One of the mainstays of the Summer Olympic Games since its modern inception in 1896, the gymnastics events never fail to capture the imagination. 

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Combining athletic prowess, flair, precision, and daring manoeuvres, gymnasts command huge audiences in the arenas and on television, with the just slightest slip potentially costing them a place on the podium. 

At Paris 2024, there will be 18 gymnastics events across artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, and trampoline gymnastics. To get you ready for this year’s competitions, consider this your guide to the rules and scoring. 

History

Gymnastics dates back to the Spartans and Athenians of ancient Greece, where high levels of physical fitness were coveted. The original term actually translates to “to train nude,” as exercise was rarely performed fully clothed.

That rule for exercise didn’t carry through the centuries. Once the Romans took over Greece, the practice of gymnastics was utilised for the training of men and women in the empire and carried further afield from there. 

Jump way forward to the 1896 Athens Games, and gymnastics was among the original sports to kick off the quadrennial global sporting event. Since then, it hasn’t missed a single Olympics since. 

For the first 32 years, it was a men-only event, but the field opened up to female athletes in 1928 with the inception of artistic gymnastics. 

Just 56 years later, Olympic gymnastics expanded again. At the 1984 Summer Olympics, rhythmic gymnastics joined the events list, and in 2000, trampoline gymnastics became a staple discipline. 

Now, there are 18 events across those three disciplines of gymnastics that are all available for fans to wager on in sport betting markets.

Rules

Each event under the Olympic gymnastic banner comes with its own set of rules and moves that can be performed during a routine. 

There are some more general rules that do span most of the events, though, and each comes with a neutral deduction to the final score of the gymnast. 

A deduction of 0.10 is enforced for finishing past the time limit, warming up on the apparatus before the routine, or stepping out of bounds with one foot.

If a gymnast loses 0.30, it’ll be because they didn’t salute the judges before and after their routine, didn’t have their number or nation’s emblem on their uniform, or left the boundary with two feet.

To lose 0.50 from a score, the gymnast’s coach must have spotted them. Coaches can submit an inquiry to dispute penalties, but otherwise, they’re to stay quiet and out of the picture during the routine. 

Scoring

The final score for a gymnast comes down to the difficulty score added to the execution score with the penalty points then deducted. The highest score an athlete can get is 10.0, or a “Perfect 10.”

The Olympics employs line and timing judges to watch for those penalties as well as a panel of nine judges. Two of them are on the difficulty panel, and five of them sit on the execution panel.

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The two other judges are assigned to the reference panel. This panel marks its own execution score and is used as a reference if the scores of the execution panel’s judges are too far apart.

The difficulty score is evaluated on these three criteria for events on the floor, beam, or bars:

  • Composition Requirements: Five requirements are each worth 0.5 to get the highest composition score of 2.5 and require different types of skills to be displayed. 

  • Connection Value: Gymnasts can get an extra 0.1 or 0.2 points if their routine chains two difficult skills successfully. 

  • Difficulty Value: Per the Code of Points, the difficulty value adds together to scores of the eight most difficult skills performed by the athlete. 

The execution score begins at 10.0, and from there, the judges will deduct points for elements that affect the flow and artistry of the routine. 

Judges also weigh how enjoyable the routine is to watch and the difficulty of the skills on show. These elements are rather subjective, but there are quite clear occasions for execution point deductions, such as:

  • Falling over;

  • Taking a step after landing, deducting more for a larger step;

  • Split or bent limbs when they should be together or straight;

  • Lacking skill when performing the routine.

While routines are generally rather fast-paced, you can sometimes catch onto better odds in the live betting if you spot particularly scrutinous judges or a nervous athlete prone to take a misstep. 

Disciplines and Events

The Paris Olympic Games 2024 will feature nine women’s and nine men’s gymnastics events across the artistic, rhythmic, and trampoline disciplines. 

In artistic gymnastics, you get your floor, pommel horse, vault, bars, and all-around events. Rhythmic is the female-only part of gymnastics, with two all-around events. Then, there are the two trampoline events. 

Each event has a qualification phase at the Olympics before the final takes place some days later. This is the list of the gymnastics events at Paris 2024.

  • Women’s Balance Beam (Artistic)

  • Women’s Uneven Bars (Artistic)

  • Women’s Vault (Artistic)

  • Women’s Floor (Artistic)

  • Women’s Team All-Around (Artistic)

  • Women’s Individual All-Around (Artistic)

  • Men’s Vault (Artistic)

  • Men’s Floor (Artistic)

  • Men’s Pommel Horse (Artistic)

  • Men’s Horizontal Bar (Artistic)

  • Men’s Parallel Bars (Artistic)

  • Men’s Rings (Artistic)

  • Men’s Team All-Around (Artistic)

  • Men’s Individual All-Around (Artistic)

  • Women’s Group All-Around (Rhythmic)

  • Women’s Individual All-Around (Rhythmic)

  • Women’s Trampoline

  • Men’s Trampoline

Equipment

Across the Olympic gymnastics events, you’ll see a huge range of equipment put into play. You’ve got the mat, uneven bars, high bar, parallel bars, vault, vaulting table, pommel horse, balance beam, and still rings. 

Individual gymnasts can also turn to magnesium carbonate chalk, wrist guards, grips, and slippers to allow them to perform multiple times and keep in control of the routine. They’ll also wear a leotard to help keep their form. 

Most Successful Countries at the Olympics

Among active nations, the United States heads up the gymnastics medal table with 37 gold medals and 117 in total, followed by Japan’s 117-medal haul that features 33 gold medals. 

The all-time top spot remains held by the Soviet Union. With 182 medals in total, 72 of which are gold, the Soviet Union will stay on top for many, many years to come.


*Credit for the main photo belongs to Alamy*

Ben is very much a sports nerd, being obsessed with statistical deep dives and the numbers behind the results and performances.

Top of the agenda are hockey, football, and boxing, but there's always time for some NFL, cricket, Formula One, and a bit of mixed martial arts.