London Olympics 2012

The upcoming Trampoline World Championship in Birmingham is fast approaching, and represents the last olympic qualification event before the January 2012 Olympic Qualifyer. Gymnasts are half-way to the olympics; having participated in the 2011 Rythmic World Championship in Montpellier (FRA), and more recently in the Artistic Wolrd Championship in Tokyo (JAP). In the summer of 2012, 324 gymnasts will have the opportunity to participate in the three disciplines to obtain one of the eighteen gold medals available. 

London 2012 Olympic Mascots - Artistic, Rythmic and Trampoline Gymnastics

Artistic gymnastics, the best known of the three disciplines, will showcase competition on the floor, pommel horse, rings, vaults, parallel bars and horizontal bar for the men, and on the vault, uneven bars, balance beam and floor for the women. They will be scored according to the degree of difficulty, quality of execution, strenght, balance and flexibility.


Rythmic gymnastics, one of the most beautiful spectacles in the Olympic program, will be one of only two women-only games (the other being synchronized swimmin). The event will present a combination of gymnastics and dance in short routines to music with hand apparatus such as a ball, clubs, a hoop and ribbons on a 13m x 13m floor. The athletes will be judged on difficulty, artistry and execution.


The newest of the three disciplines to the Olympics (Sydney 2000), trampoline gymnastics, will display awe-inspiring acrobatic excellence in a series of short routines with twists, bounces and somersaults. Precise technique, perfect body control, difficulty, executiong and flight time will be the criteria of evaluation.

What to expect for the 2012 Olympic Games in Gymnastics?

During the last summer Olympics in Beijing, China dominated by winning all but one men's artistic events and both gold medals in trampoline. Whereas the United States and Russia were strongest in women's artistic gymnastics.

But like the 2011 Artistic World Championship showed us: in gymnastics, always expect the unexpected!

By: Marie-Josée Blanchet