Free gymnastics SVG files

Long thin limbs that still cut

A gymnast in the air is mostly arms and legs, and that is the hard part for a blade. These silhouettes are drawn with rounded fingertips and toes, not slivers, and with limbs that thicken towards the body. On the split leap at 100 mm wide the ankles are nearly 4 mm across and the wrists about 3 mm. The slimmest places in the set are the hands of the handstand and the ribbon of the ribbon dancer, at between 1.5 and 2 mm, so cut those two at 100 mm or larger and peel slowly from the body outwards.

For iron-on on a leotard bag or a meet day shirt, 150 to 200 mm is the usual size and every design here is comfortable there. In card, lift the figure with a spatula under the torso first. The apparatus helps: the beam, the bars, the vaulting table and the strips of floor are solid bars that stiffen the piece, so the gymnast on the beam is a better choice for thin wood than a leap with nothing under it.

The poses

The split leap, the cartwheel, the bridge and the handstand in a split are floor skills. The scale, where the gymnast tips forward on one leg, is shown on the balance beam and again inside a ring as a badge. The leg hold, also called a Y scale, faces you. The handstand on the high bar and the push off the vaulting table are for the gymnasts who live on those two pieces, and the iron cross on the still rings is from the men’s side of the sport. None of the figures has a face, so any of them can stand for the gymnast you are making it for.

How to open the files

• Cricut Design Space: choose Upload, pick the SVG, and add it to the canvas. Set the width you want; the shape is already welded.
• Silhouette Studio: Designer Edition and above open the SVG. The free Basic Edition does not, so open the DXF instead.
• LightBurn, xTool Creative Space and Glowforge: import the SVG, then set the layer to cut, score or engrave.
• Inkscape, Illustrator and Affinity: open the SVG. It is a plain filled path, so you can recolour it, add a stroke or combine it with your own work.
• Printing or sublimation: use the PNG, which has a transparent background.

Each design page lists the file’s narrowest part at seven sizes, so you can tell whether it will survive at the size you plan to cut.

Questions