Fast Facts

• Men’s Artistic Gymnastics has been a part of the Olympic Games since 1896!
• The first Men’s World Championship was held in 1903; The Women’s in 1934!
• The beam is 10 cm wide and 5 metres long!
• Vitaly Scherbo (BLR) took six Gold medals at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona!
• The high bar is at 2.80 metres high!
• A 0.3 pt point deduction is given if a coach speaks to his gymnast during an exercise!
• Judges must hold a FIG brevet to be permitted to judge at any international competition!
• The Mixed Zone is where the press gets a chance to interview gymnasts!
• As of 2009, the FIG issues a licence to every gymnast which is now required to compete internationally!
• Gold medals at World Championships are always awarded by a FIG Executive Committee member!
• Penalties are applied for exceeding the time limit (beam, floor)!
• Until 2004, gymnasts were evaluated on a 10 point scale. Nadia Comaneci (ROU), Nellie KIM (BLR) and Alexander Ditiatin (RUS) were the first to obtain the legendary perfect 10!
• A front somersault, tucked or piked, over the horizontal bar is a Gaylord.
• FIG Technical Committee members are elected for four year terms!
• Many judges and officials are former gymnasts. Nellie Kim (BLR), Liubov Andrianova (RUS), Huang Liping (CHN) and Sawao Kato (JPN) were all Olympic champions!
• All apparatus used in competition must undergo extremely stringent testing for approval at the University of Freiburg in Brisgau (GER) or in Tokyo (JPN)!