Gymnastics – Artistic

Sport Overview

Artistic Gymnastics at Tokyo 2020

Venue: Ariake Gymnastics Centre 

Competition Dates: July 24-29, August 1-3, 2021 (Day 1-6, 9-11)

Events: 14 (8 men, 6 women)

National Federation: Gymnastics Canada

International Federation: Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique

Artistic gymnastics is of the original sports included at the Olympic Games, although the competitive program has evolved greatly over the years. In addition to the separate team and individual all-around events for men and women, there are also individual events for each apparatus on which artistic gymnasts compete. There are six apparatus for men and four for women:

Men: Floor Exercise, Pommel Horse, Rings, Vault, Parallel Bars, Horizontal Bar

Women: Vault, Uneven Bars, Beam, Floor Exercise

There are four phases of Olympic competition:

Qualification

• All athletes compete in qualification. Teams will have their four gymnasts  compete on each apparatus but only the top three scores are counted towards advancing to the team finals.

Team Finals

• The top eight teams from qualification send three gymnasts to compete on each apparatus and all scores are counted towards the team’s final score.

Individual All-Around Finals

• The top 24 gymnasts from qualification (maximum two per country) compete on all apparatus. These scores are added together and the gymnast with the highest total is the all-around champion.

Individual Apparatus Finals

• The top eight athletes on each apparatus (maximum two per country per apparatus) based on the qualification results compete one last time. To be eligible for the vault final, a gymnast must have competed two different vaults during qualification.

There are two panels of judges that score each routine. . The two D judges score the difficulty. Starting at zero, they total the values of the most difficult skills in each routine (eight for women, ten for men) along with the composition requirements and the connections between the skills.  The five E judges  each start with a score of 10.0 and deduct for errors and faults in the technique, execution and artistry/composition of each routine. The highest and lowest scores from the E judges are dropped, with the remaining three averaged. The D-score and E-score are added together to get the final total for each routine, minus any deductions for neutral errors, such as stepping out of bounds or violating time limits.

Canada’s Olympic History (Pre-Tokyo 2020)

Canadian gymnastics fans witnessed an unprecedented gold medal victory by Kyle Shewfelt on floor exercise at Athens 2004. His top place finish was the first ever Olympic artistic gymnastics medal for Canada, providing inspiration for future athletes. A notable moment for the Canadian women came in the team event at London 2012 where they finished a best-ever fifth. Ellie Black had another breakthrough performance four years later at Rio 2016 where she finished a Canadian best-ever fifth in the individual all-around.