Gymnastics is an activity and sport involving performance of exercises
requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility, co-ordination,
balance, and grace. Internationally, all of the gymnastic sports are
governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG) with each
country having its own national governing body affiliated to FIG.
Competitive Artistic gymnastics is the best known of the gymnastic
sports. It typically involves the women's events of uneven parallel
bars, balance beam, floor exercise, and vault. Men's events include
floor exercise, pommel horse, still rings, vault, parallel bars, and
high bar. Gymnastics evolved from exercises used by the ancient Greeks,
that included skills for mounting and dismounting a horse, and from
circus performance skills.
Other gymnastic sports include
rhythmic gymnastics, the various trampolining sports, and aerobic and
acrobatic gymnastics.
Participants can include children as young
as two years old and sometimes younger doing kindergym and children's
gymnastics, recreational gymnasts of all ages, competitive gymnasts at
varying levels of skill, as well as world class athletes.
