In rhythmic gymnastics, hoop is the first apparatus in the competition order, and the first you compete with as a young gymnast.
Your hoop changes as you do — it is the only apparatus tailored to your height. You can choose the colour and design of your hoop at whim, changing with the trends, and when the hoop breaks, you start thinking about your next evolution, your next hoop.
Stiliana Nikolova, the 18-year-old competing for Bulgaria, waits for her name to be called. She looks young and scared — she wipes her hands repeatedly before grabbing her hoop. Then she salutes, marches to the carpet and begins her routine.
I have been watching Nikolova compete since 2022, when she became the European and World Champion. The whole world was watching. Here was this athlete who was reinventing the sport with her speed and artistry. She created skills that no one else was doing.
So, naturally, I took inspiration and started doing them too.
By 2022, I had been a rhythmic gymnast for 15 years. I had competed for 12, of which 7 were at the national level. I was recovering from several injuries that I was pretending weren’t career-ending. I was losing love for the sport. Then Nikolova showed up and reminded me what rhythmic gymnastics could be.
I watched her Olympic hoop routine on my lunch break at work, barely blinking. She needed to qualify for the finals — I needed her to. She dropped her hoop. I turned off my phone.
For smaller gymnasts like Nikolova and myself, the ball is one of the most difficult apparatuses.
Made of rubber, with a diametre of 20 cm and weighing at least 400 grams, it’s difficult to hold with small hands. It’s easy to drop, easier still to hate for dropping. Your ball score can make or break your competition.
Nikolova, with a red ball bigger than her head, commands the arena. Look at me, she says with her big smile. I could be your Olympic champion. She is fluid in her movements, moving with a tenacity some might call desperate. She wants this, and she won’t let it go easily.
In 2019, I competed in my first Canadian championships. I had completed a solid first routine, but now it was time for ball. I always hated ball. Think of what they are asking of you: take this bouncy thing that you cannot let bounce, this rolly thing you cannot let roll. And although it is nearly half a kilogram, you must throw it into the air to then catch in your legs, feet or in a single hand. You must display complete control.
At those Championships, I wanted more than anything to have control — I locked my nerves away and performed a routine good enough to make my competition. In 2024, I watched Nikolova, a very similar gymnast to me, lock her worries away and take back control over her competition with her ball routine.
Clubs are typically revered as the most dangerous apparatus in rhythmic gymnastics. Think baton, except you have two — they’re smaller, and you’re juggling them for almost your whole routine. They were my favourite.
Due to their difficulty, clubs can score the highest of the four apparatuses. Nikolova knows this — likely, a bit too well. Her focus slips, and she drops a club out of the bounds of the carpet. Big deduction. She drops again, and looks visibly in disbelief. How could this happen? Doesn’t matter — another deduction. And that’s it.
To qualify for a rhythmic gymnastics finals, you need to be the best of the best of the day. It doesn’t matter how well you have been doing — do it on the carpet today, or it doesn’t count. At the Canadian Championships, the same apparatus, even the same routine, can get you to top three or nineteenth, depending on the year. It can get you to the Olympic finals, or signal that your dream is over.
I knew it, and Nikolova did too — it was done.
Ribbon is the apparatus that everyone associates with rhythmic gymnastics.
It’s deceptively elegant — ask any rhythmic gymnast, and they will tell you how much their arms burn after a ribbon routine, how frustrated they get when their ribbon knots. Having good ribbon technique is an incredible bragging right in this sphere.
Holding back tears, Nikolova walks to the carpet. One last routine, nothing left to lose. She waits for the music, then bends the six-metre piece of silk to her will. She creates magic. She captivates the audience. She drops it once, but it doesn’t matter — she leaves it all on the carpet, and delivers a routine that she’s sure to be proud of.
When it’s all over, she takes a moment to wave to the crowd, thanking them for their time. She finishes 11th, tenths of a point away from the finals. She smiles, tear marks still hidden under her makeup. She hugs her coach. She thanks her competitors. That is the last time she steps foot on the 2024 Olympic carpet.
The Olympics celebrate the winners, but everyone else is so much more relatable.
Here is a fighter, a young girl performing in front of thousands of people who want her to do something incredible. Here is someone who masks her tears with makeup and a smile, who has a job to do and a role to play. Here is Nikolova — the open book, the mirror.
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