Swingshot was an event introduced in the third season of the show based around bungee jumping which was relatively novel and just emerging as a commercially activity at the time.
For the event, contenders and Gladiators were attached to the ceiling of the arena with elastic bungee cords. they began the event atop raised platforms surrounding a narrow cylinder, also suspended from the ceiling. The contenders were on one side of the arena and the Gladiators on the other side.
The object was for the contenders to jump from their raised platform, rebound of the floor, and bounce up to one of the scoring balls attached with Velcro to the central cylinder. They then had to return and deposit the ball in a scoring container atop their platform to score. Gladiators attempted to block the contenders from obtaining balls from the central cylinder by similarly jumping from their own platforms and attempting to time their jumps to meet and block the contenders in the middle.
Scoring balls came in three colors, yellow, blue and red, arranged in rings at three different heights around the central cylinder. The difficulty in reaching the higher colors corresponded with a higher point value for those colors.
1 point was awarded for each yellow ball grabbed, since they were the lowest level and easiest to grab. The blue balls were on the second level of the cylinder, and were initially worth 2 points. The red balls were highest on the cylinder and were initially worth 3 points. After the preliminary round of Swingshot's first season, the point value of the balls was increased to 3 and 5 points respectively. However, the points were later returned to their original level.
When the game debuted, three Gladiators faced the contenders. After the set was revamped in season 5, only two Gladiators faced the contenders.
In the first half of season one, there was reference to a game called "Swingshot" that was played strictly by the female contenders in the early rounds of play in place of the men's event, Breakthrough & Conquer. Footage of the game was never shown; only the contenders' results. It is believed that this was an entirely unrelated game to the one that debuted in the third season.