Balance Beam Quiz | Gymnastics

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. In 1972, Olga Korbut dazzled the world at the Olympic Games in Munich. Her signature move was a trick that she performed on the balance beam. What move was that?

Answer: aerial back tuck

That aerial back tuck has been shown over and over again in every Olympic history show that you can think of. Korbut's Olympic debut in Munich is considered to be a defining moment in the sport for two reasons: first, because of her use of acrobatics in gymnastics, which was then considered to be more of a balletic sport than an acrobatic one, and second, because she popularized the sport in the West. Millions of little girls who saw her on television immediately wanted gymnastics lessons, and suddenly more people knew what this formerly obscure sport was all about.

However, she was not the first gymnast to perform this move in Olympic competition (that honor belongs to Nancy Thies of the USA, who performed some seven hours before the USSR).

2. The unflappable Nadia Comaneci is considered by many to have been the greatest beam worker of all time. However, what was unusual about her beam performance in the optional part of the team competition at the 1979 World Championships?

Answer: she competed a one-handed routine

She had seemed to be in great shape to win Worlds after the compulsory part of the team competition. Unfortunately, she had scratched herself on a palm guard, and by the time the stoic Nadia told anyone about it, she had blood poisoning up the arm and had to have her arm bandaged.

She was supposed to sit out the rest of the meet. The rest of Karolyi's team was made up of very young, untried gymnasts, but by the time they got to beam, they had set themselves up to win the team competition anyway. Then Emilia Eberle fell and it seemed that all was lost. Nadia got up and performed a perfect one-handed beam routine, securing her place in gymnastics history yet again and clinching the team gold medal.

She scored a 9.950 on it. By the way, the Romanian team actually did walk out of a competition after a scoring controversy involving Nadia. That was at the event finals of the 1977 European Championships.

The Romanian Gymnastics Federation forced them to walk out with two events left to go because they felt that Nadia had been cheated out of her vault gold.

3. The Chinese have long been considered to be the greatest beam workers in the world, but not until 2000 in Sydney was one of them able to hold it together in an Olympic Games to become the balance beam gold medalist. Which Chinese gymnast won that event?

Answer: Liu Xuan

Ling Jie, touted by many as a lock to win the gold, faltered and Liu Xuan seized her opportunity, beating out Russia's Yekaterina Lobaznyuk and Yelena Produnova for the title. It was a bittersweet moment for Liu - the 19-year-old team captain was competing in her last meet before retirement.

In a rare display of emotion for Liu, she went back up onto the podium, kissed the beam, and cried. Actually, she would find out soon after that that she was also an all-around bronze medalist - she benefited from the drugging controversy that saw Romanian gymnast Andreea Raducan stripped of her all-around gold.

4. Who was the first American to win a world medal on the beam?

Answer: Cathy Rigby

She won a silver on beam at the 1971 World Championships. Not only did Rigby win the first American beam medal, she won America's first World Championships medal ever.

5. She is considered to have been "the best beam worker who never won beam." Always an innovator, she set a new standard for beam in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Her namesake move is a split leap with the head thrown back, making it that much more difficult. Who was this Chinese gymnast?

Answer: Yang Bo

She came so close to a beam title so many times, but she always faltered. In the 1992 Olympics, she fell in the event finals on a tumbling pass that she'd been doing for years, dropping to seventh place.

6. Many people remember Romanian-American gymnast Dominique Moceanu's somewhat odd mount for her beam exercise. It was a shoulder roll with a turn to shoulder stands. However, this move was not unique to Moceanu. The inventor of this shoulder roll skill was a Romanian Olympic gold medalist in balance beam herself. Who was she?

Answer: Daniela Silivas

That move was called the Silivas. Daniela won the balance beam in Seoul at the 1988 Olympic Games, defeating her Soviet rival Elena Shushunova. It was a small revenge. Shushunova had taken the Olympic all-around title from Silivas just a few days earlier.

7. How much of a deduction is it if a gymnast falls off the beam (or even on to the beam)?

Answer: 0.5

As every sports commentator in the history of televised gymnastics will remind you as many times as possible per meet, every time a gymnast falls off the beam, it's a five tenths of a point deduction. It doesn't matter if you fall ONTO the beam, either. The deduction is the same.

8. What is the term for a back handspring with 3/4 of a twist that lands in a side handstand?

Answer: Omelianchik

Named after the Soviet gymnast Oksana Omelianchik, this move was used and overused throughout the 1990s because of its high value in the Code of Points.

9. And what do you call a 1/2 twist to handspring forward?

Answer: Onodi

That's an Onodi, named after the great Hungarian gymnast Henrietta Onodi (vault gold medalist and floor silver medalist at the 1992 Olympics). Although the skill is named after her, it was actually first done by Soviet gymnast Olga Mostepanova. Onodi actually had another, similar move on the beam named after her: a 1/2 into a front walkover.

10. Everyone knows that the balance beam is four inches wide. About how long is it (in feet)?

Answer: 16 feet

It's 16 feet, 3 inches (about 5 meters) long, 4 inches (about 10 centimeters) wide, and 4 feet (1.25 meters) off the ground.

Source: Author SuperRo

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor gtho4 before going online.
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