Floor exercise
Floor exercise is a gymnastics event performed on a spring floor, combining tumbling passes, leaps, turns, and choreography within a timed routine.
Tumbling pass: A connected sequence of acrobatic skills performed across the floor. Passes supply the routine’s major airborne skills and contribute difficulty.
Tumbling: A form of gymnastics built around linked rolls, handsprings, and aerial skills. Floor exercise uses tumbling as one of its central movement families.
Balance beam: An artistic gymnastics event performed on a narrow elevated beam. Both combine acrobatics and dance, but beam routines must manage a tiny support surface.
Simone Biles: An American artistic gymnast known for exceptional difficulty and multiple Olympic and world titles. Her floor routines have included highly difficult tumbling skills that changed expectations of elite difficulty.
Code of Points: The rulebook defining gymnastics skills, difficulty values, and judging deductions. It determines how floor routines earn difficulty and lose execution points.
Leap (gymnastics): A gymnastics jump in which the body reaches a defined shape while airborne. Leaps add dance elements and demonstrate flexibility, height, and body control.
Uneven bars: An artistic gymnastics event involving swings, releases, and transitions between two bars. Unlike floor, it centers on apparatus-supported skills rather than landings on a broad surface.
Cheng Fei: A Chinese artistic gymnast who won three gold medals at the 2006 World Championships. Her powerful tumbling and floor success exemplify a leading competitive style of the 2000s.
Artistic gymnastics scoring: The judging system that combines difficulty and execution scores in artistic gymnastics. Floor routines are evaluated through its difficulty and execution framework.
Gymnastics turn: A controlled rotation performed on one foot or another point of support. Turns contribute dance content and test balance and precision.