Pommel Horse In Women’s Event? Gymnastics World Divided Over Gender Equality In The Sport

The struggle of both male and female gymnasts in the sport is different. While the grass always seems greener on the other side, there often have been heated discussions, where sportspersons have made efforts to uplift capitalizing potential of men and women in the discourse of gymnastics. For example, considering pommel horses and rings as events requiring immense upper body strength, this segment is only included in MAG and not in WAG. Such indifference has emerged in disputes and differences of opinion in the gymnastics world, questioning the incapabilities of men and women in the sport.

While popular gymnasts such as Ian Gunther (from the MAG) and

Olivia Dunne (from the WAG) have been pretty vocal about their opinions on gender equality in gymnastics, a recent fluff about the same took over the internet to engage the audience in the same conversation.

Suspense beholds the new all-around arrangement in gymnastics

Making a drastic announcement on Instagram, Emily, a digital creator surfaced a matter that has been a topic of discussion for a long time. Captioned, “

This will be interesting,” the post elaborated on the gender equality issues that the gymnastics fraternity has been talking about quite publicly now. Vowing for an equal stance, the post mentioned, “Pommel Horse Shifts to Women Artistic Gymnastics for Gender Equality.”

The Instagram post further swiped right to state that the new all-around arrangement effective from the year 2029, would make some drastic changes in WAG – Women’s Artistic Gymnastics and MAG – Men’s Artistic Gymnastics, specially by removing the pommel horse from MAG and shifting it to WAG. While everyone who read the unexpected news seemed surprised by such a sudden announcement, the last picture depicted how well of a joke it was on April Fool’s Day!

Fans were stunned at this declaration

While some fans made hilarious comments wishing the news was true, other fans wished the opposite. Though gender equality has been a whooping subject in the history of gymnastics, the audience enjoyed getting fooled by this post. The viral fame of TikTok and a 4x NCAA Champion,

Ian Gunther could not refrain from saying, “Can we make this real please.”

Other gymnastics fans enthusiastically commented on their view after getting fooled, “Isn’t it sad that I thought “Of course, it has”. Glad it was an April Fools!” and “The absolute rollercoaster I went through in the 3 seconds it took me to figure it out.” And some wished if the news was true. “Leveling the playing field.” and “Meanwhile, we just want a male balance beam.”, others posted as a reaction to the post.

Read More: Olivia Dunne, Highest-Paid NCAA Female Athlete, Exposes Gender Inequality in Post-College Athletic Opportunities for Women