Ballerinas and Pixies: a Genealogy of the Changing Female Gymnastics Body

Abstract

Until the late 1960s, women's artistic gymnastics consisted of mature women performing gentle ballet-type exercises that were emotionally expressive and graceful. During the 1970s, however, the gymnasts' performances and bodies changed dramatically. Young and sexually undeveloped gymnasts began to execute acrobatic- and risk-driven routines that consisted of complex air-bound combinations of gymnastics elements. The trend to acrobatics emerged in the former Soviet Union. Within this specific political context, a highly competitive, ambitious and ingenious sporting atmosphere fostered the development of the acrobatic trend in the Eastern Bloc countries and later in the West. Analyses of the 1964 and 1975 International Code of Points (Code) and specific descriptions of the physical appearance and winning floor routine of Czechoslovakian Vera Caslavska at the 1968 Olympic Games and that of Romanian Nadia Comaneci at the 1976 Games, demonstrate the differing gymnastics styles. Interviews, academic literature, popular texts and Internet sites help explain the developments. Michel Foucault's genealogical research methodology and ‘analytic’ of modern relations of power assist in this pursuit, revealing a particular history of social change.

Acknowledgement

I would like to express special thanks to Mark Dyreson for his ample and most useful feedback in preparing this article.

Notes

[1] The Code is the document that regulates women's artistic gymnastics. The Women's Technical Committee of the FIG publishes this document. The Code was first published in 1954 and has since been updated every four years, in the year after the Olympic Games, to include developing trends. The Code classifies all elements according to their difficulty. Up until the end of 2005, gymnasts' routine values depended on how many difficult elements they could include. From this value, judges deducted points during the competition, which then gave the final mark. Although the two Codes that I reference are from 1964 and 1975, they were the ones valid at the 1968 and 1976 Olympic Games.

[2] I analyse the gymnasts' routines from the video recordings by the International Olympic Committee, Gymnastics.

[3] Other authors, notably Allen Guttmann, have previously written on how constructions of the ideal female athletic body have changed over time. This author does not, however, base his analyses on a theoretical framework: see Guttmann, The Erotic in Sports.

[4] Foucault and Rabinow, The Foucault Reader, 59.

[5] Harvey and Sparks, ‘The Politics of the Body in the Context of Modernity’, 166.

[6] Booth, ‘Searching for the Past’, 10.

[7] The term ‘acrobatization’ is not commonly used in English. It is, however, widely used in the German language. Akrobatisierung refers to the development of women's artistic gymnastics into acrobatics.

[8] Munslow, ‘Michel Foucault and History’, 120. Foucault's analyses of discipline can be found in Foucault, Discipline and Punish. His analyses of sexuality are compiled in Foucault, The Care of the Self; The History of Sexuality; and The Use of Pleasure.

[9] McLaren, Feminism, Foucault, and Embodied Subjectivity, 81–3.

[10] Shilling,The Body and Social Theory, 74 (emphasis mine).

[11] Huguenin, 100 Years of the International Gymnastics Federation, 1881–1981, 103.

[12]Vera Caslavska began gymnastics at the age of 15 and was a figure-skater prior to her involvement in gymnastics. At the 1968 Olympics, she was 26 years old. For a visual image of Caslavska floor routine, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uV_-XQENEVo, accessed 1 Dec. 2005.

[13] Women's Technical Committee, Code of Points, 2.

[14] Ibid., 25.

[15] The 1975 Code registered approximately 110 elements, of which over 30 belonged to an acrobatic category.

[16] The picture in Figure 1 is from the 1972 Code of Points showing the split salto quarter-turn (this picture shows this element with an unrealistic height): Women's Technical Committee, Code of Points.

[17] Simons, Women's Gymnastics, 72.

[18] At the time, Caslavska weighed 121 lb and was 5 ft 3 ins tall.

[19] Today's women's gymnastics floors consist of flexible wooden plates and dynamic foam spring elements. This is covered by polyethylene foam and a felt carpet.

[20] Dieter Hofmann, personal correspondence with author, 21 Nov. 2005. While the Communist authorities used the successes of competitive sports – in particular high-performance ones – for external political purposes, internal objectives were also important. National pride, enhancement of production efficiency and the improvement of military capacity were three such important goals: Edelmann, Serious Fun, 9.

[21] Useful works have been written by Beck (‘Britain and the Cold War's “Cultural Olympics”’; Edelman (Serious Fun) and Riordan (‘The Impact of Communism on Sport’).

[22] Beck, ‘Britain and the Cold War's “Cultural Olympics”’, 170.

[23] James Riordan sees capitalist and aristocratic ideals to have discriminated against lower class, non-white and Jewish populations.

[24] Riordan, ‘Rewriting Soviet Sports History’, 249.

[25] Ibid., 251.

[26] Riordan, ‘The Impact of Communism on Sport’, 55–6.

[27] Dieter Hofmann. Riordan shares this view. Riordan, Soviet Sport, 21.

[28] Shneidman, The Soviet Road to Olympus, 101–24.

[29] Riordan, Soviet Sports, 36.

[30] Collins, ‘Epilogue’, 835.

[31] Sasha Belooussov, personal correspondence with author, 3 Nov. 2005.

[32] Brokhin, The Big Red Machine, 51. Brokhin was murdered in 1982, allegedly because of his critical stance towards Communism.

[33] Sasha Belooussov.

[34] In the Soviet Union, there were some 200 specialized gymnastics schools where young athletes received daily gymnastics training and academic schooling: Riordan, Soviet Sport, 101.

[35] Olga Belooussov, personal correspondence with author, 3 Nov. 2005.

[36] Ibid.

[37] Brokhin, The Big Red Machine, 104.

[38] Daddario, Women's Sport and Spectacle, 73. See also Ryan, Little Girls in Pretty Boxes.

[39] The coaches of the successful Soviet gymnasts such as Lyudmila Turishcheva (Vladislav Rastorotskii), Olga Korbut (Renald Knysh), Nelli Kim (Vladimir Baidin) and Yelena Mukhina (Mikhail Klimenko), as well as Romanian Nadia Comaneci (Bela Karolyi), were male. Their successful predecessors had female coaches.

[40] Yuri Titov, personal correspondence with author, 22 Nov. 2005.

[41] Olga Belooussov.

[42] Ibid.

[43] Ibid.

[44] Beck, ‘Britain and the Cold War's “Cultural Olympics”’, 169.

[45] Turrini, ‘“It Was Communism Versus the Free World”’, 428. Peter Beck argues that the British government used the country's soccer triumphs to propagate its power just as the Soviet Politburo used sport to promote national superiority. Beck, ‘Britain and the Cold War's “Cultural Olympics”’, 177.

[46] Simons, Women's Gymnastics, 36. This author considers this gymnast particularly innovative. For a visual image of her swinging bar routine, see http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=8gL8zyk3YDA, accessed 3 Dec. 2005.

[47] Hardy Fink, personal correspondence with author, 20 Nov. 2005.

[48] Committee d'Organisation des Jeux d'Olympiques, ‘Montréal 1976’.

[49] These changes are particularly significant given that certain gymnastics elements that were coded as superior difficulties in 1964 had been reduced to medium-level difficulty. The downgrading of the tucked backward salto is one example. This element involves the gymnast jumping and rotating once around her horizontal axis. Figure 2 illustrates the tucked backward salto on the beam.

[50] Technisches Komitee der Frauen, Wertungsvorschriften, 5.

[51] For a visual image of Comaneci's floor routine, please see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B6IOpduitQ&mode=related&search=, accessed 7 Jul. 2005.

[52] Ryan, Little Girls in Pretty Boxes, 58.

[53] John Atkinson, personal correspondence with author, 20 Nov. 2005.

[54] Hargreaves, Sporting Females, 64.

[55] Blue, ‘Killer Gymnastics’, 84–85. Mukhina died as a result of her injuries in December 2006.

[56] Golubev, Soviet Gymnastics Stars, 84.

[57] Simons, Women's Gymnastics, 150.

[58] Huguenin, 100 Years of the International Gymnastics Federation, 67.

[59] Goodbody, The Illustrated History of Gymnastics, 60.

[60] Technisches Komitee der Frauen, Wertungsvorschriften, 70.

[61] Simons, Women's Gymnastics, 106–7 and 110.

[62] Kasten, ‘Der DTB beteiligt sich vorläufig nicht mehr’. This ban lasted from 1954 until 1960.

[63] Prinz, ‘Notes on Women's Gymnastics’, 178.

[64] See for instance Goehler, ‘Fass ohne Boden’; Hoffmann, ‘Kunstturnen als Leistungssport im Kindesalter?’.

[65] Dieter Hofmann.

[66] Pfister, ‘Cultural Confrontations’, 69.

[67] Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles, Official Olympic Reports.

[68] Knudsen, ‘Into the Circle’.

[69] Daddario, Women's Sport and Spectacle, 48.

[70] Guttmann, Women's Sports, 205.

[71] Hortleder and Gebauer, ‘Die künstlichen Paradiese des Sports’, 12. It is interesting to note that these officials did not reject strength or acrobatic skills, but the visibility of these characteristics. Female gymnasts could perform skills their male counterparts performed as long as the movements appeared playful and weightless.

[72] Guttmann, The Erotic in Sports.

[73] Cahn, ‘You've Come a Long Way, Maybe’, 275. For other useful examples on this issue, see Chisholm, ‘Acrobats, Contortionists, and Cute Children’; Chisholm, ‘Defending the Nation’; Hargreaves, Sporting Females; Wright, ‘Gracefulness and Strength’.

[74] Wright, ‘Gracefulness and Strength’, 64.

[75] Klein, ‘Körperlichkeit bei Spitzensportlerinnen’.