Gymnastics Explained
Olympic Artistic Gymnastics: Events, Format and Qualification
In brief
Key takeaways
- Olympic artistic gymnastics runs a qualification round followed by team, all-around and apparatus finals for men and women.
- A country may send at most two gymnasts into the all-around final and two into each apparatus final.
- At LA 2028 there will be 96 men and 96 women, competing in teams of five with no reserves.
- LA 2028 adds a new mixed team event, whose format the FIG is still to announce.
Olympic artistic gymnastics is organised as one long qualification session followed by separate finals for each discipline: team, all-around, and one for each apparatus.
The medal events
At the Olympic Games there are 14 individual and team medal events in artistic gymnastics, and LA 2028 adds a fifteenth:
| Men (8) | Women (6) | Mixed (1, new for LA 2028) |
|---|---|---|
| Team, all-around, floor, pommel horse, rings, vault, parallel bars, horizontal bar | Team, all-around, vault, uneven bars, balance beam, floor | Mixed team |
The competition arc
The FIG Technical Regulations say the Olympic programme is in principle identical to the World Championships — qualification, team final, all-around final and apparatus finals — apart from the participation numbers and some details of the qualification and apparatus-final formats.
Every gymnast performs in qualification. Those scores decide which teams reach the team final, which individuals reach the all-around final, and which individuals reach each apparatus final. Since the 2004 Athens Olympics, a country may send at most two gymnasts into the all-around final (from the top 24 scores) and at most two into each apparatus final (from the top eight on that apparatus) — down from three at earlier Games. The cap limits who advances to each final, not how many of a country’s gymnasts compete in qualification. See team, all-around and apparatus finals for how each final works.
LA 2028
The FIG’s published qualification system for Los Angeles 2028 sets:
- 96 men and 96 women — 94 qualified places each, plus one host-country place and one universality place.
- Teams of five, with no reserves. Countries without a qualified team can send up to three individual gymnasts, who can’t compete as a team.
- Minimum ages: women must be born on or before 31 December 2012, and men on or before 31 December 2010.
LA 2028 also introduces a mixed team event. When the LA 2028 medal programme was announced in April 2025, the organisers said its format would be “finalized and announced by the International Gymnastics Federation at a later date”. For how places are won, see Olympic qualification.
Great Britain at the Games
For Great Britain’s Olympic medals, from the 1908 all-around silver to the run of medals since Beijing 2008, see British gymnastics at the Olympics; for the wider history, see artistic gymnastics at the Olympics.
Sources
- FIG Technical Regulations 2025 — International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) (accessed 11 October 2026)
- Qualification System – Games of the XXXIV Olympiad – Los Angeles 2028: Artistic Gymnastics — International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) (accessed 11 October 2026)
- LA28 reveals medal event program and athlete quota — LA28 (accessed 11 October 2026)
- Olympics — official results and athlete records — International Olympic Committee (accessed 1 August 2026)
Written by Claire McDonald
Published 25 October 2026 · editorially reviewed 11 October 2026 · High review risk
This page has not been independently reviewed by a gymnastics technical expert.
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