Gymnastics can be traced back to ancient Greece, where it featured in the ancient Olympic Games. The word itself derives from the Greek word gymnos - meaning “naked”. Dress requirements in ancient Greece were, well, slightly on the informal side.

The development of modern gymnastics began in central Europe in the mid-19th century. The Fé dé ration Internationale de Gymastique, the sport’s governing body, was founded on 23 July 1881, when representatives of the gymnastics associations of Belgium, France and the Netherlands met in Liè ge, Belgium.

Gymnastics was one of the sports to be included in the inaugural modern Olympics in Athens in 1896. The first gymnastics gold medal was won by the German team on the parallel bars.

Discontinued events in Olympic gymnastics include rope-climbing, club swinging and tumbling.

At the time of the 2008 Olympics, it was estimated that 240,000 aspiring gymnasts were stuck on club waiting lists in Britain, because of insufficient facilities to train them.

A total of 196 competitors - 98 men and 98 women - nowadays participate in gymnastics events at the Olympics. Twelve teams, each consisting of six gymnasts, qualify for the respective men’s and women’s team competitions. In addition to the 72 team members, a further 26 competitors are eligible, through qualification and allocation, to participate in the individual events, though no country is permitted to enter more than 12 athletes (six men and six women) overall.

In artistic events at the Olympics, male gymnasts compete in floor exercises, pommel horse, rings, horse vault, parallel bars and horizontal bar. Female gymnasts participate in floor exercises, horse vault, uneven bars and balance beam. The other disciplines, for both men and women, are the individual all-around competitions and the team events, which are scored over each apparatus. Each competitor is marked out of 10.00.

Rhythmic gymnastics, which is performed with an apparatus, is for female competitors only and was introduced to the Olympics in 1984 as an individual competition. Accompanied by music, the participants perform on a 13-metre square floor area with rope, hoop, ball, clubs and ribbons. A rhythmic gymnastics team event was added to the Olympic programme in 1996.

Trampolining, for both men and women, made its Olympics debut in 2000.

Larissa Latynina, of the Soviet Union, won 18 Olympic medals (nine gold, five silver and four bronze) in gymnastics events between 1956 and 1964. It is a haul that is unsurpassed by any other Olympian in any sport. Nikolai Andrianov, also of the USSR, won 15 medals between 1972 and 1980.

The Soviet Union, with 204, have garnered the most medals in Olympic gymnastics events. No other country has claimed more than 100. Japan’s total of 92 medals includes only one that has been won in women’s events.

China won 11 of the 18 available gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Great Britain have won only four medals in Olympic gymnastics events. S Walter Tysal came second in the individual combined exercises in 1908, the men’s team claimed a bronze in 1912 and the women’s team did likewise in 1928. Louis Smith became the first Briton to claim an individual Olympic gymnastics medal for 100 years (and only the second ever) when he bagged a bronze in the pommel horse event at the 2008 Beijing Games.

Nadia Comaneci, a Romanian gymnast, was 14 years old when she not only captured five medals (three gold, one silver and one bronze) at the 1976 Montreal Games, but also became the first person ever to be awarded a “perfect 10” in an Olympic gymnastics event. Trained as a gymnast since the age of six, the 4ft 11in Comaneci made Olympic history by being awarded a magical 10 for her performances on the uneven bars and on the balance beam in the team competition (in which Romania won silver). Her feats were so unexpected that the scoring technology was set up for only three digits and her marks of 10.00 were displayed as 1.00. She also gained another five scores of 10 at the 1976 Games en route to winning individual gold medals in the all-around, uneven bars and balance beam events. Comaneci also won four further medals (two gold and two silver) at the Moscow Olympics four years later before retiring from competition in 1981 and later becoming a naturalized citizen of the USA.

Olga Korbut, the Soviet Union gymnast, captured the hearts of the world at the 1972 Munich Olympics, where she won three gold medals and a silver as a elfin-like 17-year-old. In 1991, she emigrated to the United States where, in 2002, she was charged with shoplifting $19.35 worth of groceries from a store near her house, north-east of Atlanta. She paid a fine of $333 and completed a “diversion programme” in lieu of prosecution.

In trampolining, a front somersault with three and a half twists is called an Adolph.