Date | 12 August 1936 — 7:00, 14:00 | |
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Status | Olympic | |
Location | Dietrich-Eckart-Freilichtbühne, Reichssportfeld, Berlin | |
Participants | 64 from 8 countries | |
Format | Two group exercises for which the team score counted, along with individual compulsory and optional exercises on parallel bars, horse vault and balance beam. In the individual exercises, only the best six scores of each team's eight gymnasts counted towards the team score. |
Women first competed in Olympic gymnastics at Amsterdam in 1928 with a team all-around event only. Women’s gymnastics was not on the Olympic Program at Los Angeles in 1932, but women first competed at the World Championships in 1934, in the team all-around. Czechoslovakia had won that title and was the likely favorite in Berlin, although it was difficult to choose with so little international competition. The Czechoslovaks won silver in Berlin, trailing the host Germans, who won fairly comfortably. The bronze medal went to Hungary, which had been second to Czechoslovakia at the 1934 Worlds.