Wheel gymnastics

 ( Circus Skills ) 

He filed for a patent as "wheel-gymnastic and sports equipment". He had invented the wheel in Ludwigshafen 1920–1922, on the grounds of the VSK Germania, a sports club, of which he was the founding chairman. The patent was issued on 8 November 1925; the name "Rhönrad" has been registered and protected since 1926 ("Rhön" is the name of the mountain region where the wheel was invented).

The Rhönrad was featured at the GeSoLei trade fair held in Düsseldorf in 1926.

In 1936, this sport was shown at the Olympic Games in Berlin, but was not presented as an Olympic discipline.

The focus of wheel gymnastics remains largely in Germany, but there are wheel groups in several countries and every 2 years the International Wheel Gymnastics Federation holds a World Championships competition. Former world champion wheel gymnast Wolfgang Bientzle moved from Germany to Chicago and runs his own company WHEEL JAM to educate and train people of every age to do Wheel gymnastics.

• Straight-line: In straight-line, the wheel is set in motion on both rims. The imaginary lines traced by the rims in contact with the floor are parallel. Straight-line can be performed with or without music. At the world championships the seniors (older than 18 years old) perform with music, while the juniors perform without music.
• Spirale: The wheel is set in motion on one rim and for most skills the wheel rim in contact with the floor traces an approximately circular path. There are 3 categories of elements in spirale. In the "big spirale" the path of the wheel is bigger than the diameter of the wheel and the angle between the wheel and the floor is bigger than 60° degree. In the "small spirale" the angle is less than 30° and the path of the wheel on the is smaller the diameter of the wheel. In the "vertical spirale" the wheel moves in an almost upright position. The path of the wheel on the floor is extremely small. The wheel rotates around the longitudinal axis.
• Vault: The gymnast sets the wheel in motion. After a run-up the gymnast mounts the wheel, from where he/she performs can perform various dismounts on to a landing mat. Examples of dismounts are tuck/pike/straight front sommersaults.

The score of each discipline (except straight-line with music) is calculated in the following way. In straight-line with music the average of the execution and the artistic impression is added instead of only the execution:

Difficulty (max 10,0) + Execution (max 10,0) - Neutral deductions = max 20, Points

The difficulty score consist of max 8,0 (8 most difficult elements count) for the difficulty of the elements and 2,0 for fulfilling structure groups. The execution score is calculated by deducting 0,1 (minor deduction), 0,3 (medium), 0,5 (major) or 1,0 (fall / assist of coach) from the 10,0.

• (since 1995, Gold Member)
• (since 1995, Gold Member)
• (since 2009, Gold Member)
• (since 1995, Bronze Member)
• (since 1995, Bronze Member)
• (since 1997, Bronze Member)
• (since 2003, Bronze Member)
• (since 2011, Bronze Member)
• (since 2012, Bronze Member)
• (since 2015, Bronze Member)
• (since 2024, Bronze Member)

2024 - 2026: Simon Rufener,   Achim Pitz, Malena Kernacs,   Cyrus Luciano

2022 - 2024:   Simon Rufener,   Katja Homeyer, Isabel Pietro,   Kanai Shigeki

2020 - 2022:   Simon Rufener,   Katja Homeyer,   Svea Hünnig,   Yasuhiko Takahashi,   Tammi Livni

Previous World Championships:

** The world championship was canceled, because of COVID-19.

• Cyr wheel
• Sport in Germany
• Wheel of Steel

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