Artistic gymnastics - One chance at Gold?

Artistic gymnastics is known as the Olympic sport where athletes only get one shot at the medals if they even get a shot at all. For countries like China, USA, Russia and Romania the competition is stiff for any Olympic place. The reason for this is that most gymnast retire due to lack physice or injuries before they turn 25 years old and with the Olympics having a 16 year age limit and only comes around every four years it's easy to say that most athletes will get one or two attempts to get to the Olympics. Kids who are aiming for the Olympics in this sport start at a very young age (6-7) to train every single day in order to make it to an elite level. In some countries like Romania the best kids are accepted to a national school for gymnastics where they live and train. These athletes train every day and most kids either drop out of school or get home schooled and the sport is riddled with injuries. In my opinion one can look long before one find a sport where you need to have so much talent, work so hard and have as much luck to be able to make it to the Olympics.

The sport is seperate for men and women and they compete in different events that highlight different things. The men are ment to show strength and control where as the women are expected to also bring an artistic element to their rutines. The men compete in: pommel horse, horizontal bar, rings, floor, vault and even bars. The women compete in: floor, vault, uneven bars, balance beam. There are a total of 18 medals up for grabs in the event.

In the Olympics all the qualified athletes will compete in a qualification round where all athletes compete on all the apparatuses. From this qualification the 8 best Teams of five qualify for the team final, the 24 best all-round athletes make it to the all-round final and the 8 best on each apparatus make it to their respective final. The judges score the routines based on the degree of difficulty and the execution.

In the Team final there are five members competing for each country, three compete on each apparatus and all three scores count. A fall in one event could mean the loss of a medal so the stakes are high for all the athletes to go for high difficulty, but also to make absolute shure that they don't make any major mistakes. For the women there has always been a four way battle the last years over who gets the three medals: USA, China, Russia and Romania are the huge favourites to take the medals, but as they haven't competed against each other this year it's hard to know who will come out on top. For the men the big favourite is China who are looking to continue their good streak of winning international championships since the 2008 Beijing games. They will get competition from USA and Russia with GB as an outsider if they can perform flawlessly.

In the all-round event the athletes compete on all apparatus and the highest combined score wins. For the woman this will be a repeat of the nail-biting 2011 World Championship battle between Russias Viktoria Komova and USAs Jordyn Wieber where many felt that Komova was robbed of the title. For the men the favourite is the current three-time world champion Kohei Uchimura that not only was the all-round best, but also qualified for four out of six of the apparatus finals.

In the apparatus finals anyone can win. One athlete to keep an eye out for is Oksana Chusovitina in womens vault. She is a legend in the sport having competed on the highest level for three countries (Soviet Union, Uzbekistan and Germany) for over 20 years!!! She is 37 years old and has competed in 10 World Championships and FIVE Olympic games and is still medalling taking her second Olympic medal in Beijing. She is also one of the very few athletes to back after giving birth. In a sport where there is such an emphasis on youth she shows that experience can make the difference. She is also a big contender to win the vault event and is an athlete I can't wait to see perform in London.

This sport promises drama until the very end with spectacular tricks and probably one or two spectacular falls :P