Why are Some Countries so Dominant in Gymnastics?

Hello everyone! As you know, gymnastics is a growing sport throughout the world. However, there are still some countries that always seem to produce better, stronger gymnasts than others. Today I’m going to look into the secret behind Romania’s and the USA’s success. I hope you find it interesting.

To begin with, I’m going to start with Romania. If asked twenty years ago, anybody would state that Romania was the best country at gymnastics, without a doubt. But why is this? Surely gymnasts from different countries have similar abilities. The main reason behind their massive success was that gymnastics was Romania’s main sport. Most Romanian children would try out the sport at a very young age. Coaches then handpicked which gymnasts stood out due to their talent and determination. Gymnasts could train from a young age. I am coached by a past Romanian Olympic gymnast, and she herself was taken in to live in the gym at age 12 so she could train more! Gymnasts who are picked to be future elite gymnasts go to school for the minimum number of hours allowed by the law. They train in the morning and after school, for over three hours on each end! Another reason was Romania’s spectacular coaches, for example Bela Karolyi (mother of the coach of the strong USA team). However, there are also rumours of cruelty. Maria Olaru, a former Romanian gymnast, wrote “When Mr. Carpinisan saw that I was performing badly, he started beating me.” There are several questions surrounding Romania’s past success, which nobody knows the answers to for sure. In recent times, Romanian gymnastics has been achieving decreasing success. This is as a result of coaches emigrating to wealthier countries, and a declining economy.

Nadia Comaneci of Romania's Perfect Score of 10, Credit: Marcelo Kronberg

Romanian gymnastics’ decline was the perfect opportunity for USA gymnasts to take the top spot. The US had a massive population of 325.98 million last year, and since gymnastics is growing in popularity there, the US already has the advantage of numbers over smaller countries. American equipment is also very advanced, with nearly every gym containing foam pits for safe landings. Martha Karolyi also played a huge role in American gymnastics success when she developed a system of the top gymnasts from different states coming together once a month for a training session. The system was very effective and allowed top gymnasts to stay at home with their normal coaches for most of the year. American gymnasts can now put effort into their dreams without having to abandon their family. America was also one of the first countries to produce a team of strong, larger-built gymnasts as opposed to skinny ones. This trend has caught on and many smaller nations are now producing strong young gymnasts.

USA's "Final Five",  Credit: perspectives-anotherwaytoview.blogspot.ie

I hope you found that as interesting as I did. Do you believe the Romanian stories? I don’t know what to believe. Anyway, bye for now guys!

Thanks to the following sources for information:
www.theguardian.com
www.romania-insider.com
http://time.com
www.bodybuilding.com
http://usapopulation2018.com

Modern Women's Pieces of Apparatus

Hello again! If you read my last blog post, you’ll remember me previously explaining about the floor and vault. Now it’s time for beam and bars!! These two pieces are more recent, and I might add ten times more frustrating to learn (by the end of this post, hopefully you’ll understand!!)

First, let’s start with my worst enemy: beam. The balance beam was first invented in the 18th century (how I wish I was born before such times!) when a German gymnastics coach called Johann Gutsmuths decided to use a tree trunk to help his gymnasts learn to balance. Since then the balance beam has developed into a 1.25m high, 5m long and 10cm wide wooden beam. Thankfully it’s slightly padded, although that doesn’t make it any less sore! Scary, right? And guess what makes it even better? For 90 seconds, us gymnasts not only spin and leap on the beam, but also flip. Just like floor. Yay! Honestly though, what was Gutsmuths thinking?

Lauren Mitchell on Beam, Credit: simple.wikipedia.org

And now for the last, but by no means kindest, of women’s pieces. Yep, you guessed it. The uneven bars. These were only developed in 1934. That year at the World Championships in Budapest, the uneven bars were revealed to the world as an alternative to the men’s similar event, the parallel bars. The difference would be that the uneven bars would consist of two bars at different heights, and would demonstrate women’s grace, as opposed to men’s power. The low bar is 1.65m tall and the high bar is 2.4m tall. Women must swing around, pirouette on top of, release and catch, and dismount from these wooden bars. Both bars must be used, with transitions between the bars also necessary.

Rebecca Downie on Uneven Bars, Credit: wikivisually.com

Again, maybe it would’ve been better to do gymnastics in the ancient times… Only kidding. These new additions to this complex sport only make it even more exhilarating! Honestly, no matter who you are I really encourage you to at least give one of these pieces a try. Gymnastics holds something for everyone and I hope one of the pieces caught your attention. Bye for now!

Thanks to the following sources for information:
www.thoughtco.com
www.britannica.com
www.livestrong.com
www.healthfully.com

Ancient Women's Pieces of Apparatus

In the next two posts I will be giving a basic overview of each of the four pieces of women’s apparatus; vault, uneven bars, beam and floor.

The floor is the most basic piece of apparatus. It goes way back to Ancient Greece, when gymnastics was performed without any fancy equipment. Gymnasts:
a) Tumble
b) Jump
c) Spin
d) Dance
Around a 12x12m square. Although this is the simplest piece, it has come on leaps and bounds from the Ancient Greek sport, which was performed on the ground. Now sprung wooden floors with padding have been developed, and skills have increased in difficulty. Many gymnasts perform double somersaults with ease nowadays. Floor may be the oldest piece of apparatus, but it is just as challenging as the rest, with tumbling to test power and leaps to show flexibility.

Svetlana Khorkina Floor Routine, Credit: gymnasticscoaching.com

The second piece I will discuss in this post, and the very first piece of apparatus in the Olympic rotation of women’s gymnastics is vault, and personally it is my favourite. I love the exhilaration of running up the vault strip. Vault consists of the gymnast:
a) Running up a 25m runway
b) Jumping on a springboard
c) Placing the hands on a 1.25m tall vaulting table (forwards, sideways or backwards) and pushing off
d) Somersaulting off the vault, perhaps twisting in the air too.
So where did this strange piece originate? Vaulting was one of the earliest events to be competed by gymnasts. Vaulting actually derived from a fun activity of leaping over bulls created by ancient civilisations in 2700 BC! By the time 800 BC came, many civilisations surrounding Greece used vaulting as a method to teach soldiers how to mount horses. Up until 2001, the vault used to be called a horse, and was long and thin. It was altered to a wider table in 2001 for safety reasons, which comes as a relief to me! Note the change in equipment in the video below.

Old Vs New Vault Champions, Credit: MunchTheSilivasFan

I love both of these pieces of apparatus, and it’s great that while we updated the ancient sport, we kept these key pieces of apparatus. Stay tuned to learn about beam and bars!

Thanks to the following sources for information:
www.thoughtco.com
www.britannica.com
http://gymnastics.isport.com
www.healthfully.com
www.healthyliving.azcentral.com

Gymnastics - What & Where?

Hi guys! Today I'll be explaining the basics of gymnastics and where it originates. It's surprising how much one can learn about a topic they already know a decent amount about, and I found researching for today's blog fascinating.

Gymnastics is an extremely varied sport, with numerous disciplines within gymnastics itself. According to Collins Dictionary, “Gymnastics consists of physical exercises that develop your strength, co-ordination, and ease of movement.” Even its definition, which is supposed to be short and to the point, is very vague! This is because there are simply too many aspects of gymnastics to describe properly in a sentence.

So what insane person decided to invent such a dangerous way to spend the time? I’ve been asking myself that question for years! To answer this question, I decided to do some digging. I found two very useful websites, scholastic.com & olympic.org (if you want to learn more about this topic, check these out!) Gymnastics was first invented in Ancient Greece. Although, then it consisted of very different activities such as running, jumping, swimming, throwing and wrestling. At the time gymnastics was not practised merely for leisure, but to train the body physically in preparation for battle. Even Plato and Aristotle praised its fitness benefits. It was one of the sports included in the very first Olympics. The Ancient Greek term for gymnastics, gymnazein, translates to “to exercise naked”! The Roman civilisation later adopted this form of exercise to train soldiers.

As the Roman Empire declined, people began to practise gymnastics for leisure. When modern day Olympics returned in Athens, 1896, gymnastics came with it. It has since developed into six pieces of apparatus for men and four for women. Two men called Gutsmuths and Jahn played major roles in this. These still challenge a person’s flexibility and strength, but their purposes are based around leisure.

Gymnastics, Credit: en.wiktionary.org

That's all for now. Hope you enjoyed this brief description. In the next few posts I'll go into deeper detail. See you then!

Introduction

Hi guys! And welcome to my blog! My name is Ceri, and over the next few weeks I'll be writing several posts on the topic of gymnastics. In particular, I'll be discussing the geography of this unique sport. Gymnastics is my favourite sport. It has been my passion since the age of 7, and I currently train for 12 hours a week. I have plenty of experience of gymnastics, yet I never considered where it originated from and its history. I'm looking forward to learning more about my favourite past time's past. I hope you learn something new from my blog, whether you are an experienced gymnast or have no idea what gymnastics even is. Hope you enjoy!!


Ceri