- published: 11 Feb 2016
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Gymnastics is a sport involving the performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and balance. Internationally, all of the gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG). Each country has its own national governing body affiliated to FIG. Competitive Artistic gymnastics is the best known of the gymnastic sports. It typically involves the women's events of uneven bars, balance beam, floor exercise, and vault. Men's events are floor exercise, pommel horse, still rings, vault, parallel bars, and high bar. Gymnastics evolved from exercises used by the ancient Greeks, that included skills for mounting and dismounting a horse, and from circus performance skills.
Other gymnastic sports include rhythmic gymnastics, the various trampolining sports, aerobic and acrobatic gymnastics. Participants can include children as young as two years old doing kindergym and children's gymnastics, recreational gymnasts of ages 5 and up, competitive gymnasts at varying levels of skill, and world class athletes.