The beginnings in Rhythmic Gymnastics go back into the times after World War I.
The first competitions as a sportive discipline were held in the Soviet Union in 1941 in Leningrad (today's St. Petersburg).
In 1963 the first World championships were held and in 1980 the first European championships.
In the Olympic programme the indicidual rhythmic gymnastics competition was included in 1984. Due to the boycot of several countries, Lori Fung  from Canada  became the first Olympic champion in history.
The first Olympic champions in the group competition in 1996 in Atlanta was the Spanish group.

At the individual competition, Evgenia Kanaeva from Russia can make history becoming the first gymnast winning two Olympic gold medals, something yet unreached. The 22-year old Russian from Omsk in Siberia dominated the gymnastics scene like no other did before, winning all all-around titles since the Olympic gold in Beijing at European and World Championships, and also here in London she’s the absolute favorite for gold.
Her strongest competitor is her own teammate Daria Dmitrieva who was chosen in a last-minute decision by the Russian head coach Irina Viner to compete in the Olympic competition. Dmitrieva had to win the internal Russian qualification over Aleksandra Merkulova, the 17 year old newcomer in the Russian team, who was initially listed as the second Russian gymnast at the official participants list at the FIG.

More thrilling will be the battle for bronze as all other likely-to be finalists may have the chance to step on the podium.
If everything goes well for them in the qualifying, Aliya Garaeva from Azerbaidjan, Liubov Charkashina and Melitina Staniouta (both BLR), Silviya Miteva from Bulgaria, Neta Rivkin (ISR) and Alina Maksimenko or Ganna Rizatdinova (both UKR) have nearly the same chances to win bronze.
This year’s individual final can be the first Olympic final without any Western European participant, as no other gymnast could reach Almudena Cid’s (ESP) results who was in four Olympic finals, getting two Olympic diplomas

At the group competition, the six girls from Russia are also the big favorites for gold. If they perform their two exercises as planned, no other group can reach their difficulty and execution.
But Russia had big problems in the past failing one exercise at every all-around at the last three World championships, loosing gold to Italy. They tried with different coaches and new gymnasts, but also this year they didn’t do a mayor competition without big mistakes.
Italy, as the reigning World champion, should be the candidate for one of the first two ranks, but they had problems this year and were beaten even by Spain in the last World Cup in Minsk one month ago. It will depend a lot on their condition on the final’s day if they can get a medal. Another candidate for the podium surely is Belarus, they put two individual gymnasts into the group and surely try to go for gold with two difficult and innovative exercises. They showed constantly good performances at all events and won’t leave the gold for any other group if Russia fails.

As in the individual competition, there are several groups that have a chance to win bronze, Spain, Bulgaria and Israel will fight for faultless performances and wait for mistakes from the top three.
But before all have to get through the qualifying!