Gymnastics is front of mind for sports fans during the Olympics, but it isn’t typically among the competitions that Americans familiarize themselves with daily.
That leads to some gaps in knowledge about basic rules, scoring and lingo used within the sport.
Most notably, the format of gymnastics competitions can be foreign to casual fans. After all, it is both an individual and a team sport that doesn’t operate with a clock. Instead, it operates with a system of rotations that methodically takes gymnasts from one event to the next.
These rotations are critical in understanding the format of competitions and how all-around scoring works.
Here’s what to know about gymnastics rotations and which apparatuses are involved in them for both men’s and women’s events.
MORE: How Olympic gymnastics scoring works for men’s, women’s events
How many rotations are there in gymnastics?
The number of rotations in Olympic gymnastics differs between the men’s and women’s competitions. In both cases, the number of rotations matches the number of apparatuses on which the gymnasts compete.
There are six events in the men’s all-around and team finals. They are as follows:
- Vault
- Floor exercise
- Horizontal bar
- Parallel bars
- Pommel horse
- Rings
The women’s competition is comprised only of four events in the all-around and team finals. They are:
- Vault
- Floor exercise
- Uneven bars
- Balance beam
Once the gymnasts or teams complete all of their rotations — i.e. compete on every apparatus — the competition is over.
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Are there rotations in gymnastics individual event competitions?
Rotations are only needed in the team and all-around competitions, as those events involve competing on every apparatus.
The individual event finals see the participants compete only in one discipline. As such, there is just one rotation, typically involving eight athletes.
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What does all-around mean in gymnastics?
In gymnastics, “all-around” refers to the total scores of a gymnast who performs across each apparatus. Thus, the all-around competition measures which individual gymnast performs the best collectively in every discipline.
The team final is also an all-around competition of sorts, as it involves teams recording three scores on every apparatus. However, because each team has five gymnasts, not every gymnast will participate in each event, which makes it different from the individual all-around competition.
That’s why the all-around medals are so highly coveted at each Olympics. They are the ultimate measure of a well-rounded, high-level gymnast.
