, "but honestly, without that hard work, I wouldn't have been here today."
The 22-year-old has another chance to showcase her beloved routine in Belgium at the looming 2023 World Championships, but gymnasts, including Kinsella, are increasingly eyeing the next Olympic Games, starting in less than a year's time, on the biggest stage of all.