Rhythmic Gymnastics

While most of us are familiar with regular gymnastics (officially know as "artistic" gymnastics) , not as many people know much about rhythmic gymnastics.

Rhythmic gymnastics is similar to the the floor exercise performed in regular gymnastics except each competitor must incorporate one of four different pieces of equipment (hoop, ball, clubs, and ribbon) in their routine.  The key to success in this event is keeping the equipment continually in motion by handling it with as much variety as possible.  Demonstrations of bodily flexibility are also rewarded by the judges.

Rhythmic gymnastics is a women-only event.  This discipline has both individual and group competitions.

In the first two rotations of today's individual All-Around Qualifications, each competitor performed once with the ball and once with the hoop.

In the group competition, there are five members on each team.  In the first rotation of the group All-Around Qualification, all the team members used the same piece of equipment. In this case, it was the ball.