What Have We Won?: Aerials All Around!

How do you feel about rhinestones? Tight ponytails? Older Russian coaches? If you just yelled, “YES!” Well, have we—or rather, Iceland—got the sport for you.

Better than the Olympics

In 2010 and 2012, Iceland’s women’s team took home gold in the European TeamGym gymnastics championships. This was a massive deal, as not only is gymnastics one of the most beautiful and brutal sports around, but Denmark was in 4th place. That’s right Denmark. How does that feel, you colonisers?

“Watching the Icelandic team’s perfection is basically like watching a horde of bendy blonde robots—so the Stepford wives.”

The championships contain three different events: floor, trampette, and tumbling. We assume your only exposure to women’s gymnastics is the Olympics, so here’s the differences between both competitions. In TeamGym, the floor routine is a group programme that mixes together dance, flexibility, and tricks. Synchronisation is very important here, so watching the Icelandic team’s perfection is basically like watching a horde of bendy blonde robots—so the Stepford wives.

Trampette is a small trampoline that you run at and do tricks on, much like a vault. There’s two parts to this—one is just the trampoline and the other includes a cushiony vault. To accomplish all this, the girls run really quickly directly after each other, so basically as one is jumping the other is running after them. It’s kind of stressful. The last event, tumbling, involves a long springy catwalk, that you run across and do handsprings and such.

New clubs

Note: We’re talking about artistic gymnastics, not rhythmic gymnastics. That means there are no ribbons and hula hoops. Apparently, Iceland doesn’t even have a rhythmic gymnastics team. This is, quite obviously, a travesty and we attribute the widespread use of antidepressants to this sobering fact. We, at the Grapevine, have decided to sponsor our own. Please send your applications to twistandshout@grapevine.is