“Gymnastics” and its related terms have extraordinary semantic histories, starting with “gymnasium”, deriving from an ancient Greek root meaning “to train naked”.
As marble statues of Greek athletes such as the famous discus thrower show this was the norm. It never caught on in colder climates, but the words were borrowed from the 1590s.
As an Olympic sport, gymnastics was transformed by one star, Nadia Comaneci, who in 1976 at the age of 14, scored a perfect 10 in five astounding series.
She came from Romania, a dysfunctional communist dictatorship notorious for its ruthless materialistic ruler. Comaneci hardly ever smiled and never complained. She emigrated to America, married and has two children.
Back in the Tokyo arena, some gymnasts are understandably succumbing to the enormous pressure, both physical and…
