After the Romans invaded Greece, the Roman army adopted gymnastics for training purposes. When the Olympics were outlawed in 393 AD, interest in gymnastics declined and the sport was almost lost.
Interest in gymnastics was revived in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when two German doctors – Johann Friedrich GutsMuths and Friedrich Ludwig Jahn – created exercises for boys and young men including modern pommel horse, horizontal bar, parallel bar, balance beam, ladder, and vaulting horse. Disclaimer: Mankind’s earliest sports grew out of survival skills. Wrestling is considered one of the very first, with depictions found in the Lascaux cave paintings in France dating back over 15,000 years. Running also has prehistoric roots, since speed was crucial for both hunting and escaping danger; by around 3,000 BCE, footraces were already being held in Egypt and Mesopotamia, and the very first Olympic event in Greece in 776 BCE was a sprint known as the stadion.
