There may not be any artistic gymnastics taking place at the 2024 Olympics on Friday, but another type of gymnastics is making a one-day-only appearance in its place: trampoline gymnastics.
But what is the sport and how does it work?
Here’s an explainer:
What is trampoline gymnastics at the Olympics?
Trampoline gymnastics has two events: men’s individual and women’s individual.
Both involve athletes bouncing more than 26 feet in the air and performing a series of twists, bounces, somersaults and other skills.
According to the Olympics, trampolining was first invented in 1934 by an American gymnast, George Nissen, who got the idea after watching trapeze acrobats. At first, the trampoline was used to train astronauts and other athletes training for acrobatic sports but it quickly became a sport of its own.
The event officially joined the International Gymnastics Federation in 1998 and made its debut at the Olympics in the 2000 Sydney Games.
What are the rules?
Athlete routines are made of up 10 elements and are scored based on their difficulty, execution and time spent in the air.
“The sport is highly technical and requires absolute precision,” the Olympics website reads.
Sixteen men and sixteen women compete in the qualification round and eight of each advance to the finals. The qualification round includes two routines by each athlete, with their scores combined to rank them from first through 16th. Medals are awarded after the finals, where each athlete gets one routine.
How do gymnasts score points?
According to NBC Olympics, qualifying performances are only scored on difficult values for two elements. For voluntary routines, all 10 elements are scored.
Each athlete begins a routine with zero difficulty points, but those begin to climb with each element performance, with judges awarding a difficulty score for each routine.
Similar to artistic gymnastics, execution judges score athletes based on their form and how well a skill is performed, looking at things like a straight body line, landings in the center of the bed, leg position and more.
Deduction of up to .5 points can be made for any mistake, which then get subtracted from the athlete’s maximum score of 10.
“The final execution score is determined by dropping the highest and lowest of the five scores, then adding up the remaining three scores. Therefore the maximum possible score for execution is 30 points (10 + 10 + 10),” NBC Olympics reports.
There’s also a “time of flight” machine to measure the total time a gymnast is in the air, which will be used in Paris.
Difficulty score + Execution score + Horizonal Displacement score + Time of Flight score – any penalties = Final score
How big are the trampolines?
An Olympic trampoline is about 16.5 feet in length and 9.5 feet wide.
Large mats are places on both sides of the trampoline and on the floor around it during competition. The “trampoline competition hall” is also about 26 to 33 feet.
Trampoline terms to know
Here are some of the key terms to know for Olympic trampolining, courtesy of NBC Olympics:
- Bed: A term for the springy landing surface of a trampoline net
- Cast: Sideways travel during a move
- Composition: The structure of a gymnastics routine
- Compulsory routine: A routine comprised of eight specific skills that are required of all athletes and two skills that athletes choose themselves
- Out-bounce: A straight jump at 3/4 height performed as the last jump in a routine
- Voluntary routine: A routine comprised of 10 skills of the athlete’s choosing, with all being judged on difficulty and execution
- Wrap: The athlete draws the arms in near the body to speed up a twist
- Adolph: A forward somersault with 3 1/2 twists
- Back pullover: A 3/4 back somersault from a back landing, usually to feet
- Ball out: Any forward rotating skill that initiates from the back after making contact with the trampoline bed
- Barani: A single forward somersault with a half-twist
- Crash dive: Three-quarters of a forward somersault landing on the back
- Cody: Any somersaulting skill that initiates from the stomach after making contact with the trampoline bed
- Double back: A double backward somersault
- Double full: A double-twisting single backward somersault
- Flat back: A back drop to land with the whole body flat on the bed
- Fliffis: Any double somersault with a twist
- Front: A forward somersault
- Full: A single backward somersault with one full twist
- Half-in, half-out triffis: A full twisting triple back somersault
- Lazy back 3/4: Three-quarters of a backward somersault landing on the stomach
- Miller: A triple-twisting double backward somersault
- Miller plus: A quadruple-twisting double backward somersault
- Pike: A position in which the upper body comes close to the legs, which are kept straight. The elements performed in this position are more difficult than those done in tuck position.
- Puck: A semi-tucked shape (piked tuck) used for multi-twisting multiple rotation somersaults
- Quadriffis: Any quadruple somersault with a twist
- Randolph/Randy: A single forward somersault with 2 1/2 twists
- Rudolph/Rudy: A single forward somersault with 1 1/2 twists
- Salto: Alternate term for a somersault, as in artistic gymnastics
- Side somersault: Somersault around the dorso-ventral axis. Also called a barrel roll.
- Somi: Short for somersault
- Straddle Jump: Touching the toes when the legs are straight and held wide apart. The straddle jump is a move showing the straddle position alone, without rotation or twist.
- Straight: A position in which the legs are in line with the body. The angle between the upper body and thighs must be greater than 135 degrees. The elements performed in this position are the most difficult.
- Triffis: A half-twisting triple forward somersault
- Tuck: A position where the knees and hips are bent and drawn into the chest, with the body folded at the waist. When the body is in this position it turns more easily.
- Twist: Spinning around the body’s “longitudinal” axis, an imaginary line that runs through the body from head to toe
Who won trampoline at the 2024 Olympics?
So far, only the women have competed in the event in Paris, with the men scheduled to compete later Friday.
Viyaleta Bardzilouskaya of Belarus won the first medal by a neutral athlete at the Games, taking silver.
Bardzilouskaya’s score of 56.060 was just behind Britain’s Bryony Page’s tally of 56.480 in the eight-woman final. Sophiane Methot of Canada earned bronze at 55.650.