International Comparison of Women’s Rhythmic Gymnastics from the Perspective of Performance Time of “Body Difficulty”

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to clarify trends of rhythmic gymnastics performance and to obtain fundamental data for the composition of routines. The study surveyed women’s individual games and four events at the 2013 All-Japan Rhythmic Gymnastics Championships (27 gymnasts), the 2013 World Championships (10 gymnasts), the 2014 World Championships (12 gymnasts), the Olympic Games in 2016 (10 gymnasts) and found the number of body difficulty performed, performance time, and duration of single difficulty on each routine. Further, the study examined BD performance time by group. A two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted by using championships as between-subjects factors and gymnastic apparatus as within-subject factors. In terms of difficulty performance time and duration of single difficulty, there were significant interactions between the 2013 Japan Championships and the 2013 World Championships. While no significant interaction was found among the 2013·2014·2016 world championships, there were significant main effects in gymnastic events (All p < .05).