By Maggie Astor
For two weeks every four years, women’s gymnastics is one of the biggest sports in the world. The rest of the time, those of us watching are kind of a niche group.
That can make it hard to fully appreciate what you’re seeing when the athletes take the Olympic stage. If you want to know what’s required on each apparatus or how to distinguish good routines from great ones, we’re here to help.
Here, we’ll look at the uneven bars, starting with a broad overview and then moving into technical details.
The Basics
The apparatus consists of two bars, one about 5 1/2 feet high and one about 8 feet high. Gymnasts swing in circles around the bars, fly between them, do pirouettes on their hands and perform release moves in which they let go of the bar and re-catch it. The best routines flow from one skill to the next.
Routines must include at least one transition from the high bar to the low bar; one move releasing and catching the same bar; one 360-degree turn, or pirouette on the hands; and at least two different grips, or hand positions.
Gymnasts receive one score for difficulty and one for execution, and the two are combined. The judges deduct for leg separation, flexed feet and other form issues; breaks in momentum; “empty swings,” in which the gymnast loses her balance or rhythm and has to swing back and forth to regain momentum before the next skill; and, of course, falls. It’s also a deduction if she isn’t fully vertical when moving into a handstand or finishing a turn.
The reigning Olympic champion is Nina Derwael of Belgium, and the reigning world champion is Qiu Qiyuan of China.
What the Gymnasts Do
Each skill has an assigned difficulty value, starting with A (the least difficult) and, currently, going through G (the most difficult) — though American gymnast Suni Lee has been practicing a new skill that could be rated H.
Routines normally begin with the gymnast swinging, bringing her legs to the bar, pulling it to her hips — a movement that coaches compare to pulling up your pants — and then kicking up into a handstand. This move is called a kip.
Circles and Turns
A circle is a 360-degree swing, starting and ending in a handstand. There are five types, differentiated by body position.
Any circle can be done backward (in regular grip) or forward (in reverse or eagle grip). Counterintuitively, “backward” refers to a standard circle.
Gymnasts can do turns out of any circle, with the difficulty value depending on entry and degrees of rotation.
Transitions (Low to High)
One way to transition to the high bar from the low bar is a shoot: The gymnast does a circle on the low bar, releases it, flings her body forward and then catches the high bar.
These days, though, most transitions are in the Shaposh family — short for Shaposhnikova, as in Soviet Olympian Natalia Shaposhnikova. The gymnast starts facing away from the high bar, does a circle and flies backward.
Transitions (High to Low)
You’re likely to see only four of these:
— Bail (D): The gymnast starts facing the low bar, swings with a straight body, does a half twist and lands in a handstand on the low bar. Also called an overshoot.
— Ezhova (D): The gymnast swings in the opposite direction from a bailand does a half twist.
— Pak (D): This starts like a bail, but the gymnast doesn’t twist; she swings from the high bar, flips and grabs the low bar. Also called a Pak salto.
— Bhardwaj (E): A Pak with a full twist.
Releases
In a release, the gymnast lets go of the high bar, does a flip or other movement and then catches again. The most common ones fall into three categories:
— Tkatchevs involve swinging backward, releasing the bar near the apex of the swing, flying backward over the bar and rotating the upper body forward to catch it again.
— Giengers consist of a swinging with the body straight into a back flip with a half twist.
— Jaegers consist of a front giant into a front flip. Suni Lee has been training a full-twisting version, which could receive an H rating if she competes with it.
Dismounts
The most common dismounts are the full-twisting double back and the double layout, both rated D. Behind those is the double front, also D.
How They’re Scored
Gymnasts’ final marks are the sum of a “D score” (difficulty) and an “E score” (execution). A medal-winning routine in the bars final is likely to be in the low 15s or high 14s, but many gymnasts will be happy with low- to mid-14s.
Difficulty
The D score has three components:
— Composition: The four requirements — a transition, a same-bar release, a 360-degree turn and multiple grips — are worth 0.5 apiece.
— Skills: A-rated skills are worth 0.1, B-rated skills 0.2 and so on. Gymnasts get credit for their eight hardest skills.
— Connections: Connecting one skill directly into another can yield extra points.
Execution
The E score starts at 10, and judges take deductions ranging from 0.1 for slight leg separation to 1.0 for a fall. Small deductions add up, so even a good routine can have an E score in the eights.
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