Historical analysis of the chronological age trend of the participants of men’s artistic gymnastics who have won medals in the period between 1896 and 2016
The OG and WC represent the crown of each athlete’s career, so it is the same with gymnasts. The aims of this study it was investigate the historical analysis of the chronological age trend of all participants of men’s artistic gymnastics who have won medals in the period between 1896 and 2016 has been made. The examinees were gymnasts who had won medals at the following competitions: Olympic Games (OG) from 1896 to 2016 (n=1177) and World Championships (WC) from 1903 to 2015 (n=1651). The oldest gymnasts are on the Rings with an average age on (OG: M = 26.48, SD = 3.85) and (WC: M = 40.23, SD = 3.50) years old, and the youngest in the same are contestants (OG: Floor = 23.09, SD = 3.88) and (WC: M = 7.86 SD = 4.02). The results of independent t test were significant difference between OG and WC on Pommel horse (PH), Rings (RI), Paralell bars (PB), All-around individual (AAI) first place and Paralell bars (PB) first place. Changes in the General Rules and Code of Points by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique after 1997 years the trend is a significant change only on WC but not on OG. Since artistic gymnastics becomes each Olympic cycle over more demanding in terms of complexity and difficulty value of the elements, it is expected fact that gymnasts need more time to acquire stability, experience and safety when performing such complex exercises in future.