The end of the 10 system was treated by many as the end of a golden age. And in many ways, it was. Gymnastics since 2006 has felt somewhat different, and in many ways less exciting. Gone are the days when a step on a dismount loses a medal, when an OOB knocks leaders off the podium and a wobble on beam spells a goodbye to a world title. Excitement on the level of the 1996 AA is lost: there is no longer such a thing as the underdog. In a hypothetical competition where all the competitors hit, the winner is pre decided on the basis of the much slandered open ended D-score.
But is this a bad thing? The debate about open ended scoring is too deep and complex to be considered in any single article. But broad brush statements can still be made. Although the above is true, there are definite benefits to the new system. We see far more exciting skills and a real push towards difficulty and technical ingenuity. The classic gripe of the gymnastics fan is to whether or not this comes at the expense of perfection.
Steliana Nistor being hit by a bus. Oh, wait...
I think pictures such as this represent perfectly the issues with the new code. Here we see Steliana Nistor blocking for a DTY, and resembling a mosquito squashed against a car windscreen. One would argue that the value of difficulty in the new system encourages skill chucking and discourages a fine tuning of skills. This certainly seems true in part for the past few years, but are we seeing a change in the tides?
In recent discussions of possible changes to the code, an idea that caught my attention was that of “D+2E”. Basically, that instead of a final score produced from a combination of difficulty and execution out of 10, the value of the execution score should be doubled before it is added to the difficulty so creating a system that favours the execution side of gymnastics in a throwback to years gone by. This sounds great in practice, but one has to ask the all important question: would it make any difference?
Being a big geek I decided to test this based on the scores from this weekend’s world championships women’s event finals. The following tables represent what would happen were the D+2E rule enforced with these scores.
Vault
Bars
Beam
Floor
I was shocked to find no change whatsoever to the medals. Why? Because in each discipline, the competitor with the highest execution score took the gold medal. This to me suggests that the code might be maturing into something that actually works, favouring both difficulty and execution. It seems that gymnasts and coaches have begun to see renewed value in perfection and are using it to win medals. Yes, the gold medallists also usually had the highest D scores, but the difference now is that they can complete all their skills to an impressive standard. This is, of course, a matter of opinion, but I believe much of the work we saw at this year’s world’s to be of the highest standard of its kind in years (particularly the gold medal winners on every apparatus).
Compare this to the event finals from the 2008 Olympics: with D+2E there would have been a change to every podium except bars.
Vault
YES ALICIA!
Bars
Beam
Floor
I think the times are changing. Execution is coming back.
Results all taken from www.gymnasticsresults.com. Apologies for any potential error in my calculations. Important note: I did not include penalties in the calculations which would certainly have an effect on the outcome but would surely be weighted differently in the d+2e system.
So, qualifications are over and now the real excitement begins. There has already been plenty of drama and eventfulness in Tokyo, and who knows what more is to come. Biggest surprises and upsets for me so far were the bars qualification (quite a few spills and as a result the two latest world champions will not be competing for gold) and also the hugely sad exit of multiple time world champion Alicia Sacramone, after an Achilles injury sustained whilst performing a double Arabian in training. Alicia is a real star and will be sorely missed not only by the American team but by her huge global fan base. I wish her the speediest of recoveries.
But we must look on to the excitement that is to come in the next few days. With that in mind I am going to do a quick roundup of the qualifying lists and carry out some giddy speculation of the imminent individual finals.
All Around
As expected, the all around qualifications were topped by Wieber and Komova, both of whom were within a whisker of each other (just over a tenth) and clear of the third highest qualifier by a full point. I was a little surprised at the order of their qualifications: I thought that with Komova having been delicate recently she may have felt the pressure a bit giving Wieber the edge, but as we can see she pipped her to the post coming in at the top of the AA standings. However this is clearly going to be a tense, exciting and very closely fought battle and the smallest of errors could decide who takes home the big prize. I think this is the first time in a long time that the two front runners were so closely matched and that us fans were treated to such a tense race.
Yao Jinnan came in third, with some cracking performances including this beauty:
Shades of Mo Huilan right there.She really is a lovely gymnast and I am pleased to see her qualify so well.
Raisman took fourth place, filling the slot for the second American all arounder, as expected. Its a real shame she can’t do anything about that bars set because with a slightly beefed up score she would have such better chances of making a splash in the AA finals. I am rooting for her though, because I feel like this is probably her last chance in the second AA spot (I don’t rate her chances of having this position in London) so it would be great for her to sneak in a bronze (but I realize this would take a brilliant performance and some help from the others).
Worth mentioning (despite her not qualifying) is Gabby Douglas, who finished in 5th place just below Raisman. This is a really impressive achievement for such an inexperienced gymnast, and one who had been labelled as something of a headcase due to her performance at this year’s VISA champs among others. Qualifying in 5th in her first world championships should provide her with a much deserved energy and confidence boost to take on into the next stages. Well done Gabby!
So, given the 2 per country rule the top 8 qualifiers to advance to the AA finals are:
Some additional thoughts include a well done to Hannah Whelan of GBR for finishing in 13th and advancing to the AA. I am hoping that by the time of London she might be able to top Becky Downie’s fantastic 10th place finish from Beijing, although competition is likely to be much stiffer. Also it’s a shame that Ana Porgras and Lauren Mitchell are still struggling to get up there with the AA leaders.
Prediction to win: Komova
WANT to win: Undecided (I love them both!)
Wildcard medal hope: Raisman
Vault final
The apparatus final with a top 8 that I am least familiar with, although I am thrilled to see Maroney out there on top. It really is refreshing to see a vaulter who makes the amanar look PRETTY, someone who is clearly suited to the vault and who doesn’t make you hold your breath every time they start sprinting for the table. A real pleasure and definitely my top favourite for the win, as well as the frontrunner. It is absolutely fantastic to see a top qualifier who also has the highest E scores. A new trend? Let’s hope so.
Old favourite Chusovitina came in second. As usual it would be a great win for the sport if she could get a medal out of this final.
Tatiana Nabieva, the Russian who was part of a small scandal in last years vault finals due to vault downgrading, creeped into 7th place with much less difficult vaults than this time last year. Perhaps she will pull out the difficulty in the finals, but I find them so frightening to watch I would really rather she didn’t.
Interesting notes: if we look at qualification based on 1 vault only we see that Maroney is still on top – she really is a winner in every sense. Chusovitina comes in third with Wieber in second (the second best, but still great, amanar). Interestingly, veteran and Romanian comeback queen Catalina Ponor had the sixth best vault of the day, on an apparatus she is not renowned for.
Prediction to win: Maroney
WANT to win: Maroney (but I am crushed that Alicia isn’t here)
Bars final
I must initially express my utter dismay at Beth’s absolute mare in the qualifier. Seems like she just lost it a bit mentally, which is such a shame because she would have been a dead cert to qualify and probably medal, given the field.
It was also a sad sight to see He Kexin’s performance. Everything seemed laboured and clunky. I was never a big fan but back in 2008, she had this brilliant flourish and energetic presentation to everything. The amplitude on her giants made it look like she was defying gravity and her pirouettes were as light as a feather. But now everything looks so muscled and difficult. The jaeger was less laid out and the dead hang worse than ever. I feel sorry for her not being able to perform the way she used to.
But now to the list of qualifiers. Komova is way out in front. She is Usain bolt heading down the 100m stretch. With an almost 7 tenth advantage, the gold is hers is she just goes clean (and clean is exactly what she is, with the highest E score by a 5 tenth margin).
SMASHED
Really nice to see Dufournet up there with the top qualifiers. She has been trying for years to incorporate difficultly cleanly, and I think she is a great gymnast. I would love to see her medal.
Quishang probably has a chance if she cleans up, given that she has the same D score as the leaders. It’s nice to see two Japanese gymnasts that will get to perform in the final on home soil.
Very impressive of Gabby Douglas to make the final, due to her often feeling the pressure as I mentioned earlier. Would be great to see her come through and she is definitely a sentimental favourite of mine.
Predication to win: Komova
Want to win: Komova
Wildcard medal hope: Douglas.
Beam final
Who topped the qualifier....? You guessed it...Komova! This is getting boring. I jest. Its fantastic to see such a high calibre gymnast that can be both an all around threat AND a threat in multiple individual finals. I hate those drab years after an Olympics with half baked world champions...sorry Bridget, I think you are a nice athlete, but this is the kind of sport I enjoy. Real quality over a large range of disciplines.
Sui Lu is in second. I LOVE LOVE LOVE her beam work. That front with a half just floats through the air beautifully, and that initial front pike to korbut flip is so airy and nice to watch. She has the D score advantage, and so if she can clean up a bit she might sneak into first place in the final.
Wieber also features and is a good contender for bronze, in my opinion. Also, down in fifth, is the great Catalina Ponor. I am rooting for her to medal at next year’s Olympics and break some records. Her latest beam and floor work has blown me away. I would love for her to go through solid in the finals and come away with a medal. A repeat of this please:
Obv that isn't going to happen, but a nice solid clean set would make me very happy.
Interesting things to note here are that 4 Chinese athletes finished in the top 10, which I think is very very impressive. Also I am slightly distressed that Maria Livchikova is nowhere to be seen in this lineup.
Predication to win: Komova
Want to win: Sui Lu
Wildcard medal hope: Ponor
Floor final
Looks like Raisman has got this one, and I am actually happy about that. She is by no means my favourite gymnast, but I think her floor has got better and better over the years and I love how she has brought the double Arabian punch front tumbling pass back from the dead. When I watch it I am instantly reminded of old favourites Viktoria Karpenko and Elena Produnova. So, I love her tumbling. Her presentation isn’t great but I think there has been some improvement, and hopefully that will continue.
In the name of patriotism and old favourites, I would love for Beth Tweddle to get a medal. I am upset that she didn’t get into the bars finals for two reasons. The first being what is already clear, I love her as a British gymnast, but secondly, I think her bar work is actually world class anyway and her release combinations amaze me. Floor I feel a bit differently about. Her tumbling is great, and that double Arabian full out she was training is INSANE. But, her leaps are not the best and her dance is just awful. So basically I find it hard to get completely behind the cause on floor exercise. I want her to medal, but not win.
Prediction to win: Raisman
Want to win: Raisman
Wildcard medal hope: Tweddle
So there we have it. Most of all though, and any petty favouritism aside I would like a clean competition where everyone performs to their best. I can't wait!
All scoresheets features in this post were taken from www.gymnasticsresults.com
Having spent the last fortnight on a sun lounger drinking rose and burning to a crisp, I returned to the UK this morning with a hangover, a fantastic tan and severe gymnastics withdrawal symptoms. Although the former lingers on, the latter has been thoroughly quenched by a good few hours of forum and youtube scouring. And what a find this was.......
I love Beth Tweddle, as is probably painfully transparent to any readers of this blog. I think she is a fantastic gymnast (not without fault, though, but I like that in an athlete). One thing that is impossible to fault her on, though, is her fighting spirit. Her drive and determination and clear commitment to the sport. These qualities clearly drive her and her coach to keep pushing Beth’s routines, and the results can be genuinely breathtaking.
When I first saw her perform the Tweddle I was literally gobsmacked. When I first saw it I couldn’t even understand the mechanics of what she was doing. The way she drop so quickly into that half twist regrasp is just brilliant and would be enough alone, but then comes the immediate Ezhova to crown her as the queen of release combinations. It was really, for me, a standout moment in modern gymnastics: seeing not only a British gymnast, but an “older” one, performing at the forefront of ingenuity and execution in the sport.
...and it now seems she is doing it again. This video, which clearly popped up around a week ago, shows Beth performing what appears to be an Arabian full out. My jaw dropped again. If she can make this competition ready by Tokyo it would surely be one of the skills of the championships (for me, anyway). Imagine the combinations.....could she manage a 1.5 twist leading into this? Or if not then do a 1.5 into the Dos Santos? Any of the options are super exciting, and I cannot wait to see if she pulls it out.
First the Sacramone and now the Tweddle II. I am gonna have to keep my fingers permanently crossed for the next few weeks...
People always talk about Chellsie Memmel in 2003. They talk about how she was thrown on a world team with very little experience, and how she rose to the challenge fantastically to become one of their highest scoring members. People always seem to remember this Chellsie Memmel. But the Chellsie I like to remember is the Chellsie from the 2008 Olympic Trials.
Who can honestly say they expected what we saw from her? 2007 wasn’t a great year for Chellsie, but she came roaring back in 2008, proving to the world what a strong, gifted gymnast she was. Of all her routines in this competition, my favourite by far is her floor from night 2.
It is exciting from the beginning. I love the way the music crashes in right from the beginning, leading into that powerful sprint into the huge double piked Arabian, which just hangs in the air. And then back again for that double layout – which I always love as a second pass, it must require so much energy!
What I particularly love about this routine, though, is that it proves that there can be fantastic non balletic floor routines. Chellsie isn’t known for her choreography, but this routine was so full of energy and explosive power and interesting artistry achieved in a different way, that it didn’t matter a shred. I am of course referring mainly to the combination beginning with Chellsie’s signature illusion turn...that front handspring to straddle sit with bounce back up to stand is so original and cool – its little details like that which make a routine in my opinion, and really set Chellsie apart from the crowd.
Having said that though, it never hurts to stick a double pike. I don’t think I have seen one landed like that, before or since. Like an arrow into the ground, not even a flicker. And the energy in that room looked amazing...her standing ovation well deserved.
One of the comments on the youtube video is: “This is THE American routine of the decade”. I have to agree. I can’t think of a floor routine by an American woman I have enjoyed more, certainly since 2000 at least. The energy, the power, the music, the non balletic choreography, right down to that great ending pose. I love it all. And thats why Chellsie Memmel on night 2 of the 2008 olympic trials is among my favourite routines of all time. What an unbelievable shame she got injured (but then again given how much she has improved this year we may see a parallel performance at the 2012 olympic trials!)
This is, obviously, not the first we have seen from Mariya in competition: I personally saw her for the first time at this year’s Europeans. This does seem to be, however, the first time she has performed consistently and shown the world her true potential.
What she has shown is that she is a fantastic gymnast. Her lines are clean, long and graceful, yet she is also powerful. Her double front is one of the very best I have ever seen (and may even challenge the spot for my all time favourite, by Ivana Hong in 2008). Although her music is nice and what choreography is present is performed well, you can’t help but feel she has much more to offer in terms of artistry: with better music and dance it could be one of the floor routines of the whole quad.
I find Mariya’s gymnastics most exciting, though, on the balance beam: the combinations she competes are so difficult and so original that it makes me forgive her entirely any wobbles. I first saw her front handspring to immediate front tuck at the Europeans earlier this year and fell in love with it: the front handspring actually works with and feeds into the front tuck unlike some other similar combinations (namely Lauren Mitchells free walkover into front tuck – a laborious connection which does not flow and produces an insanely low tuck). Also, Mariya shows an arial walkover into layout stepout connection reminiscent of the great Olesya Dudnik. My personal favorite, however, is her split handstand directly into a tucked arabian somersault: as far as I can tell the code of points does not reward this combination with bonus which only makes me love it more. It seems to show genuine attention to detail, artistry and presentation.
With some polish, choreography and music changes and perhaps a few upgrades, this gymnast could be a real contender at the world and Olympic level. I would love for this to happen: a real win for artistry, originality, and for a once great gymnastic nation whose fortunes have taken a slide in recent years.
Congratulations to Mariya for her floor gold and balance beam silver.
I am a huge fan of Svetlana Khorkina: an admission which is probably received with a groan by other gymnastics fans. Why? Because she is the classic gymnastics pin up, the classic favourite, and people get sick of hearing about it.
But, unlike many Sveta fans, I am not in any denial. She was overscored. Time and time again, particularly in the latter half of her career and particularly (in my humble opinion) on the floor exercise. Time and time again I watch her floor routines from 2000-2004, and each time I wonder how they put the score together. The tumbling, for the most part, is weak. Yes it is often well executed: her twisting was brilliant and her triple was usually exquisite, but her double pike in 2003/2004 was a total knee eater. It is difficult for me to enjoy her tumbling when it looked like her emaciated frame might snap under the pressure of her way-too-deep-landed double somersaults.
But the one thing I couldn’t understand more than any other was the commentary on her dance. Over and over again, people stated that her tumbling was redeemed by superior grace and choreography. Grace, yes. But choreography? I could only ever see prancing (well timed prancing, but prancing nonetheless) and corner posing. For real choreography from Svetlana, we have to look back in time to her floor routines between 1995 and 1997.
Her Carmen was fantastic. Expressive, original and gripping. I love everything about it: the opening straight into a sprint into that brilliant triple then rebounding into a super original roundoff half twist jump to front walkover, the twisting leap series to shushunova and that ridiculous, show-off ending. It was fantastic.
1997 brought a calmer, more serene exercise. I am not without my thoughts on this one: the music is nice, but something about it makes it sound cheap. Sort of like the kind of thing Shirley Hasting’s might dance to in Strictly Ballroom (for those who don't understand this reference, you are missing out: what a film). But the beauty was still there.
I love Khorkina’s gymnastics, but I lost faith in her floor routines as time went on, and that’s why her 1996/1997 routines remain amongst my favourites.
The first video I ever saw of Vanessa Atler was a floor exercise on youtube. It was amazing. The dynamism, the power, the height....it was truly brilliant. Having been too young to follow gymnastics religiously at the time of the 2000 olympics, when I first saw the video my first thought was simple: where the hell was she in Sydney? My question was soon answered.
The next video I saw of Vanessa was her bars routine at the 1999 worlds. It was painful to watch. Those laboured pirouettes, that bail-out swing. It was like every muscle in her body was tensed with the nervousness of the situation: a complete antithesis to everything she could do on floor.
The video evidence of Vanessa’s mental block is widespread, well watched and well known. The saddest to watch are those where her meltdowns extend beyond her demon apparatus and onto her good ones: a particular example being her beam at the 1999 team finals, where she runs tentatively into a skill and changes her mind.
The nervousness, embarrassment and failure Vanessa must have felt on all these occasions, owing to the huge pressure on her to succeed make this footage very difficult to watch. Even worse are the documentaries of her sadness and depression following her failure to make the 2000 Olympic team (a mistake, in my opinion, even with her inconsistencies) and her subsequent departure from the sport.
In considering Vanessa Atler, one also thinks of Catalina Ponor, Cheng Fei, Alicia Sacramone, and every other successful world level gymnast who cut bars out of their training and focused on the power events. Vanessa Atler is a classic example of a gymnast born at the “wrong” time and destined to compete in the “wrong” quad. In a time where being an all around gymnast was key to success and acceptance, Vanessa’s world gymnastics career was doomed to failure. After all, there is no point in being an all arounder, despite how good the gymnast may be on the other 3 events, if the 4th event is going to lose it for them anyway. Had she trained 3 events only, her story may have ended in a completely different way.
Despite the way things ended, I will always remember Vanessa as a wonderful gymnast, and forever associate her with that beautiful DLO, punch front, double stag. Breathtaking.
