The Apparatus
The apparatus originated as a 'free exercise' for men, very similar to the floor exercise of today. It wasn't until 1948 that women were allowed to compete on the floor.
Most competitive gymnastics floors are spring floors. They contain springs and/or a rubber foam and plywood combination which make the floor bouncy, soften the impact of landings and enable the gymnast to gain height when tumbling. Floors have clearly designated perimeters—the "out of bounds" area is always indicated by a border of white tape or a differently colored mat.
The allowed time for a floor exercise is up to 70 seconds for males and up to 90 seconds for females. Unlike men, women always perform routines to music.
Read more about this topic: Floor (gymnastics)
Famous quotes containing the word apparatus:
“One’s condition on marijuana is always existential. One can feel the importance of each moment and how it is changing one. One feels one’s being, one becomes aware of the enormous apparatus of nothingness—the hum of a hi-fi set, the emptiness of a pointless interruption, one becomes aware of the war between each of us, how the nothingness in each of us seeks to attack the being of others, how our being in turn is attacked by the nothingness in others.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“Totalitarianism is never content to rule by external means, namely, through the state and a machinery of violence; thanks to its peculiar ideology and the role assigned to it in this apparatus of coercion, totalitarianism has discovered a means of dominating and terrorizing human beings from within.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)