Founded in 1881, the International Gymnastics Federation is the oldest international sports federation in the world. The origin of gymnastics dates to antiquity, when it was recommended by philosophers as a way of combining physical exercise with intellectual activity. The sport grew in popularity during the 19th century as an increasing number of competitions were formed, including the gymnastics competition at the newly revived Olympic Games in Athens in 1896.
Brief overview of the rules
Artistic gymnastics is composed of a number of individual competitions on different apparatus, as well as a team competition involving gender-specific apparatus. Each piece of apparatus requires different skills. Men compete across the floor exercise, pommel horse, rings, vault, parallel bars, and horizontal bar, while women’s events include the vault, uneven bars, balance beam, and floor exercise. Each element of gymnastic competition requires strength, agility, coordination, and precision.
Up until 2004, gymnastic routines at the Games were evaluated with a maximum of 10 points, but from 2005 the mode of scoring changed to a combination of a D score (difficulty/content of the exercise) and an E score (execution) to allow for a greater variation between athletes’ performances.
Changes to the scoring system were first considered following the Montreal 1976 Olympic Games, when Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci became the first competitor in history to earn a perfect score of 10.0 for her routine on the uneven bars during the team competition.
Olympic history
Artistic gymnastics was introduced at the very first Olympic Games of the modern era in 1896 and has been included in every edition since. The competition was restricted to male competitors for 32 years until the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam, when women were allowed to compete for the first time. It wasn't until 1952 that the women’s programme was developed with seven events, and then later stabilised at six events, as has been the case since the 1960 Games in Rome. There are eight events on the men’s programme.
