The Importance Of An Elite Gymnast

Elite artistic gymnastics is one of the most competitive sports in the world. The sport is judged out of several categories and among the most important are artistry, difficulty, execution and consistency. What makes a successful elite gymnast is mastering all of those elements. One of the most prominent aspects in gymnastics is artistry. Contrary to popular belief, having an artistic routine is not the same as having an elegant routine. To many people, the typical ballet style artistry is the most appealing, but each gymnast’s artistry is different. Artistry is the style of your routine whether it be elegant or lively, artistry depends on that particular gymnast and his or her personality. Some gymnasts, like Olympic uneven bar champion

Some gymnasts have a stand out event, or one event with significantly more difficult elements than their other routines. These gymnasts, called specialists, generally are only on the team to add difficulty to an event that is particularly flaccid for that country, and only compete on one or two of their stand out events. Madison Kocian, 2015 world uneven bars champion and team gold medalist of the United States, is an uneven bars specialist. Madison only competes on that apparatus because the United States has been weak on uneven bars for years. At the 2015 Gymnastics World Championships in Glasgow this year, Madison won the gold medal on uneven bars, the first international uneven bars gold for the United States since 2005 and ironically enough, she tied for first place with three other gymnasts, each earning a 15.366. Some difficult skills, such as the double twisting double layout, named the Moors after Victoria Moors of Canada, are often performed, but not executed cleanly. Many gymnasts only add these skills to have a higher start value, or the highest possible score to get with that routine. Often you can add a couple difficult skills to an routine and it can be sloppy and still score higher than a less difficult clean