Artistic gymnastics is a discipline of gymnastics where gymnasts do short routines of approximately 30 to 90 seconds on different apparatuses. It is a popular spectator sport at the Olympic Games. As a participant sport, however, it is not popular because of very high levels of fitness and skill and sufficient training required of any gymnast. The artistic gymnastics for men is the oldest form of gymnastics having its first major competition in the Athens Olympics in 1896 and first world championships in Belgium in 1903. In the Luxembourg world championship in 1930, several events were added such as pole vault, broad jump, rope climb, shot put, and the 100-meter sprint but only to be phased out in 1954.
Successful gymnasts utilize various apparatuses in the different events of the competition. What is common to both men’s and women’s competition is the vaulting horse for the vault event. With this piece of equipment, a gymnast sprints on the runway, this is usually 25 meters long, before leaping onto a spring board to direct his body hands-first to the vaulting horse. This equipment, however, has now been replaced by the tongue or table which is wider and longer and more stable than the vaulting horse. The other apparatuses for male gymnasts include the sprung floor, pommel horse, steel rings, parallel bars and the high bar.
The sprung floor is a 12x12-meter area where a gymnast performs a series of tumbling passes to demonstrate his balance, strength and flexibility. The pommel horse is used for swinging or balancing feats, and consists of a padded rectangular form with two pommels or rounded handles. The steel rings are rings suspended on wire cables five to eight meters from the floor with which a gymnast performs a routine to demonstrate his strength, balance, dynamic motion and power. The parallel bars consist of two bars which are more than a shoulder-width apart, 1.75-meter high on which a gymnast does a series of balances, swings and releases. The high bar is a 2.4-cm thick steel bar that is 2.5 meters above the landing area, where a gymnast performs around it to show his skill in releases, twists, and in changes of direction. Female gymnasts, on the other hand, use the uneven bars or asymmetric bars, balance beam and sprung floor. The asymmetric bars are two horizontal bars of different heights where the gymnast performs circling, swinging, release and transitional moves. The balance beam is a padded sprung beam where a gymnast does leaps, turns, acrobatic skills and dance elements in a 70-90-second choreographed routine, The sprung floor is a carpeted 12x12-meter floor of hard foam and spring support for a female gymnast performing her routine of choreographed jumps, tumbling passes, acrobatic skills and also dance elements.
The apparatuses for artistic gymnastics, classified into Men’s Artistic Gymnastics (MAG) and Women’s Artistic Gymnastics (WAG) have certain norms or standards set by the Federation Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG). They are supported by national federations of countries where the sport is played and regulated.
