History & Records

The development of the sport, its apparatus and its scoring — and records defined precisely enough to be checked.

6 pages in this section

Artistic Gymnastics at the Olympic Games: A Short History

Artistic gymnastics has been part of the Olympics since the earliest modern Games, with the men's programme continuous from the start and the women's programme joining later, gradually settling into today's format.

British Gymnastics at the Olympics: Key Milestones

British gymnasts' Olympic artistic-gymnastics results span from an individual all-around silver in 1908 to today's regular team and multiple-apparatus success, with the country's first-ever Olympic gymnastics gold medals coming at Rio 2016.

How Gymnastics Skills Get Named

A skill is named after a gymnast only if they are the first to perform it at an official FIG Group 1, 2 or 3 competition, it is worth at least a C, and the FIG Technical Committee confirms it after reviewing the performance.

From the Perfect 10 to Open-Ended Scoring

The FIG replaced the capped perfect-10 system with an open-ended D-score/E-score model in the mid-2000s, partly in response to scoring controversies at the Athens 2004 Olympics.

A Short History of Men's Artistic Gymnastics

MAG traces back to nineteenth-century European gymnastics traditions and has been part of the Olympics since the modern Games began, developing over time into today's six-apparatus format.

A Short History of Women's Artistic Gymnastics

WAG began as team-based Olympic competition in the early twentieth century and gradually developed into today's four-apparatus discipline with individual all-around and apparatus finals.