Athletes who come from a background in gymnastics into sports that understandably have a synergy include Briton Molly Caudery, who incorporates training from the sport she gave up as a 10-year-old into her athletics routines for pole vault now.
The 2024 world indoor champion has posted reels on social media showing her using the parallel bars to help build upper body control and core strength.
Cassiel Rousseau, meanwhile, moved on from being a highly accomplished acrobatic gymnast, to a two-time world champion diver in the men’s 10m platform.
A late starter to the diving scene, the Australian’s gymnastics background aided his rapid ascent to a first world title, in the men’s 10m platform in 2023, just seven years after his first coached diving session.
But the rigours of aiming for perfection in gymnastics, or indeed diving, is not for everyone.
For Canadian freeskier Megan Oldham gymnastics felt too regimented, and instead found her tribe amide the freestyle skiing scene.
“I remember the last year on the gymnastics team, it was this new structure where every athlete in the same level was doing the same song, the same routine, but just slightly different skills,” Oldham told Olympics.com in March. “And I think that for me was a wake-up call. Like, ‘This is really killing the fun for me!'”
Still, the background in learning aerial awareness and the thrill of flipping stick with Oldham, a slopestyle and big air specialist, and now a four-time world medallist and three-time X- Games champion.
“You go out, and every day, you’re doing whatever you want,” said Oldham, who made history at the 2023 X Games by becoming the first woman to successfully complete a triple cork in a ski or snowboard event. “You’re learning the skills that you think are cool, adding grabs that you think make the trick look better. I fell in love with that portion of it, and just having my own expression when it came to doing a sport.”
So these are the obvious sports that have gymnastics at their core, but what of the more unusual progressions?