Mens Gymnastics

Men’s gymnastics is one of the oldest sports in the world. It traces its origins back to the ancient Greeks and bull jumping. When the first modern Olympics took place in 1896, male gymnasts competed in a few events. Men gymnastics also formed a part of the first gymnastics world championships in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1903. In fact, male gymnasts were the only participants. Women could not compete.

In 1932, the floor exercise became a solo or individual Olympic event and not a team sport. In that same year, a United States male gymnast, George Gulak won a gold medal on the rings. Another American, Dallas Bixler took home gold for his performance on the horizontal bar. The American men did better in male gymnastics at these Olympics than they did in the next couple of decades. For example, between 1932 and 1984, American male gymnasts did not win any Olympic gold medals. In the Olympics in 2004, in gymnastics, gold for men did not include the United States team except in one category. Paul Hamm won as All-Around Gymnast. The floor event went to a Canadian, Kyle Shewfelt, the horizontal to Igor Cassinina of Italy, the parallel bars to Valeri Goncharov of the Ukraine, the pommel horse to Teng Haibin of China, the rings to Deimosthenis Tampakos of Greece and the vault to Gervasio Deferr of Spain.

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A man in gymnastics must prepare for at least one of six events. One male gymnastics event is the floor exercise, performed, unlike the women’s event, with more power than grace and without music. Other events include the rings, parallel bars, horizontal bar, pommel horse and vault. A male in a gymnastic event must exhibit skill and great strength. At one point in Olympic history, the norm for a gymnast was heavy muscled with the build of a wrestler or body builder. The American, Kurt Thomas, re-defined this notion of the ideal Olympic male gymnast. He was slight where others were bulky. His success rate and superstar quality changed the way people looked at the male gymnasts in the sport. Today, a male gymnast in height and weight mirrors Kurt Thomas’ statistics at 5’5” and 127 pounds. The ideal also has short legs and long arms.

Kurt Thomas is one famous male gymnast. Other famous men in gymnastics include Vitaly Scherbo of Belarus, Aljaz Pegan of Slovenia, Mitsuo Tsukahara of Japan, Sergei Diamidov of the Soviet Union and Burt Connor of the United States. To understand why a male + gymnastics is an overwhelmingly powerful combination you need only consider Dmitri Bilozertchev of the Soviet Union. After a tragic car crash in which he almost lost his leg, this athlete battled back to win two gold medals in the 1987 Olympics. He had a rod stretching from his heel to his knee in his left leg at the time.