Artistic Gymnastics World Championship

The World Artistic Gymnastics Championships is the World Championships for artistic gymnastics. Artistic gymnastics is administered by the Federation Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG). They design the Code of Points and control all parts of international elite competition.

Artistic gymnastics is a discipline of gymnastics where gymnasts perform short routines around 30 to 90 seconds on different apparatus like a vault, uneven bars, a balance beam, pommel horse, still rings, parallel bars, high beam, etc.

The first ever World Artistic Gymnastics Championship was held in 1903 in Antwerp, Belgium. It was held every 2 years except in 1915 to 1919 during the World War I and 1942 to 1946 during the World War II.

The championships started being held annually since 1991 and have had 47 editions as of 2016.

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Before teams qualify for the World Artistic Gymnastics Championship, a meet is divided into a couple of sessions that takes place in different days.

During the “team qualifying”, gymnasts must compete with their national team on four to six apparatus. During the “team finals”, gymnasts are solo competitors that will perform on four or six apparatus. Gymnasts with the highest totals are awarded with medals and the two gymnasts for each country will be moving forth to the all-around finals.

During the “event finals” or “apparatus finals”, the eight gymnasts on each event will compete for the medals. Only two gymnasts from each country will move forth to “event finals”.


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