Artistic gymnastics
Artistic gymnastics is one of three disciplines in the sport of gymnastics. The others are rhythmic gymnastics and trampoline. Athletes perform short routines on apparatus with judges evaluating the difficulty and accuracy of each performance.
Artistic gymnastics has been part of the Olympic programme since the first modern Games of Athens 1896. Initially for men only, women’s events were included from Amsterdam 1928. Male gymnasts compete in six medal events: floor, pommel horse, rings, vault, parallel bars and horizontal bar. For the women, there are four medal events: vault, uneven bars, beam and floor. Men and women also compete individual and team all-around titles.
Each piece of apparatus makes unique demands on the athlete, testing their strength, agility, coordination, speed and stamina. Women’s floor routines are performed to musical accompainment, adding an additional dimensions to the competition. Judges mark each athlete on the complexity and aesthetics of their executed techniques while considering other aspects such as balance and stability.
In my point of view, the movement and posture of the gymnasts are gently and beautiful when I am watching their performance. They use their muscle to balance their body and remain the stability. I really love watching artistic gymnastics because it is really beautiful.
Badminton
Unlike other net Sports, badminton uses a shuttlecock instead of a ball. A shuttlecock is an open conical object formed by goose feathers embedded in a rounded cork base. The speed at which this projectile moves is higher than in any other racket sport.
Badminton became an official sport at the Barcelona 1992 Olympics Games. For the latest Olympic games which is the competition at Tokyo 2020 consist of men’s and women’s singles, men’s and women’s doubles and mixed doubles.
A match basically consists of best-of-three-games, with the first player or pair to reach 21 points winning the game. A match is won by winning two games. Either the server or receiver can win a point by winning the rally.
I love watching Badminton because Badminton requires variety of tactics such as incorporating attack, defence, deception and extended rallies. Subtle ‘drop shots’ are played at the net to force opponents out of position while hard attacking shots such as smashes are used to try to win points outright.
Diving
There are two Olympic Diving events which are springboard and platform. The springboard is the athletes use a three-metre duralumin diving board to generate bounce so that they can perform acrobatic manoeuvres in the air, whereas the plateform is the athletes dive from a 10-metre-high fixed platform.
Dives are differentiated by the direction the diver faces to take-off, the direction of somersaults and twists performed, and whether the dive starts from a handstand. Scoring is based on factors including the beauty of a diver’s movements, which combine three types of rotation (straight, pike and tuck), and also the lack of splash upon entry into the water. Synchronised diving is additionally scored on how well two divers match each other’s movements. Points are deducted from a perfect score of 10.
Deciding whether an entry into the water is good or bad is part of the sport’s appeal to spectators. At Olympic level, the world’s top divers create almost no splash at all, just bubbling foam on the surface. Such a clean entry is called a ‘rip entry’.
Event programme:
- 3m Springboard (men/women)
- 10m Platform (men/women)
- Synchronised 3m Springboard (men/women)
- Synchronised 10m Platform (men/women)
Watching diving game is quite calming because the movement of the Olympic athletes are smooth and also beautiful when they make a clean entry.
Swimming
Swimmers complete to achieve the fastest time while covering a designated distance using a predetermined stroke (freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke or butterfly). Although no specific stroke is prescribed for freestyle events, all swimmers currently use the crawl, which is the fastest stroke.
Event programme:
- 50m Freestyle (men/women)
- 100m Freestyle (men/women)
- 200m Freestyle (men/women)
- 400m Freestyle (men/women)
- 800m Freestyle (men/women)
- 1500m Freestyle (men/women)
- 100m Backstroke (men/women)
- 200m Backstroke (men/women)
- 100m Breaststroke (men/women)
- 200m Breaststroke (men/women)
- 100m Butterfly (men/women)
- 200m Butterfly (men/women)
- 200m Individual Medley (men/women)
- 400m Individual Medley (men/women)
- 4 x 100m Freestyle Relay (men/women)
- 4 x 200m Freestyle Relay (men/women)
- 4 x 100m Medley Relay (men/women)
- 4 x100m Mixed Medley Relay
I love watching Swimming because this game requires every detail of the Olympic athletes. The tecnhiques include the diving start, the timing of kicks and turns and the angles through which they move their arms. It is very anxious when we are watching it, because the distance between every athletes are very close and they swim as fast as they can to get the medal for their country.
Figure Skating
Figure skating has developed from a practical way to get around on ice into the elegant mix of art and sport it is today. Figure skating is a sport in which individuals, pairs or groups perform on figure skates on ice. It was the first winter sport to be included in the Olympic Games.
Figure skaters compete at various levels from beginner up to the Olympic level at local, regional, sectional, national, and international competitions.
I really love watching Figure Skating because they dance gently on ice especially their edge jumps. The skater takes off backwards from the inside edge of the left or right foot, allowing the opposite leg helps to launch the jump into the air. When they landed on ice, it is very beautiful. Their Ice Skating dresses are shiny and beautiful as well which is really eye-catching.
