ATHENS, Aug. 12 (Xinhuanet) -- Following is the format of the Athens Olympic gymnastics competition, which will kick off on Saturday:

    In Artistic Gymnastics, men and women compete separately, with men competing in six apparatus: floor, pommel horse, rings, vault,parallel bars and horizontal bar. Women compete in four: vault, uneven bars, beam and floor.

    There are four competition phases in gymnastics: qualification rounds, team finals, individual all-around finals, and individual apparatus finals.

    Qualifications: All gymnasts compete as part of a team or individuals and the results of this competition are used to qualify gymnasts for the team, individual all-around, and the apparatus

    Finals. No scores are carried over from the qualifications to the finals.

    Team finals: They involve only the top eight men's and women's teams from the qualifications. The teams compete again in all apparatus and the team with the highest total score wins the title.

    All-around finals: The 24 top men and women from the qualifications (maximum two per team), proceed to the individual all-round finals. The gymnasts perform again in all apparatus and those with the highest scores win the medals in the individual all-around. The individual all-around title is considered to be the highest achievement in gymnastics.

    Apparatus finals: The top eight men and women placed highest ineach apparatus in the qualifications (no more than two per team) compete for the apparatus titles. Enditem