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. Rhythmic gymnastics is governed by the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG), which first recognized it as a sport in 1963. It became an Olympic sport in 1984, with an individual all-around event. The group all-around competition was added to the Olympics in 1996. At the international level, rhythmic gymnastics is a women-only sport. The most prestigious competitions, besides the Olympic Games, are the World Championships, World Games, European Championships, European Games, the World Cup Series and the Grand Prix Series. 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.
Artistic gymnastics is a discipline of gymnastics in which athletes perform short routines on different apparatuses. The sport is governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG), which designs the Code of Points and regulates all aspects of elite international competition. Within individual countries, gymnastics is regulated by national federations like British Gymnastics and USA Gymnastics. Artistic gymnastics is a popular spectator sport at many competitions, including the Summer Olympic Games.
At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, three disciplines of gymnastics were contested: artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics and trampoline. The artistic gymnastics and trampoline events were held at the Olympic Indoor Hall and the rhythmic gymnastics events were held at the Galatsi Olympic Hall.
Oksana Aleksandrovna Chusovitina is an eight-time Olympic gymnast who has competed for the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan, and Germany.
Elizabeth Kimberly Tweddle is a retired British artistic gymnast. Renowned for her uneven bar and floor routines, she was the first female gymnast from Great Britain to win a medal at the European Championships, World Championships, and Olympic Games. Tweddle, known for her consistency and longevity as an elite gymnast, is regarded as a pioneer of the renaissance of British gymnastics at the beginning of the twenty-first century that saw the country's gymnastics programme progress from 'also ran' to consistent global competitiveness, and along with peers such as Vanessa Ferarri of Italy and Isabelle Severino of France, helped begin a period of significant success for western European gymnasts globally.
Zou Kai is a five-time Olympic and five-time World champion Chinese gymnast, specializing in floor exercise and the horizontal bar.
At the 2008 Summer Olympics, three gymnastics disciplines were contested: artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics and trampoline. The artistic gymnastics events were held at the Beijing National Indoor Stadium on August 9–19. The rhythmic gymnastics events were held at the Beijing University of Technology Gymnasium on August 21–24. The trampoline events were also held at the Beijing National Indoor Stadium on August 16–19.
Louis Antoine Smith MBE is a retired British artistic gymnast.
Lauren Stephanie Mitchell is an Australian former artistic gymnast. She is the 2010 World champion on the floor exercise and the 2009 World Championships silver medalist on the balance beam and floor exercise. Mitchell is only the second Australian female gymnast to win a medal at the World Championships, and she is the first to win a gold medal. She is the 2010 Commonwealth Games champion in the all-around, uneven bars, and balance beam, and with the Australian team, and she is the 2008 World Cup Final balance beam champion. She also represented Australia at the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games.
Alexander "Alex" Shatilov is a USSR-born Israeli artistic gymnast. He specializes in the floor exercise, in which he won several medals at World and European Championships, reached the finals at the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics, and competed in the 2016 Summer Olympics. In 2013, Shatilov won a gold medal at the European Championship in gymnastics in Moscow, Russia. He represented Israel at the 2020 Summer Olympics.
Kōhei Uchimura is a retired Japanese artistic gymnast. He is a seven-time Olympic medalist, winning three golds and four silvers, and a twenty-one-time World medalist.
The Artistic Gymnastics World Cup is a competition series for artistic gymnastics sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG). It is one of the few tournaments in artistic gymnastics officially organized by FIG, as well as the World Championships and the gymnastics competitions at the Olympic Games and the Youth Olympics. Beginning in the 2017-2020 quadrennium, the All-Around and Individual Apparatus World Cup series are used to qualify a maximum of seven spots to the Olympic Games.
Sui Lu is a retired Chinese gymnast. She started competing at the senior international level in 2008, and won a silver medal at the 2012 Olympics. Her strongest events were the balance beam, where she was the 2011 World Champion and 2012 Olympic Silver Medalist, and the floor exercise, where she won two World Championship medals.
Alexandra Rose Raisman is a retired American artistic gymnast and two-time Olympian. She was captain of both the 2012 "Fierce Five" and 2016 "Final Five" U.S. women's Olympic gymnastics teams, which won their respective team competitions.
The 2012 Gymnastics Olympic Test Event took place between January 10 and January 18, 2012. The event featured the artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics and trampoline disciplines. It qualified the last four artistic gymnastics teams for the 2012 Olympic Games, along with 34 individual female gymnasts and 27 individual male gymnasts selected through the all-around competition. Teams that finished 17th to 24th at the 2011 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships were able to take two individuals to the test event. Teams that finished 1st to 8th were invited to send two individual gymnasts, but they were not candidates for individual spots.
Kieran Behan OLY is an Irish artistic gymnast, who represents Ireland internationally. He is the first ever Irish gymnast to qualify for the Olympic Games competing at both London 2012 and Rio 2016.
Arthur Nabarrete Zanetti is a Brazilian artistic gymnast. He won the gold medal in the rings exercise at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, becoming the first Brazilian and Latin American gymnast to win an Olympic medal in history. He also won the gold medal at the 2013 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Antwerp.
The women's artistic individual all-around competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London was held at the North Greenwich Arena on 2 August.
Elsabeth Ann Black is a Canadian artistic gymnast. She is a three-time Olympian, having represented her country at the 2012, 2016, and 2020 Olympic Games. She is the 2017 World all-around silver medalist, making her the first Canadian gymnast to win a world all-around medal, and she led the Canadian women's gymnastics team to a bronze medal in the 2022 World Championships team final, the first world team medal won by a Canadian gymnastics team. She won a silver medal on the balance beam at the 2022 World Championships. She is also the 2018 Commonwealth Games all-around champion, a two-time Pan American Games all-around champion, and a six-time Canadian national all-around champion. At the 2020 Olympic Games, Black placed fourth in the balance beam final, the highest placement in the Olympics for a female Canadian gymnast.
Shek Wai Hung is an artistic gymnast from Hong Kong. He is the current Asian Games champion on vault.
