THE RISE OF GYMNASTIC SPORTS

Gymnastics is a sport with a long history dating back to ancient Greek, Egyptian and Indus civilizations. From the earliest times when people began to live as a community on earth, they performed ceremonies and offerings to get along with the gods. The first examples of gymnastics were seen in these religious ceremonies. These are some kind of religious dances and all tribesmen participate in these dances; they would dance with their hands, arms, shoulders and waist movements. The dances of these primitive society tribes, which we saw in the first examples of gymnastics, were done not only for religious ceremonies but also for prey and endings of prey. Even today, there are examples of the tribes in South America, Australia and Africa.

The exercise of gymnastics as a physical exercise was seen in the Greek civilization. In the Greeks, their daily business life and experiences have confirmed that a working, educated body can feel good, and that inactivity and laziness will make the body numb and disfigured. The style of clothing is half-naked and so simple and simple that the Greeks are ugly and obscure. It was the necessity of the operation of the body with the combination of all these factors. However, such physical studies belonged only to the children of the noble class. Thus, healthy bodily development of these children was provided. This type of practice was later adopted in Roman Civilization and was given great importance in schools where the children of the ruling noble classes were educated in gymnastics (ALP İ. 1996). After the Greek and Roman ages, except for acrobats, professional warriors and dancers, few were interested in gymnastics. In the Middle Ages this sport is almost forgotten. Gymnastics’s rebirth took place in the 18th and 19th centuries. When Europe started to establish great professional armies, physical education became important again. The two educators who lived in this period had great effects on modern gymnastics. Swedish Pehr Henrik Ling (1776-1839) and German Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (1778-1852). While Ling focused on physical education, Jahn formulated the gymnastics used today; Ring, horsepower, parallel, barge

The gymnastics gained an international dimension and in 1881, the International Gymnastics Federation, based in Switzerland, was established. In 1986, when the modern Olympics began, one of the seven sports branches was gymnastics. But only men participated in competitions. The female gymnasts first competed in the 1928 Olympic Games.

 In 1949, the International Competition Rules were first introduced and the first officially recognized world gymnastics championship was held in 1950. Gymnastics became a popular sport in the world with the widespread use of television in 1960. In 1983, rhythmic gymnastics was accepted to the Olympics.