One of the biggest attractions of any Summer Olympics is the gymnastics. Since the 1970s, when Olga Korbut and Nadia Comănecis charmed their way into the hearts of the watching world, spectators and viewers alike have been hooked on watching the young and supremely fit tumble, swing, balance and vault their way to gold, silver and bronze.
It doesn’t begin and end with the Olympics of course – there are numerous national and international events, including world championships – but equally there’s no questioning that the four-yearly celebration is the sports’ blue riband event.
While betting on a winner in the gym may not be the most obvious place to start, if you’re looking to win some cash on a major sporting event, by doing your homework and following a few basic guidelines there’s fun and winnings to be had.
Where Can I Bet?
Gymnastics markets are offered by most of the major bookmakers, in particular for the Olympics and the World Championships, but some will offer a wider range of bets than others. It’s really a question of finding one that offers the level of detail and information that suits your betting needs, and to ensure you have the best opportunity of finding a site that’s right for you look no further than those recommended below…
Different Types of Bet
As gymnastic competitions tend to be either individual or team events the most regular and obvious bet is a single – where you simply use some research and your intuition to try and pick a winner. This can be over a single piece of apparatus, the combined event or the team event. The possibilities are pretty much limitless given the number of different events that fall under the gymnastics umbrella – something we’ll come on to later in this guide.
Place bets too, where you bet each way on a gymnast being one of the three medalists, also work in gymnastics, as of course do the usual mix of accumulators, doubles, trebles, yankees etc.
INTENSE TRIVIA
A German by the name of Friedrich Ludwig Jahn is generally considered to be the inventor of gymnastics as he was the first to produce several pieces of gym apparatus. These included the parallel bars and the balance beam, both of which are still in use today.
The Different Events…
Different competitions include different rosters of events but for the big ones, like the Olympics and World Championships, the full gamut of gold medals will be available. These are generally as follows:
- Men’s Vault
- Men’s Floor
- Men’s Pommel Horse
- Men’s Rings
- Men’s Parallel Bars
- Men’s Horizontal Bars
- Men’s Individual All-Around
- Men’s Team All-Around
- Women’s Vault
- Women’s Balance Beam
- Women’s Uneven Bars
- Women’s Floor
- Women’s Individual All-Around
- Women’s Team All-Around
- Women’s Rhythmic Individual All-Around
- Women’s Rhythmic Group All-Around
- Men’s Trampoline
- Women’s Trampoline
You will notice that the last four events on the list go beyond the conventional norm for gymnastics, but rhythmic gymnastics have, in fact, been part of the Olympics since 1984; the group event added in 1996. Trampolining arrived a little later, in Sydney 2000, but both now form part of every major championships and are fair game for those who fancy a bet.
INTENSE TRIVIA
In 1976 Nadia Comaneci scored the very first perfect 10. In doing so she became a gymnastics legend and set the bar for all female gymnasts that followed. However the perfect 10 is longer achievable because in 2006 a two-part system for scoring was introduced. The first score is the difficulty score and is called the A score, the B score being based on the execution of each element.
World Championships/Major Events
Summer Olympic Games – as described earlier in the guide, this four-yearly event is the blue riband event in the gymnastics calendar and is the gold medal that means most in the sport.
World Artistic Gymnastics Championships – these are held annually in the years when there is not an Olympic games. In 2017 they are to be held in Montreal, Canada and in 2018 in Doha, Qatar.
Artistic Gymnastics World Cup/World Challenge Cups – These are a series of events that stretch from February through to November, which attracts the world’s top gymnasts.
In addition to the above, there are a plethora of other international and national events, the higher ranking ones attracting the online bookmakers thereby offering the punter a chance to bet on the outcomes.
Betting Strategy
Typically, magic wands are non-existent when it comes to picking winners in the gym and, as always, the key is to do your research well in advance. Form is everything and it’s important to gauge the performance of gymnasts in their most recent event while keeping a close eye on their individual scores. The winner of an event may appear an attractive betting proposition but his or her actual score/mark is the best guide; it could be that they were competing in a low quality field.
In terms of betting on team events it’s hard to look beyond the super powers, with Russia, China and the USA all figuring prominently in recent medal tables; the Russians also dominating the ‘worlds’ in the rhythmic events. The UK too have pushed themselves into contention over the last few years in the traditional form of the sport.
For the trampoline event it’s hard to see beyond the Chinese who have completely dominated the sport since 2009, when they first came to the fore.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully some of the above will prove useful if you get the urge to have a bet on folk who tumble, balance, leap and rotate, and by allying some of our info with some research of your own there is excitement and money to be had when betting on gymnastics. Ultimately it’s about having fun while giving yourself the best chance of winning some of cash along the way, so allow us, at OnlineGambling, wish you the very best of luck.
