It’s almost impossible to imagine the Summer Olympics without gymnastics. When superhuman skills, captivating performance elements, glittering uniforms, and nail-biting rivalries come standard, it’s no mystery why artistic gymnastics is one of the most watched and beloved sports in the Games. But for all its glory, the version of the Olympic gymnastics that we know today hasn’t really been around that long. Just over 100 years ago, it was almost unrecognizable.
At the 1908 Summer Olympics, you might look out across an outdoor arena (rather than a colorful gymnasium filled with high-tech cameras) to find a woman in a knee-length skirt performing on a pommel horse during a noncompetitive skills showcase. Female gymnasts were first officially allowed to compete in 1928, and since then both men’s and women’s events have gone through some pretty major transformations. Old gymnastic events, like rope climbing, have been discarded; classic apparatuses have been traded between genders; and new ones have emerged, like the uneven bars in 1954. Even events that have been staples of the sport all along, like the women’s balance beam, have evolved dramatically with changing technology, gender norms, and skill levels.
Scrolling through these archival photos, I didn’t just see a sport advancing technically: I watched a bona fide cultural phenomenon establish itself. I grew up cartwheeling in my living room while watching the Summer Games, hearing my mom recount the exact moment Kerri Strug stuck the landing with a hurt ankle in ’96, and talking about each member of the 2016 Fierce Five as though they were close personal friends. Names like Olga Korbut, Nadia Comaneci, and Mary Lou Retton register as sports legends, and when I think of the Olympics, I think of gymnastics. Lots of us take this absolute spectacle of a sport for granted in the Games, but these photos made me realize just how far it’s come (…and made Simone Biles’s GOAT status—less than 100 years after women were first allowed to compete—infinitely more satisfying).
While you’re anxiously awaiting the first gymnastics broadcast from Paris, enjoy these snapshots from the last century of the Olympic sport. (It’s a healthy balance of “How is that humanly possible?” and “How was that socially normal?”) A little context might make you enjoy the 2024 Games even more.
1908
1908
