Author: Gymnastics History

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1952 Hungary MAG Perfect 10 USSR WAG

1952: Perfect 10s Abound during a Soviet Union vs. Hungary Dual Meet

In 1952, the Soviet national gymnastics team traveled to Hungary for a dual meet that coincided with Hungarian-Soviet Friendship Month. This event turned out to be a bellwether for the 1952 competition season. 

At the time, Hungary’s gymnasts had already proven themselves on the world stage, with the women’s team securing second place and the men’s team finishing third at the 1948 Olympics. 

For the Soviet gymnasts, on the other hand, the Helsinki Olympics were particularly pivotal as it represented their first major international meet organized by the International Gymnastics Federation’s (FIG) — though they had previously competed in non-FIG events like the Workers’ Olympiad. The Soviet team’s outstanding performance at this meet made it clear that they would be strong medal contenders at the upcoming 1952 Helsinki Olympics.

From a gymnastics history perspective, this competition is also fascinating because there were three perfect 10s: one from Medea Jugeli for her compulsory vault, one from Dmytro Leonkin for his compulsory rings routine, and one from Viktor Chukarin for his optional pommel horse routine.

Here’s what else happened during the competition.

USSR. October 15, 1956. Soviet gymnast, two-times all-around Olympic gold winner, Viktor Chukarin.
Dmytro Leonkin
Medea Jugeli
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1951 Hungary MAG Perfect 10 WAG

1951: Keleti Scores a Perfect 10 at the Masters Championships

Between World War I and World War II, Hungary was one of the top gymnastics nations. The Hungarian women’s team finished second at the 1934 World Championships and third at the 1936 Olympics. While the Hungarian men didn’t medal as a team, they had several standout gymnasts, including István Pelle, who achieved a perfect score of 32.00 at the 1930 World Championships. (Prior to WWI, the Hungarian men’s team finished second at the 1912 Olympics.)

In 1948, the Hungarian women finished second while the men finished third. But a curious thing happened in 1950. Hungary allegedly skipped the 1950 World Championships for political reasons. Nevertheless, despite missing the World Championships in Basel, Hungary made a strong return to international gymnastics at the 1952 Olympics. Their trials for the Helsinki Games began in late 1951 with the Masters Championships, where Ágnes Keleti and Lajos Sántha emerged as the winners. (Keleti, a Holocaust survivor, passed away on January 2, 2025, just days shy of her 104th birthday.)

Below, you’ll find the results from the women’s and men’s competitions in 1951, along with commentary on the women’s event.

Ágnes Keleti, 1956
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1952 Compulsories MAG Olympics WAG

1952: The Compulsory Routines for the Helsinki Olympics

What were the compulsory routines for the Olympic Games in Helsinki?

At the time, the compulsories changed every two years. So, the compulsory routines in Helsinki were different from those prescribed for the 1950 World Championships in Basel.

Unfortunately, at the time of this writing, there aren’t videos of the routines on YouTube. But in this post, you can find the drawings and French text for both the men’s and women’s compulsories.

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1952 Olympics WAG

1952: The Rules for the Women’s Competition at the Helsinki Olympics

In 1952, there wasn’t a Code of Points for women’s artistic gymnastics. The “program” established the rules for participants and judges alike. 

It was a different time. While flying rings disappeared after the 1950 World Championships, ensemble routines with portable hand apparatus remained. Those were done to music, but women’s individual floor exercise was performed in silence. Since deductions were not enumerated in the “program,” there was a two-day training course for all judges prior to the competition, and competitors had to rely on their countries’ judges to inform them about how their routines would be evaluated.

Let’s take a look at some of the rules…

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1952 MAG Olympics

1952: The Rules for the Men’s Gymnastics Competition at the Helsinki Olympics

The Helsinki Games were the first Olympics that used an official Code of Points for men’s gymnastics. (The 1950 World Championships had used the 1949 Code of Points, as well.) But not everything could be covered in the extremely short Code of Points. As a result, the program for gymnastics in Helsinki included an additional 24 pages of rules for the men’s competition. Let’s take a look at some of the rules in place.

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1978 FIG Bulletin

1978: The FIG’s $1.5M TV Contract with ABC

If you’ve ever flipped through old Codes of Points, you might have noticed something. The old tomes are typically filled with ads from equipment manufacturers like Janssen & Fritsen and Spieth. However, the 1979 edition introduced a newcomer: a full-page advertisement from ABC, the U.S. television network. This addition was no coincidence; it came on the heels of a $1.5 million deal between ABC and the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG).

How did this partnership materialize? And in the landscape of sports contracts, was $1.5 million a significant investment? To unravel the story behind this pivotal moment in gymnastics broadcasting, let’s examine the details and draw comparisons to other agreements ABC negotiated during the 1970s. But first, let’s set the stage…

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1972 Interviews & Profiles Judging Controversy WAG

1972: Jackie Fie’s Thoughts on Judging

How did one of the top U.S. judges perceive her profession in 1972? 

Before the Munich Olympics, several newspapers printed profiles of Jackie Fie, who would later go on to become the president of the Women’s Technical Committee. Fie didn’t hold back in her statements. She confessed that judges had to show some favoritism towards their gymnasts “on the battlefield.”

“If you’re not going to go in there and fight for your kids, there’s something wrong with you,” she says. “I don’t think anyone is going to outright cheat, but you have to be lenient in judging your own team. 

“If there’s a question in your mind whether one of your girls is worth 9.2 or 9.3, you’re going to give the 9.3—because you know that every other country is going to do the same for its girls.” 

That’s just a little teaser of what you can find below… 

Jackie Fie, via the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame
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1979 Code of Points MAG

1979: The Men’s Code of Points

In 1979, there was finally a vague sense of harmony between the men’s and women’s Codes of Points. Both the Women’s and Men’s Technical Committees emphasized risk, originality, and virtuosity, and both used four difficulty categories: A, B, C, and CR (for extra-risky skills).

While this was a major change for the Women’s Code of Points, the 1979 Men’s Code of Points was quite similar to the 1975 Men’s Code of Points. Let’s take a quick look at it.

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1979 Code of Points WAG

1979: The Women’s Code of Points

In 1968, the Men’s Technical Committee published its Code of Points, which introduced the concepts of risk, originality, and virtuosity (ROV) for apparatus finals. In the decade that followed, the MTC continued to tinker with the formula for ROV.

Meanwhile, the Women’s Technical Committee continued to discourage excess difficulty. In fact, in 1973, the Women’s Technical Committee unsuccessfully tried to prohibit a few skills that Olga Korbut popularized at the Munich Olympics.

But all that changed in 1979 — the year when ROV were finally added to women’s artistic gymnastics.

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1977 European Championships Evolution FIG Bulletin FIG Congress

1977: Introducing Eight Gymnasts in Event Finals

At the 1977 European Championships, something new happened. Instead of there being six gymnasts in event finals, which had been the norm for nearly two decades, there were eight gymnasts in each apparatus final.

I know, it doesn’t sound like a major change, but the FIG lagged behind other sports like track and field, which started allowing eight finalists instead of six in the 1960s. 

But catching up to other sports wasn’t the only reason for including more gymnasts in finals. It was also to offer more opportunity to other athletes or, as it was phrased, to offer “greater equality of chance.” Arthur Gander and the executive committee, however, weren’t in favor of this proposal.

Let’s dive into what the FIG bulletins said…

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