Timeline of gymnastics in the UK

The first gymnastics club was set up in the United Kingdom

1860

Gymnastics clubs were set up and developed across the country

1865-1880
FIG (international gymnastics federation) set up
1881
National Governing Body for gymnastics in the UK founded
1888
The first national championships was held in Northampton
1896
England, Wales and Scotland all have Amateur Gymnastics
Associations. BAGA is formed
1902
First professional national coach is employed
1964
Technical committees set up by British Gymnastics for Rhythmic and acrobatic
gymnastics
1973
Membership of BAGA (British Amateur Gymnastics
Association) reaches over 100000
1996
BAGA changes its name to British Gymnastics
1997

Lottery funding is introduced to developed and support world class performance

1998

Trampolining becomes a part of British

Gymnastics
1999 This enables Trampolining to also
receive a portion of any funding that is
received by British gymnastics, which could
help it to develop and grow.
Beth Tweddle wins first World Championship
medal for British Gymnastics (bronze on Bars)
2003
Beth Tweddle becomes Britains first artistic gymnastics World Champion by winning
bars.
2006
Scoring system overhauled and new execution and difficulty scoring system begins to
be used.
2006 It is said that this change will make the
artistry less important than the skill performance
and difficulty.
Britains first individual Olympic medal for 100
years (Louis Smith Bronze on pommel horse)
2008
A year of record-breaking achievements, and was by far the most successful year for
British Gymnastics since its founding in 1888. 2010 confirmed Britains new status as
one of the top 10 nations in the world of Gymnastics and also, our outstanding skills
and expertise in organising major events.
2010

After exceeding the medal target for London 2012,

funding from the national lottery (divided amongst
sports by UK sport) increased by 34% for the
following years leading up to the Rio 2016 games.
2012
Best ever World Championships for British Artistic
Gymnastics; bronze for the womens team event, silver for the mens team event,
and Britains first ever male world champion.
2015 This has led to increased media coverage for the sport. The team members
were interviewed on various channels on prime time news bulletins, making the
sport more visible and raising its profile amongst British people.

A new rule on how many gymnasts can participate in the team at an Olympic Games.
Only four gymnasts will be able to contribute to the team competition, and a
maximum of two other gymnasts are able to qualify into individual competitions
2020 - The rule is supposed to help qualification more fair for the countries who have
less developed teams, although it may result in the games becoming more designed
for individual event specialists rather than all around gymnasts. This could lead to
possibly unskilled gymnasts competing in events which they are unable to perform
safely.