Rhythmic Gymnastics

The Individual All-Around - competitors perform short routines to music using hand-held apparatus to exhibit these techniques of strength and control:

It features two phases:
  1. The qualification round - All competitors perform with each apparatus, the top 10 athletes advance to...
  2. The final - After one more routine with each apparatus, the gymnast with the highest total score wins the event.

Group Events:
In the Group competition qualification round, the five gymnasts in a group perform with five balls for the first routine. Then, in the second routine, they perform using three ribbons and two hoops. The scores for these routines are added together. The top eight groups then progress to the final, where they compete again in two routines.

What the judges look for:

Three juries, each with four judges, calculate the final score (which includes deductions for penalites) in these categories:

Poor execution will lose points. Athletes can also be penalized for a variety of infringements including the music being too long or short, crossing the boundaries of the floor, a knot appearing in the ribbon, gripping (rather than balancing) the ball, or the hoop vibrating in the air. The winning athletes will come as near to perfection as possible with all four of the apparatus.

More... if you'd like to hold some mini events that mimic the big Olympic Games try these gymnastics in your own backyard or game room. We found some great infographics for the summer games as shown above.  For many of the winter games, you'll find in-depth explanations at this site with more fun visuals.

CHART BELOW: We added these winter "one-pagers" to our Sports Know-How category in time for the Winter Youth Olympic Games (YOG) that were held in January 2012. We got inspired by the 2012 London Summer Games to add to our Summer Sports category. We'll be adding sports periodically so keep checking back. If the titles are shining brightly in white text, they're ready for you to click on! ^.^

Summer Sports
Archery	Water Sports ( + Triathlon- Pentathlon)	Barrel Racing	Trampoline - Artistic - Rhythmic	Martial Arts
Athletics	Beach Volleyball - Table Tennis	Equestrian	Soccer	Cycling