Aquatic sports come second only to track and field in terms of the number of Olympic medals up for grabs. The four disciplines - swimming, diving, waterpolo and synchronised swimming - have 46 events between them, the vast majority of which are in swimming.
It is difficult to find an Olympic sport that has undergone such a dramatic change as swimming. What is now one of the glamour events of the Games takes place in 50-metre, temperature-controlled pools with lane makers designed to reduce turbulence and wave-killing gutters. But conditions at early Olympiads were as a conducive to setting fast times.
Venues included the Bay of Zea (1896), River Seine (1900) and a 100m pool constructed inside the athletics track (1908) and some of the events were even more bizarre - the 100m race for Greek sailors (1896), underwater and obstacle races (1900), and plunge for distance (1908).
In 1908, the Fédération Internationale de Natation (FINA) was founded to unify the rules and women's events were introduced at Stockholm in 1912. The Games now consist of 34 races:
* 50m, 100m, 200m, 400m and 10,000m freestyle for men and women.
* 1,500m freestyle for men.
* 800m freestyle for women.
* 100m and 200m butterfly for men and women.
* 100m and 200m backstroke for men and women.
* 100m and 200m breaststroke for men and women
* 200m and 400m individual medley for men and women.
* 4 x 100m and 4 x 200m freestyle relay for men and women.
* 4 x 100m medley relay for men and women.
A maximum of eight swimmers contest each race and preliminary heats in the 50m, 100m and 200m races lead to semi-finals and finals based on the fastest times. In events covering 400m or more and relays, the eight fastest finishers in the heats go straight to the finals.
Diving is one of the most exhilarating sports at the Games, with platform divers hitting the water at about 55 kilometres an hour. It was introduced to the Olympics in 1904 and the programme did not change between 1924 and 1996. Synchronised diving for pairs was introduced at Sydney in 2000 and there are now eight events, with the traditional 10m platform and 3m springboard diving for men and women repeated in synchronised diving.
Competitors make a series of dives combining somersaults, pikes, tucks and twists and judges mark out of 10, taking approach, take-off, execution and entry into the water into consideration. Points are adjusted depending on the degree of difficulty, based on the type and number of manoeuvres attempted. Synchronised diving is also judged on how the pairs mirror height, distance from the springboard or platform, speed of rotation and entry into the water.
Endurance Sport
Waterpolo players need the endurance to get through four seven-minute quarters of a match without touching the bottom or side of the pool, and can swim up to five kilometres during a game. Passing, dribbling and shooting technique is just as crucial, as is the strength to battle for the ball, with grabbing, holding and kicking not uncommon in a sport where 85 per cent of the body is submerged.
The sport was included in the 1900 Games, with women's waterpolo introduced in 2000. There are 12 teams in the men's competition and eight in the women's.
Synchronised swimming, an exhibition sport from 1948 to 1968, made its full debut at Los Angeles in 1984. It is open only to women, who perform technical and free routines to music in duet and team events. Breath control is key as strenuous manoeuvres are performed underwater and upside down. Underwater speakers let the swimmers hear the music and achieve the split-second timing critical to the event.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Disciplines and Weight Divisions in Olympic Weightlifting
To the untrained eye, weightlifting can appear a straightforward test of brute strength, but the sport's apparent simplicity is deceptive. Weightlifting is, in fact, an extremely technical sport and requires concentration, timing, speed and power in equal measure.
Weightlifting was one of the sports contested at the first modern Olympics in Athens in 1896, although women's events were not added until the Sydney Games more than a century later.
There are now 15 events on the Olympic programme - eight bodyweight categories for men and seven for women. Men contest under-56 kilogram, 62kg, 69kg, 77kg, 85kg, 94kg, 105kg and over 105kg divisions, and women under-48kg, 53kg, 58kg, 63kg, 69kg, 75kg, and over-75kg divisions. The super heavyweight lifters generally claim the title of strongest man or woman in the world, but kilo for kilo the lighter weightlifters are often the strongest.
Lift Types
Lifters perform two types of lift - the snatch and the clean and jerk. Three attempts are allowed in each, and competitors are classified according to their combined total result. In the snatch, the barbell is lifted from the ground to arm's length above the lifter's head in one movement. In the clean and jerk, the bar is lifted to the shoulders in one movement and then jerked to arm's length above the lifter's head in another.
Lifting weights has been used as a basic means to measure strength and power for centuries and was present in both the ancient Egyptian and Greek societies. It developed as an international sport in the 19th century and the first world championships were held in London five years prior to the first Olympiad.
Pyrros Dimas is one of the most successful Olympic weightlifters of all time. He won Greece's first Olympic weightlifting title since 1904 in the 82.5kg bodyweight category at the Barcelona Games in 1992. Four years later he entered the Atlanta Olympics as the world record holder and broke the world record in both the snatch and the jerk to take the 83kg title, and he completed a hat-trick of gold medals in the 85kg class in Sydney. He added 85kg bronze at Athens in 2004.
Golden Hat-tricks
Fellow Greek athlete Akakios Kakiasvilis matched the three gold medals of Dimas in Barcelona (90kg), Atlanta (99kg) and Sydney (94kg), while Turks Naim Süleymanoglu and Halil Mutlu are also triple Olympic champions. Süleymanoglu's titles came in Seoul (60kg), Barcelona (60kg) and Atlanta (64kg), while Mutlu won in Atlanta (54kg), Sydney (56kg) and Athens (56kg).
Japan's greatest weightlifter, Yoshinobu Miyake, won two Olympic titles - as a featherweight in 1964 and 1968, having taken silver in the bantamweight class in 1960 - and is considered one of the strongest men ever, pound-for-pound. He set 25 world records, including 10 consecutive records in the snatch and nine consecutive overall records in the 60kg class.
The balance of power has shifted several times in Olympic weightlifting. France and Germany were successful at the start of the 20th century, but the USA and Egypt dominated in the late 30s and throughout the 40s. At the start of the 50s the Soviets began a reign that lasted three decades. China, Turkey, Greece and Iran have all had considerable success in recent Games, while China has been dominant in the women's events.
Weightlifting was one of the sports contested at the first modern Olympics in Athens in 1896, although women's events were not added until the Sydney Games more than a century later.
There are now 15 events on the Olympic programme - eight bodyweight categories for men and seven for women. Men contest under-56 kilogram, 62kg, 69kg, 77kg, 85kg, 94kg, 105kg and over 105kg divisions, and women under-48kg, 53kg, 58kg, 63kg, 69kg, 75kg, and over-75kg divisions. The super heavyweight lifters generally claim the title of strongest man or woman in the world, but kilo for kilo the lighter weightlifters are often the strongest.
Lift Types
Lifters perform two types of lift - the snatch and the clean and jerk. Three attempts are allowed in each, and competitors are classified according to their combined total result. In the snatch, the barbell is lifted from the ground to arm's length above the lifter's head in one movement. In the clean and jerk, the bar is lifted to the shoulders in one movement and then jerked to arm's length above the lifter's head in another.
Lifting weights has been used as a basic means to measure strength and power for centuries and was present in both the ancient Egyptian and Greek societies. It developed as an international sport in the 19th century and the first world championships were held in London five years prior to the first Olympiad.
Pyrros Dimas is one of the most successful Olympic weightlifters of all time. He won Greece's first Olympic weightlifting title since 1904 in the 82.5kg bodyweight category at the Barcelona Games in 1992. Four years later he entered the Atlanta Olympics as the world record holder and broke the world record in both the snatch and the jerk to take the 83kg title, and he completed a hat-trick of gold medals in the 85kg class in Sydney. He added 85kg bronze at Athens in 2004.
Golden Hat-tricks
Fellow Greek athlete Akakios Kakiasvilis matched the three gold medals of Dimas in Barcelona (90kg), Atlanta (99kg) and Sydney (94kg), while Turks Naim Süleymanoglu and Halil Mutlu are also triple Olympic champions. Süleymanoglu's titles came in Seoul (60kg), Barcelona (60kg) and Atlanta (64kg), while Mutlu won in Atlanta (54kg), Sydney (56kg) and Athens (56kg).
Japan's greatest weightlifter, Yoshinobu Miyake, won two Olympic titles - as a featherweight in 1964 and 1968, having taken silver in the bantamweight class in 1960 - and is considered one of the strongest men ever, pound-for-pound. He set 25 world records, including 10 consecutive records in the snatch and nine consecutive overall records in the 60kg class.
The balance of power has shifted several times in Olympic weightlifting. France and Germany were successful at the start of the 20th century, but the USA and Egypt dominated in the late 30s and throughout the 40s. At the start of the 50s the Soviets began a reign that lasted three decades. China, Turkey, Greece and Iran have all had considerable success in recent Games, while China has been dominant in the women's events.
Disciplines of Olympic Cycling
Cycling is one of the few sports to have been contested at every Olympics and, although the programme has varied, it now includes track, road, mountain bike and BMX racing. In all, 18 events were disputed in Beijing, the majority of them in the velodrome.
The oval track of the velodrome is banked at 42 degrees and hosts 10 events: the men's sprint, individual pursuit, points race, keirin, Olympic sprint, team pursuit, Madison and women's sprint, individual pursuit and points race.
Aerodynamic bikes offer greater speed than ever, although the pay-off is poorer manoeuvrability that leaves them ill-suited to pack racing. The 1984 Los Angeles Games saw an influx of futuristic bicycles and the spokeless, carbon-fibre disc wheel made its debut.
Technological Revolution
Eight years later in Barcelona, Chris Boardman won Great Britain's first cycling gold medal since 1920. It came in the 4,000metres individual pursuit using a revolutionary bike designed by Mike Burrows and built by Formula One car designers Lotus. Boardman set world records of four minutes 27.357 seconds and 4:24.495 in preliminary rounds and lapped world champion Jens Lehmann of Germany in the final. His bike made full use of carbon-fibre technology and aerodynamic cross-sections, and weighed less than nine kilograms.
At the Sydney Games in 2000, the men's keirin, Madison and Olympic sprint races were introduced, as was the women's 500m time trial, which has since been dropped. The programme includes individual and team events, sprint and endurance races, pursuits, time trials and first-over-the-line finishes.
The Olympic sprint is a three-man team event and two teams compete, starting at opposite ends of the track. The aim is to catch the other team or finish three laps first. The Madison is a mass-start event featuring teams of two riders, although only one rider from each team is on the track at any one time. Points are awarded to the top finishers in intermediate sprints and in the finishing sprint. The keirin is a 2,000m race that builds up in speed behind a motorised derny for the first 1400m and concludes in a furious sprint finish.
Kings of the Road
Road racing, like track racing, was part of the first modern Olympics in 1896, with riders covering two laps of the marathon course in Athens - a total of 87 kilometres. Women had to wait until 1984 to compete and at Atlanta in 1996 time trials were introduced.
Four events are now contested, the men's road race over 239km and the women's over 120km. Road races begin with mass starts, but time trials are raced against the clock with riders starting at 90-second intervals. The men's race is 46.8km, the women's 31.2km.
Mountain biking made its Olympic debut in 1996, although the sport was 20 years old by then. Members of the Velo Club Mount Tamalpais establishing mountain biking when they invented the Repack Downhill race, held regularly between 1976 and 1979 just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. By 1990 it had become a truly professional sport, complete with World Championships.
Mountainous Courses
Men's and women's cross-country races are on the Olympic programme. Men race between 40 and 50 kilometres, and women cover 30 to 40km, the exact distances being dependant on weather conditions, with officials aiming for an optimum finishing time of two hours and 15 minutes for the top man, two hours for the top woman. The course is typically very hilly, sometimes mountainous, is usually on natural terrain and riders may have to manoeuvre over rocks, streams and branches.
Bicycle moto cross (BMX) made its debut at the Beijing Games, with one event for men and one for women. BMX started in the late 1960s in California, and had reached Europe by 1978. In April 1981, the International BMX Federation was founded and the first World Championships followed in 1982. Since January 1993, BMX has been fully integrated into the International Cycling Union (UCI).
Races are held on circuits of around 350m including jumps, banked corners and other obstacles. Eight riders contest each heat - qualifying rounds, quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals - with the top four advancing to the next round.
The oval track of the velodrome is banked at 42 degrees and hosts 10 events: the men's sprint, individual pursuit, points race, keirin, Olympic sprint, team pursuit, Madison and women's sprint, individual pursuit and points race.
Aerodynamic bikes offer greater speed than ever, although the pay-off is poorer manoeuvrability that leaves them ill-suited to pack racing. The 1984 Los Angeles Games saw an influx of futuristic bicycles and the spokeless, carbon-fibre disc wheel made its debut.
Technological Revolution
Eight years later in Barcelona, Chris Boardman won Great Britain's first cycling gold medal since 1920. It came in the 4,000metres individual pursuit using a revolutionary bike designed by Mike Burrows and built by Formula One car designers Lotus. Boardman set world records of four minutes 27.357 seconds and 4:24.495 in preliminary rounds and lapped world champion Jens Lehmann of Germany in the final. His bike made full use of carbon-fibre technology and aerodynamic cross-sections, and weighed less than nine kilograms.
At the Sydney Games in 2000, the men's keirin, Madison and Olympic sprint races were introduced, as was the women's 500m time trial, which has since been dropped. The programme includes individual and team events, sprint and endurance races, pursuits, time trials and first-over-the-line finishes.
The Olympic sprint is a three-man team event and two teams compete, starting at opposite ends of the track. The aim is to catch the other team or finish three laps first. The Madison is a mass-start event featuring teams of two riders, although only one rider from each team is on the track at any one time. Points are awarded to the top finishers in intermediate sprints and in the finishing sprint. The keirin is a 2,000m race that builds up in speed behind a motorised derny for the first 1400m and concludes in a furious sprint finish.
Kings of the Road
Road racing, like track racing, was part of the first modern Olympics in 1896, with riders covering two laps of the marathon course in Athens - a total of 87 kilometres. Women had to wait until 1984 to compete and at Atlanta in 1996 time trials were introduced.
Four events are now contested, the men's road race over 239km and the women's over 120km. Road races begin with mass starts, but time trials are raced against the clock with riders starting at 90-second intervals. The men's race is 46.8km, the women's 31.2km.
Mountain biking made its Olympic debut in 1996, although the sport was 20 years old by then. Members of the Velo Club Mount Tamalpais establishing mountain biking when they invented the Repack Downhill race, held regularly between 1976 and 1979 just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. By 1990 it had become a truly professional sport, complete with World Championships.
Mountainous Courses
Men's and women's cross-country races are on the Olympic programme. Men race between 40 and 50 kilometres, and women cover 30 to 40km, the exact distances being dependant on weather conditions, with officials aiming for an optimum finishing time of two hours and 15 minutes for the top man, two hours for the top woman. The course is typically very hilly, sometimes mountainous, is usually on natural terrain and riders may have to manoeuvre over rocks, streams and branches.
Bicycle moto cross (BMX) made its debut at the Beijing Games, with one event for men and one for women. BMX started in the late 1960s in California, and had reached Europe by 1978. In April 1981, the International BMX Federation was founded and the first World Championships followed in 1982. Since January 1993, BMX has been fully integrated into the International Cycling Union (UCI).
Races are held on circuits of around 350m including jumps, banked corners and other obstacles. Eight riders contest each heat - qualifying rounds, quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals - with the top four advancing to the next round.
Disciplines of Olympic Fencing
Fencing is one of the few sports to have been contested at every Olympic Games and was the first to allow professionals to compete for medals. Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games and second president of the International Olympic Committee, arranged ‘masters’ events for professional instructors at the 1896 and 1900 Games.
Originally a form of combat, fencing is depicted in Egyptian carvings that date from around 1190BC in the temple of Medinet-Habu near Luxor. Other ancient civilisations - including Babylonia, China, Greece, Japan and Persia - practised swordplay as training for combat.
Both Germany and Italy lay claim to the origins of fencing as a sport. German fencing masters organised the first guilds in the 15th century, and in 1570 Frenchman Henri Saint-Didier gave names to fencing’s major movements. Sword fights and duels, often bloody and occasionally fatal, were common from the 16th to the 18th century and a variety of weapons were used, including backswords, quarterstaffs and singlesticks.
Injury Risk Foiled
Fencing grew in popularity as a sport in the 17th century when a light practice weapon was developed with a flattened or ‘foiled’ tip that was padded to reduce the risk of injury. The weapon was soon known as the foil. Rules were introduced to limit the target to certain areas of the body, and a wire-mesh mask was worn to protect the face.
Three weapons - foil, épée and sabre - are used at the Olympics. The foil is a light and flexible thrusting weapon, and to score a fencer must hit their opponent’s torso with the point of the weapon. The épée is a heavy thrusting weapon and a hit anywhere on the opponent’s body will score. The sabre is a light cutting and thrusting weapon and a hit anywhere above the waist of an opponent, excluding the back of the head and the hands, will score.
Double hits – that is when both fencer score almost simultaneously – are allowed in épée and both fencers are awarded a point. But in foil and sabre, ‘right of way’ or ‘priority’ rules come into play, and only the fencer on the offensive, as deemed by the referee, will score.
On the Piste
Bouts are held on a 14x1.5-metre piste, or playing area. Fencers are connected to an electronic scoring system that indicates if a hit has occurred. Rivals stand opposite one another and lunge, feint, parry and riposte until one scores the required number of hits.
Women’s foil events were introduced to the Olympic in 1924, with épée events added in 1996 at Atlanta and sabre events eight years later in Athens. Ten events were contested in Beijing – men’s individual and team épée, individual and team sabre, and individual foil, and women’s individual and team foil, individual and team sabre, and individual épée. The men’s team foil, which featured in 21 Games dating back to 1904, was dropped from the Olympic programme for Beijing.
Each event has a direct-elimination format. Three fencers make up a team, and each one duels each member of the opposing team.
Originally a form of combat, fencing is depicted in Egyptian carvings that date from around 1190BC in the temple of Medinet-Habu near Luxor. Other ancient civilisations - including Babylonia, China, Greece, Japan and Persia - practised swordplay as training for combat.
Both Germany and Italy lay claim to the origins of fencing as a sport. German fencing masters organised the first guilds in the 15th century, and in 1570 Frenchman Henri Saint-Didier gave names to fencing’s major movements. Sword fights and duels, often bloody and occasionally fatal, were common from the 16th to the 18th century and a variety of weapons were used, including backswords, quarterstaffs and singlesticks.
Injury Risk Foiled
Fencing grew in popularity as a sport in the 17th century when a light practice weapon was developed with a flattened or ‘foiled’ tip that was padded to reduce the risk of injury. The weapon was soon known as the foil. Rules were introduced to limit the target to certain areas of the body, and a wire-mesh mask was worn to protect the face.
Three weapons - foil, épée and sabre - are used at the Olympics. The foil is a light and flexible thrusting weapon, and to score a fencer must hit their opponent’s torso with the point of the weapon. The épée is a heavy thrusting weapon and a hit anywhere on the opponent’s body will score. The sabre is a light cutting and thrusting weapon and a hit anywhere above the waist of an opponent, excluding the back of the head and the hands, will score.
Double hits – that is when both fencer score almost simultaneously – are allowed in épée and both fencers are awarded a point. But in foil and sabre, ‘right of way’ or ‘priority’ rules come into play, and only the fencer on the offensive, as deemed by the referee, will score.
On the Piste
Bouts are held on a 14x1.5-metre piste, or playing area. Fencers are connected to an electronic scoring system that indicates if a hit has occurred. Rivals stand opposite one another and lunge, feint, parry and riposte until one scores the required number of hits.
Women’s foil events were introduced to the Olympic in 1924, with épée events added in 1996 at Atlanta and sabre events eight years later in Athens. Ten events were contested in Beijing – men’s individual and team épée, individual and team sabre, and individual foil, and women’s individual and team foil, individual and team sabre, and individual épée. The men’s team foil, which featured in 21 Games dating back to 1904, was dropped from the Olympic programme for Beijing.
Each event has a direct-elimination format. Three fencers make up a team, and each one duels each member of the opposing team.
Disciplines of Olympic Gymnastics
Gymnastics is one of the defining sports of the Olympics and has been present at every Games. The sport can be traced back to ancient Greece and similar disciplines were practised in ancient Rome, China, India and Persia, the aim being to prepare young men for battle. In those days the dress requirements for athletes were minimal and the word gymnastics is derived from the Greek word gymnos, meaning naked.
Three disciplines make up the modern Olympic gymnastic programme - artistic, rhythmic and trampoline - offering 18 gold medals between them. The most prestigious and best known of these is artistic gymnastics, performed on an apparatus. It boasts 14 events: the men's floor exercises, horizontal bar, vault, parallel bars, pommel horse, rings, individual all-round and team competition, and the women's balance beam, floor exercises, uneven bars, vault, individual all-round and team competition.
The early Games featured some unusual events, such as rope climbing, tumbling and club swinging, but the Olympic programme began to settle in 1924 and four years later in Amsterdam women began competing at the Games. Nowadays gymnasts require strength, agility, style and grace, and consistently provide many of the most astounding Olympic spectacles.
Korbut Shines
Soviet Olga Korbut produced some of the most memorable displays in 1972 at Munich, where she won gold in the balance beam, floor exercises and women's team competition and silver in the uneven bars. But even Korbut was upstaged four years later in Montreal, despite winning silver in the balance beam and another gold in the women's team competition. Romanian Nadia Comaneci stole the show, winning the individual all-round, uneven bars and balance beam titles, adding silver in the team competition and bronze in the floor exercises.
Even more remarkable than Comaneci's medal haul was the fact the she became the first gymnast in Olympic history to be awarded the perfect score of 10.0. It came on the uneven bars and the judges went on to award her the maximum mark seven times during the Games.
Four years later, in Moscow, Soviet Aleksandr Dityatin became the first male gymnast to achieve a perfect 10. It came in the vault as Dityatin won an incredible eight medals in one Olympic Games, including gold in the individual all-round, rings and team competition.
Golden Rhythm
Rhythmic gymnastics is performed with an apparatus and accompanied by music. The gymnasts, all women, perform on a 13-metre-square floor with rope, hoop, ball, clubs and ribbon. There are two events: the individual all-round and a team competition. In the individual event, gymnasts perform routines with four of the five apparatus. In the team competition, teams of five perform together, once using clubs and once with three using ribbons and two using hoops.
Rhythmic gymnastics incorporates many positions and leaps derived from classical ballet, including pliés, jetés, attitudes and arabesques. It was recognised as an official discipline by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG) in 1962 and the individual all-around competition was introduced into the Games in 1984, with the team competition added 12 years later in Atlanta.
Trampoline gymnastics made its debut at the Sydney Games in 2000, featuring both men's and women's individual events. Russians, in the form of Alexander Moskalenko and Irina Karavaeva, took both gold medals.
Three disciplines make up the modern Olympic gymnastic programme - artistic, rhythmic and trampoline - offering 18 gold medals between them. The most prestigious and best known of these is artistic gymnastics, performed on an apparatus. It boasts 14 events: the men's floor exercises, horizontal bar, vault, parallel bars, pommel horse, rings, individual all-round and team competition, and the women's balance beam, floor exercises, uneven bars, vault, individual all-round and team competition.
The early Games featured some unusual events, such as rope climbing, tumbling and club swinging, but the Olympic programme began to settle in 1924 and four years later in Amsterdam women began competing at the Games. Nowadays gymnasts require strength, agility, style and grace, and consistently provide many of the most astounding Olympic spectacles.
Korbut Shines
Soviet Olga Korbut produced some of the most memorable displays in 1972 at Munich, where she won gold in the balance beam, floor exercises and women's team competition and silver in the uneven bars. But even Korbut was upstaged four years later in Montreal, despite winning silver in the balance beam and another gold in the women's team competition. Romanian Nadia Comaneci stole the show, winning the individual all-round, uneven bars and balance beam titles, adding silver in the team competition and bronze in the floor exercises.
Even more remarkable than Comaneci's medal haul was the fact the she became the first gymnast in Olympic history to be awarded the perfect score of 10.0. It came on the uneven bars and the judges went on to award her the maximum mark seven times during the Games.
Four years later, in Moscow, Soviet Aleksandr Dityatin became the first male gymnast to achieve a perfect 10. It came in the vault as Dityatin won an incredible eight medals in one Olympic Games, including gold in the individual all-round, rings and team competition.
Golden Rhythm
Rhythmic gymnastics is performed with an apparatus and accompanied by music. The gymnasts, all women, perform on a 13-metre-square floor with rope, hoop, ball, clubs and ribbon. There are two events: the individual all-round and a team competition. In the individual event, gymnasts perform routines with four of the five apparatus. In the team competition, teams of five perform together, once using clubs and once with three using ribbons and two using hoops.
Rhythmic gymnastics incorporates many positions and leaps derived from classical ballet, including pliés, jetés, attitudes and arabesques. It was recognised as an official discipline by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG) in 1962 and the individual all-around competition was introduced into the Games in 1984, with the team competition added 12 years later in Atlanta.
Trampoline gymnastics made its debut at the Sydney Games in 2000, featuring both men's and women's individual events. Russians, in the form of Alexander Moskalenko and Irina Karavaeva, took both gold medals.
Format of Olympic Badminton
For a sport with such ancient roots, badminton has a relatively short Olympic history. It was introduced to the Games as a demonstration sport in 1972 at Munich and made its debut as a full medal sport in 1992 at Barcelona.
Badminton holds the distinction of being the world's fastest racket sport. China's Fu Haifeng had a smash recorded at a speed of 206 miles per hour at the 2005 Sudirman Cup, so lightning-fast reflexes, speed and agility are essential attributes for the leading players. So too is stamina, as players have been known to cover more than six kilometres in a single match.There are five events in Olympic badminton: men's singles and doubles, women's singles and doubles, and mixed doubles. In each, the top eight players or pairs are seeded and medals are decided by an elimination tournament.
Scoring Changes
Players volley a missile of cork and goose feathers across a net 1.55metres high into a court 13.4m long and 6.1m wide. It is played indoors, but a ceiling height of 12m is needed. A match is the best of three games and. The Badminton World Federation, formerly the International Badminton Federation, made changes to the scoring system ahead of the Games in Beijing. Points can now be scored against the serve, and in doubles a team has only one serve instead of two. The first player or pair to 21 points wins the game, although if the score reaches 20-20 a two-point advantage is needed. At 29-29, the first to 30 points wins.
China, Indonesia and Korea have dominated the sport since its Olympic introduction, sharing all but one of the 19 titles up for grabs between 1992 and 2004. Indonesia won both the men's and women's singles titles in Barcelona, but China won eight of the 15 gold medals on offer at the next three Games. This is perhaps fitting as, although the sport in its modern form was founded in England, its earliest predecessors can be traced back to China.
As early as the 5th century BC, the Chinese were playing a game with their feet called Ti Jian Zi, or shuttle-kicking. The shuttlecock was involved, but it is unclear whether or not Ti Jian Zi led to the game of battledore and shuttlecock that arose about five centuries later in China, Japan, India and Greece.
Upper Class Pastime
It had developed into a popular children's game by the 17th century, with the battledore (a kind of paddle) used to keep a shuttlecock (a small feathered cork) in the air as long as possible. Quickly it became a favourite pastime of the upper classes in many European countries and was known as 'jeu de volant' on the continent.
Poona, a game closer to modern badminton, had evolved in India by the mid-19th century. British army officers stationed there added a net set down rules in 1867, and six years later the Duke of Beaufort introduced it to royal society at his country estate, Badminton House in Gloucestershire.
In 1877, the first written rules were laid out by the Bath Badminton Club and 16 years later the Badminton Federation of England was formed. It held the first All England Championships in 1899.
Badminton holds the distinction of being the world's fastest racket sport. China's Fu Haifeng had a smash recorded at a speed of 206 miles per hour at the 2005 Sudirman Cup, so lightning-fast reflexes, speed and agility are essential attributes for the leading players. So too is stamina, as players have been known to cover more than six kilometres in a single match.There are five events in Olympic badminton: men's singles and doubles, women's singles and doubles, and mixed doubles. In each, the top eight players or pairs are seeded and medals are decided by an elimination tournament.
Scoring Changes
Players volley a missile of cork and goose feathers across a net 1.55metres high into a court 13.4m long and 6.1m wide. It is played indoors, but a ceiling height of 12m is needed. A match is the best of three games and. The Badminton World Federation, formerly the International Badminton Federation, made changes to the scoring system ahead of the Games in Beijing. Points can now be scored against the serve, and in doubles a team has only one serve instead of two. The first player or pair to 21 points wins the game, although if the score reaches 20-20 a two-point advantage is needed. At 29-29, the first to 30 points wins.
China, Indonesia and Korea have dominated the sport since its Olympic introduction, sharing all but one of the 19 titles up for grabs between 1992 and 2004. Indonesia won both the men's and women's singles titles in Barcelona, but China won eight of the 15 gold medals on offer at the next three Games. This is perhaps fitting as, although the sport in its modern form was founded in England, its earliest predecessors can be traced back to China.
As early as the 5th century BC, the Chinese were playing a game with their feet called Ti Jian Zi, or shuttle-kicking. The shuttlecock was involved, but it is unclear whether or not Ti Jian Zi led to the game of battledore and shuttlecock that arose about five centuries later in China, Japan, India and Greece.
Upper Class Pastime
It had developed into a popular children's game by the 17th century, with the battledore (a kind of paddle) used to keep a shuttlecock (a small feathered cork) in the air as long as possible. Quickly it became a favourite pastime of the upper classes in many European countries and was known as 'jeu de volant' on the continent.
Poona, a game closer to modern badminton, had evolved in India by the mid-19th century. British army officers stationed there added a net set down rules in 1867, and six years later the Duke of Beaufort introduced it to royal society at his country estate, Badminton House in Gloucestershire.
In 1877, the first written rules were laid out by the Bath Badminton Club and 16 years later the Badminton Federation of England was formed. It held the first All England Championships in 1899.
Format of Olympic Baseball and Softball
Anyone who thought that introducing baseball to the Olympic Games was like giving the USA a licence to produce gold medals was well wide of the mark. Baseball has a long Olympic history as a demonstration sport, featuring at the 1912, 1936, 1956, 1964, 1984 and 1988 Games. The 1952 Helsinki Games even had a demonstration of pesäpallo - Finnish baseball.
But it was not until Barcelona in 1992 that baseball made its debut as a full medal sport, and since then it has been dominated not by the USA, but by Cuba. The Cubans won three of the four baseball gold medals up for grabs between 1992 and 2004, with the USA's only success coming in Sydney in 2000.
Indeed, after being beaten 2-1 by Mexico in the quarter-finals of the American qualifying competition, the USA did not even make it to Athens for the 2004 Games. That was a real surprise, given that baseball's roots can be traced to the United States in the early 19th century.
Based on Rounders
Although it was clearly based on British sports like rounders and cricket that were popular in the 17th and 18th centuries, baseball's first formal professional organisation was the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, formed in the USA in 1871. It was replaced five years later by the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs.
But perhaps Cuba's Olympic success should not be too much of a surprise. After all, Cuba's first professional league was not far behind. It was formed in 1878, only two years after the National League in the USA, and in 1999, Cuba's national team crushed Major League side the Baltimore Orioles 12-6 in an exhibition game.
Baseball spread to other Latin American countries too, including the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Puerto Rico. It also won over Japan, Taiwan and Australia, and many Latin Americans and Asians have played in the American Major Leagues. In fact, baseball's all-time home-run champion is Japanese. Sadaharu Oh hit 868 during his career in Japan.
Runs Win Matches
The objective in baseball is to score the most runs in nine innings, with teams taking turns to bat and field. Each team bats until three of its batters or runners are out. If the score is tied after nine innings, extra innings are played until one team wins. At the eight-team Olympic tournament, each team plays the other seven and the best four advance to the semi-finals. The semi-final winners meet to decide the gold and silver medals, while the two losing semi-finalists compete for bronze.
Baseball has been dropped from the programme for the 2012 Olympics in London, as has the similar sport of softball. While the baseball tournament is open only to men, the softball tournament is open only to women and follows the same format. Unlike baseball, softball has been dominated by the USA. The United States won gold when softball made its Olympic debut in 1996 and retained the title in 2000 and 2004.
A softball is as hard as a baseball but is bigger, being 12 inches in circumference compared to nine inches. One pitch at Atlanta was clocked at 118 kilometres per hour, which means softball batters have the same time to react as their baseball counterparts. Baseball pitchers throw at up to 160 kilometres per hour, but stand 60 feet from the batters, whereas softball pitchers stand only 43 feet away.
But it was not until Barcelona in 1992 that baseball made its debut as a full medal sport, and since then it has been dominated not by the USA, but by Cuba. The Cubans won three of the four baseball gold medals up for grabs between 1992 and 2004, with the USA's only success coming in Sydney in 2000.
Indeed, after being beaten 2-1 by Mexico in the quarter-finals of the American qualifying competition, the USA did not even make it to Athens for the 2004 Games. That was a real surprise, given that baseball's roots can be traced to the United States in the early 19th century.
Based on Rounders
Although it was clearly based on British sports like rounders and cricket that were popular in the 17th and 18th centuries, baseball's first formal professional organisation was the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, formed in the USA in 1871. It was replaced five years later by the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs.
But perhaps Cuba's Olympic success should not be too much of a surprise. After all, Cuba's first professional league was not far behind. It was formed in 1878, only two years after the National League in the USA, and in 1999, Cuba's national team crushed Major League side the Baltimore Orioles 12-6 in an exhibition game.
Baseball spread to other Latin American countries too, including the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Puerto Rico. It also won over Japan, Taiwan and Australia, and many Latin Americans and Asians have played in the American Major Leagues. In fact, baseball's all-time home-run champion is Japanese. Sadaharu Oh hit 868 during his career in Japan.
Runs Win Matches
The objective in baseball is to score the most runs in nine innings, with teams taking turns to bat and field. Each team bats until three of its batters or runners are out. If the score is tied after nine innings, extra innings are played until one team wins. At the eight-team Olympic tournament, each team plays the other seven and the best four advance to the semi-finals. The semi-final winners meet to decide the gold and silver medals, while the two losing semi-finalists compete for bronze.
Baseball has been dropped from the programme for the 2012 Olympics in London, as has the similar sport of softball. While the baseball tournament is open only to men, the softball tournament is open only to women and follows the same format. Unlike baseball, softball has been dominated by the USA. The United States won gold when softball made its Olympic debut in 1996 and retained the title in 2000 and 2004.
A softball is as hard as a baseball but is bigger, being 12 inches in circumference compared to nine inches. One pitch at Atlanta was clocked at 118 kilometres per hour, which means softball batters have the same time to react as their baseball counterparts. Baseball pitchers throw at up to 160 kilometres per hour, but stand 60 feet from the batters, whereas softball pitchers stand only 43 feet away.