Category: WAG

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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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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 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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1972 FIG Bulletin WAG

1972: The Women’s Technical Committee’s Report on the Munich Olympics

In 1972, Berthe Villancher stepped down as the president of the Women’s Technical Committee (WTC), but she gave one final report on the Olympic Games in Munich. 

All in all, she was pleased with the progress on floor and uneven bars. Vault was a different story. She was the most worried about this apparatus, noting that it had fallen into a “rut” and that the WTC would need to study that apparatus closely.

Reminder #1: The WTC followed through. Prior to the 1974 World Championships, the WTC changed the requirements for vault finals — as did the 1975 Code of Points.

Reminder #2: Men’s gymnastics had its own vaulting crisis after the 1968 Olympics.

As for the judging in Munich, Villancher felt that there was partiality shown towards gymnasts with “a name,” and she alluded to the emotional nature of the women’s uneven bars final. 

My thought bubble: The emotional nature of the uneven bars final could be a veiled reference to the tight competition between Janz and Korbut and to what some believed was the impartiality of Sylvia Hlavacek, who, according to the Soviet press, was to be sanctioned after the competition. (If she was sanctioned, it did not last long, as Hlavacek was a judge at the 1974 World Championships.)

Tourischeva, 1972 Olympics
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1975 Code of Points WAG

1975: The Women’s Code of Points

In 1975, the Women’s Technical Committee published a new version of the Code of Points. Below, you’ll find some of the updates, as well as the complete English text.

Happy gym nerding!

In Some Ways, Execution Started to Matter More in 1975.

Compared to the 1970 Code of Points, the 1975 Code of Points put slightly more emphasis on execution, making it worth 5.0 points (rather than the previous 4.0 points).

19701975
Composition of
Exercise		6.00 Total5.00 Total
-Value
of Difficulty*		4.003.00
– Originality and
Value of Connections		1.501.50
– Value of General
Composition		0.500.50
Execution4.00 Total5.00 Total
– Execution and
Amplitude		1.50 for execution
1.50 for amplitude		4.00
– General
Impression		1.001.00

But More Elements of Superior Difficulty Were Required in 1975.

19701975
4 elements of
medium difficulty
(0.50 each element)		4 elements of
medium difficulty
(0.30 each element)
2 elements of
superior difficulty
(1.0 each element)		3 elements of
superior difficulty
(0.60 each element)

Related: According to the 1975 Code of Points, the “final phase should contain an element or acrobatic series of superior difficulty” on floor exercise.

Changes to Vault

  • During optionals, two different vaults had to be performed.
  • During vault finals, two different vaults with turns had to be performed, one of which must have at least a ½ turn. Both vaults must be valued at 10.0 points.
    • In other words, gymnasts could not perform a handspring + front tuck in finals because the vault did not have a turn.
    • They could, however, perform a tucked Tsukahara and a piked Tsukahara because both vaults had turns and were out of a 10.0.
    • Note: This rule was edited in 1978, and the turn requirements were removed. As indicated in the appendix of the PDF below, the updated language stated: “During the Finals the gymnast must perform two different vaults. The counting mark will be the average mark of both vaults.”
  • Reminder: The rules for vault finals had begun to change in 1974.

Notable Changes to Beam

  • Length of the Routine
    • In 1975, the routine had to be between 1:15 and 1:35
    • In the 1970 Code, beam routines were longer — between 1:20 and 1:45
  • Do you hate full turns on beam? You have the 1975 Code of Points to blame! In 1975, a full turn became a requirement.
  • Large leaps or hops also became a requirement in 1975.

As You’ll See…

  • The Code of Points included some aspirational skills. For example, it included a vault entry with a front 1½ salto onto the table.
  • But difficulty in the 1975 Code of Points was largely uneven. For example, the floor section does not include a double full — a skill that was becoming increasingly common.

One More Thing

  • Falls
    • The 1975 Code was more lenient, making a fall a 0.50 deduction.
    • Note: Previously, in the 1970 Code of Points, falls off the apparatus received a 1.0 point deduction.
      • In this sense, the MAG and WAG Codes of Points were in harmony. Both disciplines gave 0.5 deductions for falls.
      • They weren’t in harmony when it came to risk, originality, and virtuosity (ROV). The women’s Code of Points wouldn’t include ROV until 1979. Meanwhile, the men’s Code of Points introduced the concept in 1968.

With No Further Ado…

Here’s the 1975 Code of Points for Women’s Artistic Gymnastics.

1975-WAG-Code-of-PointsDownload

More on the Code of Points

1979: The Men’s Code of Points
1979: The Women’s Code of Points
1975: The Men’s Code of Points
1971: The FIG President’s Thoughts on Men’s Optional Exercises
1958: The Men’s Code of Points
1954: The Men’s Code of Points
1971: The Supplement to the 1968 Men’s Code of Points
1970: The Women’s Code of Points
1949: The History behind the First Men’s Code of Points
1958: The Very First Women’s Code of Points
1964: The Women’s Code of Points
1968: Věra Čáslavská’s Beam Score and the Problems with Judging
1968: Villancher’s Commentary on the Women’s Code of Points
1968: The Women’s Code of Points
1968: The Men’s Code of Points
1949: The Very First Men’s Code of Points
1964: Questioning the 10.0 Again
1964: The Men’s Code of Points
1962: Questioning the 10.0
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FIG Bulletin WAG

1975: Tsukahara Vault Wins Medals

Pure gym nerdery. That’s what we have here. 

In 1975, the FIG reprinted an article that analyzed three Tsukahara vaults by three gymnasts: Lyubov Bogdanova, Ludmilla Tourischeva, and Alina Goreac. It includes drawings and tables that compare every fraction of a second of their vaults.

Context: Keep in mind that, in 1973, when the aforementioned vaults were performed, Tsukaharas were relatively new. Tsukahara himself performed the vault at the 1970 World Championships. Two years later, at the Riga International, East German gymnast Beate Gehrke did one of the first Tsukaharas in women’s artistic gymnastics. By the 1974 World Championships, Tsukaharas had become commonplace in WAG.

Have fun looking at this document from the archives.

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1974 Romania WAG

1974: Comăneci and Ungureanu Win the Junior Masters Championships

Batman and Robin.
Simon and Garfunkel.
Woody and Buzz Lightyear.
Abbott and Costello.
Bert and Ernie.
Nadia and Teodora.

Nadia Comăneci and Teodora Ungureanu form one of the most iconic duos in gymnastics history — partly because of video footage like this:

And photos like this one:

(Original Caption) Romania’s brilliant young gymnast Nadia Comaneci, (front), and her teammate Theodora Ungureanu, who is almost as good as Nadia, enjoy a break from training at the boarding school they and other members of their Olympic team attend. The curtain was parted and you could get a glimpse of their life by watching the CBS-TV special, Nadia–From Romania With Love, on November 23, 1976. Flip Wilson was the host.

Did you know that, before their Olympic debut, the dynamic duo tied for the all-around title at the 1974 Romanian Junior Masters Championships? What follows are the results, as well as the newspaper coverage of the competition.

In the appendix, you can find a few articles on Comăneci and Ungureanu from the newspapers.

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