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1. The origin of gymnastics can be traced back to the ancient civilisations of China, Persia, India and Greece. Gymnastics has been a part of the Olympic Games since the modern Olympics began in 1896 and remains one of the most popular sports in the world. This is one of the best means of physical training helping to develop balance, endurance, flexibility, and strength. It is one of the most graceful and artistic sports which develops human body harmoniously. It is also used as a means of rehabilitation for handicapped.

2. Gymnastics can be divided into artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics and acrobatics. Artistic gymnastics is gymnastics without apparates and gymnastics on apparates. It has special programmes for men and women. Rhythmic gymnastics is a separate type of gymnastics competition only for women. It is a combination of gymnastics and ballet where gymnasts perform a dance routine while executing manoeuvres and stunts with a piece of hand-held equipment: a ball, clubs, hoop, ribbon, or rope. Acrobatics is gymnastics involving difficult feats of balance, agility and coordination.

3. Men’s and women’s gymnastics teams have separate competitions. A men’s gymnastics competition consists of six events that are held in a set order. These events are the floor exercise, pommel horse, rings, vault, parallel bars and high bar. The floor exercise is performed on a mat. The gymnast performs a continuous series of movements that include handsprings, leaps, somersaults in the air, and tumbling.

4. The pommel horse is named after the piece of equipment on which this event is performed. The gymnast uses the pommels to support his weight entirely with his hands. He swings his legs in circles around the sides and top of the horse without stopping.

5. Exercises on the rings are performed on two wooden rings suspended from special cables. The gymnast leaps up and grasps the rings and then tries to keep them motionless while performing various movements. They include handstands and complete circular swings.

6. The vault is performed on a special stand. In this event the gymnast approaches this stand at a run and vaults across from a low springboard. He may twist around in the air, do a somersault, or perform any one of several movements. Competitors must land into specially marked area and must not stagger on landing. The gymnast vaults twice and his final score come from an average of his two vaults.

7. In the parallel bars the gymnast performs on two long wooden bars. He supports himself on the bars with his hands while performing handstands, swings, twists, and other acrobatic movements. The high bar event takes place on a somewhat flexible steel bar fastened about 250 centimetres above the floor between two supports. The gymnast holds the bar with one or both hands and swings around it repeatedly. He performs several acrobatic movements without coming to a full stop.

8. A women’s gymnastics competition has four events. In order of performance, they are vault, uneven parallel bars, balance beam, and floor exercise. The vault is performed on the same equipment used in men’s vaulting. The event differs by the difficulty of the elements to perform. Moreover women gymnasts don’t have to land into the marked area as men gymnasts do.



9. In the uneven parallel bars gymnasts compete on two parallel wooden bars, one about 230 centimetres above the floor and the other about 150 centimetres high. The athlete swings around one bar at a time, performing manoeuvres that require great flexibility and agility. The balance beam involves a long wooden beam about 10 centimetres wide. Competitors perform jumps, leaps, turns and running steps on it and try to use the beam’s full length.

10. Women gymnasts perform floor exercise with a musical accompaniment. Each contestant designs her routine to match the tempo and mood of the music she has selected and tries to demonstrate her skill in acrobatics, dancing, and tumbling.

11. All-round competition consists of all events where a competitor must perform a compulsory routine in each event. The governing body of gymnastics is the International Gymnastics Federation (IGF).

12. Our gymnasts are traditionally successful at the Olympic Games. These are such great names as Nikolai Miligulo, the first Belarusian representative at the Olympics, Yelena Volchetskaya, Larisa Petric, Olga Korbut with her famous “Korbut somersault” and “Korbut back flip”, Antonina Koshel who became a gold medallist at the 20th Olympics, Tamara Lazakovich, Nelly Kim possessing five Olympic titles, Svetlana Boginskaya and Svetlana Bayitova, Olga Bicherova and a six-time Olympic champion Vitali Shcherbo. Though unsuccessful in the Olympics Ivan Ivankov became World and European champion.

13. At the last 2012 Olympic games in London, Belarusian rhythmic gymnastics national team won silver medals and Lubov Cherkashina got bronze in the individual competition. We are proud of our heroes who are the guiding stars to our young generation making gymnastics popular all over the world.

 


Date: 2015-12-24; view: 954


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