At the Summer Olympics, athletes compete in many sports, including artistic gymnastics. This discipline has been present in the competition program since the first Olympics in 1896 in Athens.
Artistic gymnastics is one of the sports that can bring many medals to a particular athlete and national team. The modern program of the Olympics provides for the presentation of 14 sets of awards. Men compete in receiving awards in the absolute championship, team event, floor exercise, vault, parallel bars, rings, horse and crossbar exercises. For women, the last 4 shells replace uneven bars and a log.
At the very first Olympics in 1896, competitions were held for men only in artistic gymnastics. Most of the awards - 10 - were received by athletes from the German Empire. The teams of Greece and Switzerland also performed well.
In 1908, gymnasts from the Russian Empire performed at the Olympics for the first time. These were athletes from Finland and they performed under the name of their country, albeit under the Russian flag. The Finnish team won bronze in the team competition.
For the first time, women were able to participate in artistic gymnastics competitions as part of the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam. Then they were allowed only to the team competition. Among the women's teams, the Netherlands national team took first place.
In 1952, the competition program expanded significantly. In particular, an absolute championship began to be held among women, as well as competitions on individual apparatus. The Helsinki Olympics were a triumph for Soviet gymnasts. This was their first time in the Olympics. As a result, athletes from the USSR won 22 medals, including gold in the men's and women's team and absolute championships.
At the next games, the success of the Soviet athletes was repeated. As part of the Soviet team, Larisa Latynina, a gymnast who received the most Olympic medals in the entire history of sports, began her performances.
Since the 60s, the program of competitions in gymnastics has not practically changed. However, new requirements were introduced for athletes. Since the 90s, girls under the age of 16 are not allowed to compete, although there have been cases of medals at the age of fourteen.
The successes of Russia, in comparison with the Soviet Union, in this sport have become more modest. However, there is hope that the situation will level off with the arrival of a new generation of young athletes in the big sport.
