Gymnastics at the 2024 Paris Olympics
Grab some of that white powder we're talking Artistic, Rhythmic, and Trampoline
Day one of Paris 2024 welcomes 10 straight action-packed days of Artistic and Trampoline Gymnastics, followed by 3 days of Rhythmic Gymnastics. Full transparency: I’m not fan of Trampoline or Rhythmic Gymnastics. Chances are you don’t even know what I’m talking about. I’d be the first to vote for cutting them to make room for other sports. Let’s do a quick overview of both before we get to the good stuff.
Rhythmic Gymnastics
Rhythmic gymnastics is a sport in which gymnasts perform on a floor with an apparatus: hoop, ball, clubs, ribbon and rope. The sport combines elements of gymnastics, dance and calisthenics; gymnasts must be strong, flexible, agile, dexterous and coordinated. Gymnasts are judged on their artistry, execution of skills, and difficulty of skills, for which they gain points. They perform leaps, balances, and rotations along with handling the apparatus. The sport is all women. In the individual all-around, gymnasts have their scores added from the 4 routines (hoop, ball, clubs, and ribbon). The group all-around functions the same way. The group all-around event features teams of 5. They perform just two routines, one with just balls, and another with hoops and clubs. Fun fact: Russia’s team at the Tokyo Olympics was comprised of Anastasiia, Anastasiia, Anastasiia, Angelina, and Alisa. In the team even, Russia saw a streak of 5 straight golds broken after a shocking upset by Bulgaria. In fact, Russia won 6/6 possible gold medals from 2008 to 2016, before being pushed down to silver in both 2021 events. Other nations with strong track records in this event are Belarus and Bulgaria.
Trampoline Gymnastics
Trampolining or trampoline gymnastics[1] is a competitive Olympic sport in which athletes perform acrobatics while bouncing on a trampoline.[2] In competition, these can include simple jumps in the straight, pike, tuck, or straddle position to more complex combinations of forward and/or backward somersaults and twists. Scoring is based on the difficulty and on the total seconds spent in the air. Points are deducted for bad form and horizontal displacement from the center of the bed. There is a men’s and women’s individual competition. Athletes in the final perform 2 routines in qualification to narrow the field from 16 to 8, then just 1 routine in the final. Since 2008, China has won 13 medals and 5 golds. The next best country is Canada with 2 golds and 2 silvers.
Artistic Gymnastics (The Basics)
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. This means the men have 8 total events, with the 6 disciplines plus Individual and Team All-Around. The women have 6 total events, with the 4 disciplines plus Individual and Team All-Around.
The Format
A total of 192 gymnasts are invited to this. Some will be part of the All-Around, while others will only do one discipline, competing to help their nation in the team event and for an individual gold medal. A total of 12 have qualified for each team event. The 7 countries that are part of both team events are China, Japan, United States, Great Britain, Canada, Italy, and Netherlands. With 5 spots per team, that already covers 120 invites, leaving 72 for athletes from other nations.
Qualification is vital. Athletes hoping to reach the All-Around final go through all 6 (men) or 4 (women) disciplines, while others just compete in their specialties. All of these qualifying routines determine which 8 teams advance to the Team All-Around final, which 24 athletes move on to the Individual All-Around Final, and which 8 athletes move on to the 10 other finals for individual disciplines. In 2021, Russia’s Nikita Nagornyy qualified for 4 out of 7 possible individual finals, while USA’s Simone Biles went 5/5 on qualifying for the finals in events.
There’s an important caveat to know here, only two athletes per country can qualify for any individual final. In 2021, the Women’s Uneven Bars event saw athletes from Russia qualify 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th. Those last two athletes were excluded from the final, clearing the way for Simone Biles (10th). If there had already been two Americans ranked higher, she would’ve been skipped in favor of the next person. Over the first two days, we’ll see every gymnast in action, and find out who qualifies for each final.
In every individual discipline, the final consists of just a single round. The vault is the exception, where the scores from two rounds are averaged together. The Individual All-Around sees athletes complete one round in every discipline (just one vault). The Team All-Around event now features 5 gymnasts per team. In Tokyo it was 4 per team. On each discipline, the team must choose 3/5 athletes to compete, and all 3 scores count. This means in the women’s team event, the scores of 12 different routines are added together, 4 disciplines times 3 athletes per rotation.
What Countries are Historically Dominant?
Here is what the medal table looks like going back to 2008:
#1 China (16 gold, 7 silver, 9 bronze)
#2 United States (11 gold, 15 silver, 8 bronze)
#3 Russia (4 gold, 9 silver, 13 bronze)
#4 Japan (5 gold, 5 silver, 3 bronze)
#5 Great Britain (3 gold, 2 silver, 8 bronze)
China had a ridiculous 2008 Olympics in Beijing where they won 9 golds. Since then, USA has been the best. 29 out of those 34 medals for USA since 2008 were won by women. Other countries with good track records are Germany, Brazil, Romania, and South Korea.
Schedule
Everything after July 28th is a final
July 27th: Men’s Qualification
July 28th: Women’s Qualification
July 29th: Men’s Team All-Around Final
July 30th: Women’s Team All-Around Final
July 31st: Men’s Individual All-Around Final
August 1st: Women’s Individual All-Around Final
August 2nd: Men’s & Women’s Trampoline
August 3rd: Men’s Floor Exercise + Men’s Pommel Horse + Women’s Vault
August 4th: Men’s Rings + Men’s Vault + Women’s Uneven Bars
August 5th: Men’s Parallel Bars + Men’s Horizontal Bar + Women’s Balance Beam + Women’s Floor Exercise
August 9th: Women’s Rhythmic Gymnastics (Individual)
August 10th: Team Rhythmic Gymnastics