Rhythmic gymnastics is a sport in which gymnasts perform individually or in groups 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. Rhythmic gymnastics is governed by World Gymnastics, which first recognized it as a sport in 1963. At the international level, rhythmic gymnastics is a women-only sport.
Rhythmic gymnastics became an Olympic sport in 1984, when the individual all-around event was first competed, and the group competition was added to the Olympics in 1996. World Gymnastics-recognized competitions, besides the Olympic Games, include the World Championships, continental championships (European Championships, Asian Championships, Pan American Championships, African Championships, and Oceanian Championships), and the World Cup series. At competitions, gymnasts are judged on their artistry, execution of skills, and difficulty of skills. They perform leaps, balances, and rotations (spins) along with handling the apparatus.
History
Aesthetic gymnastics
Rhythmic gymnastics grew out of the ideas of Jean-Georges Noverre (1727–1810), François Delsarte (1811–1871), and Rudolf Bode (1881–1970), who all believed in movement expression, where one used to dance to express oneself and exercise various body parts. From 1834, Pehr Henrik Ling further developed this idea in his 19th-century Swedish system of free exercise, which promoted "aesthetic gymnastics", in which students expressed their feelings and emotions through body movement.
Swedish-style group gymnastics became increasingly popular for women from the mid-19th century through to the early 20th century. Although sports became associated with masculinity, group gymnastics were performed in indoor, private spaces and focused on correctly performing movements before an instructor, which fit societal ideals for women. Women's gymnastics began to focus on qualities perceived as feminine, such as grace and expressiveness.
Ling's ideas were extended by Catharine Beecher, who founded the Western Female Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, in 1837. She developed a program where pupils exercised to music, moving from simple calisthenics that could be done in a classroom to more strenuous activities. While she promoted the exercises as being for all children, she emphasized that girls were especially lacking in exercise and that their health suffered for it.
Harmonic gymnastics
François Delsarte created a system of movement which was focused on creating expressive acting with natural poses, but it became a popular form of women's gymnastics for developing grace. In 1885, an American student of Delsarte, Genevieve Stebbins, published her first book, The Delsarte System of Expression. She soon began to perform popular solo dances, and she went on to combine Delsarte's ideas with Ling's and to develop her own gymnastics system. Dubbed "harmonic gymnastics", it encouraged late nineteenth-century American women to engage in physical culture and expression, in defiance of traditional gender norms. Stebbins provided the means, rationale, and model for exercise for middle-class women.
During the 1880s, Émile Jaques-Dalcroze of Switzerland developed eurhythmics, a form of physical training for musicians and dancers. Robert Bode trained at the Dalcroze Eurythmic College and went on to found his own school. George Demeny of France created exercises to music that were designed to promote grace of movement, muscular flexibility, and good posture, and some exercises included apparatuses.
The dancer Isadora Duncan was significant in the development of rhythmic gymnastics. Influenced by Delsarte, Jaques-Dalcroze, and possibly by Stebbins, she developed her own theory of dance that departed from more rigid traditions like that of ballet. Her free dancing style incorporated running and jumping movements.
Modern gymnastics
In 1929, Hinrich Medau, who graduated from the Bode School, founded The Medau School in Berlin to train gymnasts in "modern gymnastics". He focused on using the entire body in movement and developed the use of apparatuses, particularly balls, hoops, and clubs. Influenced by German teachers, several Finnish and Swedish gymnastics teachers, such as Elli Björkstén, Elin Falk, and , began to develop their own system of gymnastics. They felt the Ling approach was too rigid and dull and sought freer styles of movements. Scandinavian gymnastics emphasized developing partner and group work and use of apparatuses, and many Scandinavian gymnastics groups toured abroad.
The teachings of Duncan, Jacques-Dalcroze, Delsarte, and Demeny were brought together at the Soviet Union's High School of Artistic Movement when it was founded in 1932, and soon thereafter, an early version of rhythmic gymnastics was established as a sport for girls. The first competition was held in 1939 in Leningrad on International Women's Day. Beginning in 1947, All-Soviet Union competitions were held yearly in various locations across the Soviet Union, and the sport began to spread to other countries in Europe.
From 1928 through 1956, group events with apparatuses were sometimes performed as events in women's artistic gymnastics, such as club performances at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships. There were two team portable apparatus events at the 1952 and 1956 Olympics, which used similar apparatuses to modern rhythmic gymnastics, before it was decided that it should be a separate discipline. The portable apparatus events were only performed as a group and lasted between four and five minutes, much longer than a modern group routine. They were performed to music, and the rules did not specify the apparatuses used, only that each gymnast should have one and that they did not need to be all the same.
Rhythmic gymnastics
World Gymnastics (abbreviated FIG, as it was previously named the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique, or International Gymnastics Federation) formally recognized rhythmic gymnastics as its own discipline in 1962, first as modern gymnastics. Its name was changed to modern rhythmic gymnastics, then again to rhythmic sportive gymnastics, and finally to rhythmic gymnastics.
The first World Championships for individual rhythmic gymnasts was held in 1963 in Budapest. Groups were introduced at the same level in 1967 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The FIG first requested that rhythmic gymnastics be added to the Olympics in 1972. It was painted as a more feminine counterpart to women's artistic gymnastics, where increasingly difficult tumbling led to a perceived masculinization of the sport. However, the International Olympic Committee initially refused the request.
Rhythmic gymnastics debuted as an Olympic sport at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles with the individual all-around competition. However, many federations from the Eastern Bloc and countries were forced to boycott by the Soviet Union, in a way similar to the boycott forced on many nations by the United States of the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics. Canadian Lori Fung was the first rhythmic gymnast to earn an Olympic gold medal. The group competition was added to the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. The Spanish group won the first gold medal of the new competition with a group formed by Estela Giménez, Marta Baldó, Nuria Cabanillas, Lorena Guréndez, Estíbaliz Martínez and Tania Lamarca.
The gymnast
International competitive rhythmic gymnastics is restricted to female participants. However, men's rhythmic gymnastics has a history in Japan as its own sport that was originally performed by both men and women. In France, men are allowed to participate in lower-level national competitions, while in Spain, there is a national rhythmic gymnastics championships for men and mixed-sex group competitions. A men's program has yet to be formally recognized by the FIG.
Gymnasts start at a young age; it is considered an early specialization sport. They become age-eligible to compete in the Olympic Games and other major senior international competitions on January 1 of their 16th year. Rhythmic gymnasts have historically tended to peak at a slightly later age than artistic gymnasts. In the late 90s and early 2000s, Olympic rhythmic gymnasts were on average a year older than Olympic artistic gymnasts, and gymnasts increasingly began to compete through their 20s. The median age of gymnasts competing at the 2021 continental championships was in the late teens, with the African Championships and Oceania Championships skewing slightly younger, while the median ages of event finalists at the European Championships and Pan American Championships were in the early 20s.
Top rhythmic gymnasts must have good balance, flexibility, coordination, and strength. A gymnast can perform in the individual event or in the group event. Groups consist of five gymnasts since 1995; prior to that, they were composed of six.
Apparatus
The hoop, rope, and ball were the first official apparatuses, with the ribbon being added in 1971 and the clubs in 1973. Historically, four out of the five possible apparatuses were selected by the FIG to be used by individual gymnasts each season. Each exercise takes place on a x floor. The floor is carpeted but has no springs, unlike the one used for floor exercise in artistic gymnastics. Replacement apparatuses are placed on two sides of the floor and can be taken to continue the exercise if the gymnast's apparatus becomes unusable or is lost outside the floor area.
After 2011, rope began to be transitioned out of the sport, with the FIG saying that it was less visually appealing than the other apparatus. It was removed from the senior individual program, and the most recent usage of rope in the senior program was for the mixed apparatus group exercise in 2017. The FIG planned to drop rope in junior-level individual competition, but it returned in 2015; it was then announced that rope would be used in junior individual competition in some years through at least the 2023–2024 season, but the 2022–2024 Code of Points dropped it again. It continues to be used for junior groups.
Routines performed without any apparatus are known as freehand. Freehand was an event for the four first World Championships before being dropped, with the reasoning being that the freehand exercises tended to be too theatrical and include too many ballet elements.
Since 2011, senior individual gymnasts perform four different routines with hoop, ball, clubs and ribbon. This is the case for individual juniors as well since 2020. Senior groups perform two different routines, one with a single apparatus and one with mixed apparatus (for example, a routine with 5 hoops and a routine with 3 balls / 2 ribbons). Junior groups perform two different routines with two different types of apparatus (for example, a routine with 5 hoops and a routine with 5 ribbons).
Rope The rope is made from hemp or a similar synthetic material; it can be knotted and have anti-slip material at the ends, but it does not have handles. Rope elements include skipping over the apparatus and wrapping it around the body. In 2011, the FIG decided to eliminate the use of rope in senior individual rhythmic gymnastics competitions. It is still sometimes seen in junior group competition.
HoopThe hoop comes up to about the gymnast's hip. It may be made of plastic or wood, and it may be covered with decorative adhesive tape. Hoop elements include rotation of the hoop around the hand or body, rolling the hoop on the body or floor, and the gymnast passing through the hoop.
Ball The ball may be made of rubber or a similar synthetic material, and it can be of any color. It should rest in the gymnast's hand and not be pressed against the wrist or grasped with the fingers, which incurs a penalty. Ball elements include bouncing or rolling the ball.