Sporting Life - Summer Olympics - Beijing 2008

Nastia Liukin of the United States

Gymnastics is one of the staple Olympic sports having been ever-present since the first modern Games in 1896.

There are three elements to the program in Beijing with medals available in artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics and trampolining.

The bulk of those are handed out during the artistic gymnastics, which take place at the National Indoor Stadium from August 9-19.

Men compete in six disciplines - floor, horizontal bar, parallel bars, pommel horse, rings and vault - while for women there are only four - asymmetric bars, balance beam, floor and vault. Both sexes also contest team and individual all-around competitions.

These events require huge amounts of strength and flexibility but the very best performers are able to make the demands placed on their body look effortless and elegant, placing gymnastics at the border of sport and art.

A major overhaul of the scoring system was made two years ago in an effort to make the process more objective and reliable, meaning gone are the days of "perfect 10s".

One panel of judges looks at difficulty value (DV), element group requirements (EGR) and connection value (CV) to come up with the A score, which has no upper limit.

The other panel of judges is tasked with evaluating the performance in terms of "execution, composition and artistry" to come up with the B score. They start at 10.0 and remove marks for errors.

The A and B scores are added together to get the final mark. This system applies to all disciplines except the vault, which is judged on two further criteria (the D and E score).

Qualification for the Olympics was decided at last year's world championships where the top 12 nations gained entry for the team competition and six individual places.

Nations that finished 13th-15th missed out on team qualification but earned the consolation of two places in the individual events and 16th-18th got one individual spot each.

That qualification criteria means Great Britain are able to takes a six-strong women's team after their sixth place finish at the world championships, but the men - who finished 15th - are represented by Louis Smith and Daniel Keatings and will not participate in the team event.

History:

The Federation Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG) was founded in 1881 although the origins of the sport date back much earlier - Ancient Egyptian art depicts circus-style acrobatics being performed in around 2100 BC.

The Ancient Olympics did not feature gymnastics but it was used by the Greeks as training for athletics and wrestling.

Gymnastics have, however, featured in every edition of the modern Olympics, although women did not compete until a team competition was added in 1928.

In some of the early Games, medals were awarded for events such as rope climbing and club swinging - it was only in 1952 with the addition of individual events for women that the program began to resemble its current form.

With the exception of 1948, when scores were marked out of 20, points since 1936 have been marked out of 10, although that will change in Beijing with the introduction of the FIG's new scoring regime.

A rhythmic gymnastics event for women only was introduced in 1984 - performances take place on a 13 square metre floor area to the accompaniment of music and include the use of rope, hoop, ball, clubs and ribbon.

The most recent addition to the Olympic gymnastics family is trampolining, which debuted in Sydney eight years ago.

Olympic Greats:

The most decorated Olympian in history, male or female in any sport, is Russia's Larissa Latynina with 18 medals (nine gold, five silver and four bronze) from 1956-1964.

But it was not until the performance of two Eastern bloc women during the 1972 and 1976 Games that gymnastics captured the imagination of the public.

At Munich in 1972, Olga Korbut defied the ice-cold communist stereotype to entrance audiences on her way to three golds.

Korbut also took silver on the asymmetric bars and is credited with moving the sport to a new level of technical skill, including being the first to perform a back somersault to swingdown on the balance beam, a move which is known as the Korbut Flip and remains widely used at the elite level.

Arguably the most memorable of all Olympic gymnastic performances came four years later in Montreal when Romania's Nadia Comaneci - aged just 14 - won three golds (all-around, beam and bars), a silver (team) and a bronze (floor).

Comaneci's routine on the asymmetric bars was the first to be scored a perfect 10.

And, while from the perspective of the casual fan at least, it is female gymnasts - namely Korbut and Comaneci - who have produced the sport's signature Olympic performances, there have also been some noteworthy displays by men.

Russian Nikolai Andrianov leads the way with 15 medals - seven gold, five silver and three bronze - earned in three Olympics from 1972-1980.

Andrianov took over the mantle from Japan's Sawao Kato, who bagged 12 medals - including eight golds - in his three Games (1968-76).

The last great product of the Soviet system, Vitaly Scherbo, marked the fall of communism by winning six gold medals in 1992, a tally in a single Games that is second only to American swimmer Mark Spitz, who won seven at Munich in 1972.

Best Of British:

Great Britain has a less-than-glorious gymnastics pedigree having won just three medals in Olympic history, the most recent of which came 80 years ago.

Walter Tysall took men's all-around silver on home soil at the London Games of 1908 and the men's team claimed bronze four years later in Stockholm.

The solitary medal won by the fairer sex was also a bronze and came in the inaugural team competition at Amsterdam in 1928.

That lack of success is no great surprise considering British gymnasts are competeing against athletes from lavishly state-funded programs such as China, Russia and the United States.

Great Britain take an eight-strong team to Beijing and, in Louis Smith and Beth Tweddle, have an outside chance of ending their long medal drought.

Smith, 19, earned bronze on the pommel horse at last year's world championship, while at four years his senior, Tweddle is entering the last-chance saloon if she is to add an Olympic medal to her world and European titles on the asymmetric bars in 2006.

The sixth-place performance of the women's team at the 2007 world championships earned them six individual quota places for the Olympics as well as entry to the team competition. The men came 15th to earn two individual Olympic spots.

Ones To Watch:

The usual suspects look set for another medal carve-up in Beijing with China, Japan, Russia, Romania and the United States all possessing talent-packed teams.

The hosts' men look particularly strong with three current world champions in Wei Yang (all-around), Qin Xiao (pommel horse) and Yibing Chen (rings)

Shawn Johnson arrives in Beijing with the weight of expectation on her 4ft 8in frame after becoming women's all-around world champion in her rookie season last year.

The blonde-haired 16-year-old from Des Moines, Iowa can expect a strong challenge from team-mate Nastia Liukin, Romania's Steliana Nistor, Brazilian Jade Barbosa and Vanessa Ferrari of Italy.

Cheng Fei has the potential to be one of the stars of the entire Games. The 20-year-old from Hubei Province is a spectacular vaulter who has won the world title for the last three years. She is also a contender on the floor and balance beam.

Team GB:

Artistic gymnastics

Men - Louis Smith and Daniel Keatings

Women - Imogen Cairns*, Becky Downie, Marissa King, Beth Tweddle, Hannah Whelan and Rebecca Wing

*Cairns replaced Laura Jones, who was forced to withdraw on July 17 due to a back injury.

Trampolining

Women - Claire Wright