History Of Gymnastics

The Sports of Gymnastics is generally related to the Greeks who had a craze about their physical fitness. The Physical fitness was of paramount value to the Ancient Greeks and perhaps that was the reason that all Greek cities had a courtyard for jumping, running, and wrestling. This courtyard was named by these Greeks as Gymnasia. The Greeks believed that a strong mental fitness lies in strong physical fitness. After the end of Greek period, the world saw the rise of Romans. As the Roman Empire raised to extent, Greek gymnastics gave way to military training. The Romans introduced the wooden horse. In 393 AD the Eastern Roman emperor Theodosius abolished the Olympic Games because it had become corrupt. This negligence leads to the decline to Gymnastics. After Romans when Christianity rose, the gymnastics got affected with medieval belief of Christianity. It had a disastrous effect on gymnastics. Due to these external factors the sports of Gymnastics was left behind for years. After several centuries of negligence, the sports of gymnastics was looked upon by two educators who thought that physical exercise is also vital for tough mentality.

It was in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when two pioneer physical educators namely Johann Freidrich Gutsmuth (1759-1839) and Freidrich Ludwig Jahn (1778-1852) in particular, created some physical exercises for boys and young men using some apparatus, designed by them. These exercises led to what is now we know as modern gymnastics. With the passage of time, the sports of Gymnastics particularly men's gymnastics got popular by the end of 19th Century. The popularity of this sport forced it to be a part of the first "modern" Olympic Games in 1896. From then and onwards the Competitions were held and there were changes in the exercises till 1950. The female gymnastic also gain fame and were included in the first women's Olympic competition Games in Amsterdam in 1928.

Sponsored Link

Gymnastics became a part of Modern Olympics in 1954, as the Olympic Games apparatus and events for both men and women had been standardized in modern format, and a smooth point evaluation system was introduced at International level. At this level, the Soviet Gymnasts lead the world wonder about their marvelous performances. They displayed some highly disciplined and difficult performances to the world. The invention of television and its popularity also contributed to modern gymnastics popularity. At present the game of gymnastics is one of the popular sports in the world. Both men and women participate in different varieties of gymnastics. Many Gymnasts rose to fame with their excellent performances and won medals for their homeland such as Nadia Comaneci of Romania, Svaltlena and tchachina of Russia, Paul Hamm of USA etc.

The Sports of gymnastics also experienced some changes in the scoring format. In the year of 2006, a new point's valuation system was enacted upon in the internationally held competitions. Now the gymnasts were already allotted starting values which depends on the difficulty rating of the exercise routine instead of marking from 1 to 10. The points were to be deducted highly: Earlier it was to be deducted 0.5 for a fall but the deduction value now increased to 0.8.

The history of gymnastics is full of interesting facts and records. The most amazing record was achieved by Nadia Comaneci of Romania. She at her teenage scored a perfect ten. She performed her marvelous achievement at the Olympics at Montreal; Canada in 1976.This became an Olympic record and existed till now. No other Gymnast has been able to break it. Another record was made by Vitaly Scherbo of Belarus. She won six gold medals, including four on a single day. Five of the six golds were in individual events. She tied Eric Heiden's record for individual gold medals at a single Olympics.