BOSTON — It’s an endeavor in which chiseled bodies hurl through the air at full speed, muscles pushed to their biomechanical extremes as NBC’s cameras pan the action. One event involves hanging from rings more than eight feet above the ground while using extreme body strength to spin like a top. Another event has men darting powerfully into the air in a series of triple twists, punished should their might take them beyond the borders of the competition field.
One move, a triple vault that involves an athlete sprinting full speed, then launching into a handspring with three spins in the air before landing on two feet, is so difficult and dangerous that after it was performed in competition in 2016, it was banned.