Crack open the vault

We are witnessing the death of an apparatus. What happened to the vault?

Remember the 2000 Olympic vault final? I do. A Huge amount of tension surrounded the apparatus following the height mishap in the All Around competition, adding extra excitement to wat was already a great showcase of talent. The lineup was starstudded: lots of top all around competitors were present along with some wildcards like Laura Martinez, whose DTY had been super consistent during her stay in Sydney. There was a nice variety of vaults, high levels of execution, and the general feeling that the vault title was as prestigious and important as any other gold medal in the sport.

What the hell happened next?

Vault has undergone a major transformation since the millennium Olympics. Although vault was always an apparatus which benefitted a specialist (statistically, vault is the apparatus on which world champions have the greatest chance of repeating). However, in recent years the field has gone from slim to almost non existent.

If gymnastics were a company, vault specialism would be the IT department. Locked away in some basement somewhere and treated with less regard than other medal possibilities in the sport, vault has for a while now felt like a continuous footnote in gymnastics. In the All Around, the top group starts on vault, and there is ever the feeling that it is like a warm up for the other “real” events: something that most gymnasts simply “get through”. Even in the case of athletes who go for top shelf vaults, there is never the sense of truly perfecting an art on vault and making an all around impression there - it is ever an ambience of squeezing as many tenths from the throwaway apparatus to ease the pressure later on.

This is no coincidence, and could easily have been anticipated. With the open ended code, start value is everything as we have all come to know. The code demands exhausting routines on the other three apparatus, asking more of gymnasts than ever before. For an instance demonstrator of this, watch a bar routine form the 1992 Olympics: they look positively bare by comparison to today’s.

Gorgeous, and a worthy winner. But look how few skills there are compared to today

With so much time and investment having to be put in to learning huge quantities of skills and connections on other apparatus, it is no surprise that vault gets left out in the cold. This has two pertinent consequences for this apparatus....

1. Yurchenko fever. It would be erroneous to blame Yurchenko dominance on the open ended code, because Yurchenkos have been overperformed for about 30 years now. The main difference is that in the past, whilst most competitors used Yurchenkos in team and AA situations, they DID have a second vault and hence WERE familiar with other vaulting techniques. Now, one could attempt a different entry, but why would they? It is easier and more rewarding to chuck an extra twist onto a vault they already know. Hence everyone progresses towards an Amanar and that is that.

2. Some of the best vaulters don’t for event finals...because they don’t have time. Learning a second vault is hard work. Learning a cracking routine on any apparatus is hard work, but the key difference is that other routines can be used in a team situation AND in the All Around: these events are blind to a second vault. Therefore for someone like Jordyn Wieber, whose main focus is the All Around, doesn’t bother with a second vault even though she has the potential to be one of the world’s top vaulters.

So, the consequences of the code of points, and the fact that two vaults were only required in team and AA for one quad (97-00), is that the two vault field has got thinner and thinner. In 2008, only three of the 8 competitors were top 10 finishing all arounders. Compare this to 1992 where 7 of the 8 were top 10 AAers. In a way this is good as it indicates that specialism is more greatly accepted, but it is undeniable that vault medallists are not always the best vaulters or those with the best technique.

There is a greater problem exacerbating this. Hinted at above, the Olympic team format does nothing for the vault specialist. It is one of those points that gymnastics fans seem to universally agree on. That team size is just too damn small. For me, the 2008 6-3-3 format was too small so this new one is just a complete insult. Remember old team finals? Back when there were compulsories, 7 member teams? Back when to watch a full one you had to totally bed in, stockpile the supplies and unplug the phone? These days they are over in a flash. Vault specialists struggled to make teams at the best of times, but it was possible! Look at 2004, where the USA took Annia Hatch to Athens, allowing her to take a silver medal.

So to summarize the problems: vault is dying. Variety has gone and the gaps between vault D scores encourages the Yurchenko progression above anything else. Vault finals are paltry affairs with few competitors, and those that are present shouldn’t even really be considered specialists: they are simply ANYONE who can put two vaults of a semi decent start value to their feet. Finally, the stupid new team format is ruining the apparatus further: gymnastics talent tends to come from powerhouse countries, within which it is unwise to be a vault specialist because a second vault means nothing to the team. We are currently in a scenario where it is probably more likely for Jade Barbosa to make the Olympic vault final than it is for Mckayla Maroney, who will have to stamp her ticket somewhere else.

Vault can be a brilliant, exciting event. It can also be beautiful. Sadly, every current rule in the book seems to discourage athletes from perfecting their art on vault. We have lost execution, variety, depth and recognition. Vault has become a throwaway footnote in a sport of combination bonus and packed routines elsewhere.

I just hope we can get it back. The new vault final rules (see: http://theepanel.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/cops-and-robbers-best-bits-of-draft.html) should make some difference, but ultimately I think the only longterm solution would be to reinstate the two vault requirement for teams and All Arounders. This way national teams would be forced to recognize specialisms, raising vault excellence to a level field with the other apparatus, and variety would be forced back into place. People would say this would be too demanding on the athletes, but it would be unfair to let vault take the hit for the exhausting nature of the other three apparatus. It isn't about difficulty: its about variety and execution.

Pictures: http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/DPP2xa_573f/2011+Visa+Championships+Day+2/iHd-aKD6d27/Jordyn+Wieber, http://images.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/_photos/2004-08-23-hatch-ins.jpg, http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/z1x1rC-mNiV/Artistic+Gymnastics+World+Championships+Tokyo/FjBG76GxpE1/McKayla+Maroney

Sportsmanshipgate

Taken from "movieclips" on youtube

It is fast approaching 4 months since Tokyo. The athletes are long since home, medals are probably secured in cabinets and all the dust thrown into the air at the time has most definitely settled. It is now possible to look back with some real perspective at the big stories from Tokyo.

I am of course referring to the Viktoria Komova sportsmanship scandal that set the many gymnastics blogs and forums the world over alight with strong, conflicting opinions. Some time ago now I wrote an article called “Back to reality” in an attempt to shed some light on the validity of our perceptions of who gymnasts really are, which is inextricably linked with the opinions of commentators and the perceived opinions of entire federations. However, I feel it only scratched the surface in terms of sportsmanship issues, and, inspired by a recent comment and excellent examples from “Thisyearsgirl”, I thought I would attempt a more in depth look at reactions to disappointment from our much loved sport, past and present.

RECAP

For those that don’t know (although I highly doubt that anyone ending up at this page wouldn’t), this issue was sparked by events at the world 2011 All Around competition. This meet was the much anticipated showdown between American powerhouse Jordyn Wieber and Russian wonderchild Viktoria Komova. This was to be a classic USA vs Russia situation: a super powerful but perhaps grace lacking American up against a super delicate executionist with some great bars.

Who was going to take it was really anybody’s guess before the competition, but Komova had been the favourite for this title among many circles since videos of her beam and bars work at junior meets began surfacing several years ago. She stamped herself as the frontrunner most notably, however, when she took a truckload of gold medals at the 2010 Youth Olympic games (including one on the vault, where she was already rocking the holy grail of AA vaulting - the ever more essential Amanar).

But 2011 was not a good year for Komova. A series of ankle issues and a growth spurt meant less training for the Russian hopeful and caused her to downgrade some of her elements by the time Tokyo rolled around (including the Amanar and her Patterson beam dismount). Althought she qualified in first for the AA, a stronger vault and beam from Wieber and fewer floor mistakes edged her into first place to take the gold despite a disappointing bars outing.

The following are a few things I think it is helpful to remember when interpreting these situations. I want to make clear that this is NOT support or criticism of Komova’s behaviour, but an attempt at a reasoned approach towards its perception by us, the viewers.

WE HAVE DIFFERENT EXPERIENCES OF SPORTSMANSHIP

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This applied to those fans who are not gymnasts themselves - like me!

It is remarkably easy for us to label Komova (in indeed any gymnast in her position) for reacting in a way that we would consider “sore”, “bitchy” or “disrespectful”. BUT, what do we experience in our lives that is in any way comparable?

When I think of the times in my life that I have to gracefully accept a defeat it is usually something fairly inconsequential: an argument or discussion with a friend, a quiz or a game, not succeeding at a job interview, and other things of this nature. Of course my reaction would always be graceful (or nearly so).

But these girls have been training specifically for these championship titles for about the same amount of time I have been in education. Its a bloody long time. I can’t personally empathize with that kind of disappointment because nothing in my life experience is in any way comparable. Komova has been hoping for that world title for as long as she knew how to say it, probably. And further, she will have been TOLD by everyone around her that she could do it. The kind of self confidence and unadulterated BELIEF one must have to keep training at such a level would be immense, so it is understandable that an emotional meltdown follows the loss of something you have been told was in the bag for a decade (an obvious exaggeration).

OUR BEHAVIOUR IS GOVERNED BY OUR SOCIAL NORMS

Grace in defeat and not displaying overt emotion are classic British codes of conduct, and to a lesser extent American. It is strangely admirably in the eyes of a British audience to enter situations with self deprecation rather than with confidence and a desire to win.

These kind of norms get passed down through generations and become social staples: the British obsession with saying please constantly is a good example. Often when coming into contact with people with different social cultures, we can be unintentionally shocked by what first appear to be rude infringements of our social guidelines (continuing the prior analogy, Europeans when speaking English often don’t say “please” and “thankyou” as much because this convention is not followed in their mother tongue - this is not rudeness, just different social conventions).

But this is not a sociology blog. My basic point is that we interpret Komova’s reaction to silver as if it were our own, or we compare it to examples of defeat in people that we know whom are generally from the same cultural background as ourselves. Sure if some British girl did that at a British competition, people would probably think she was a spoilt brat who didn’t have any manners, and would much prefer her to appear pleasantly surprised and keep a stiff upper lip throughout the proceedings (again, I do like to exaggerate).

My basic, although convoluted, point is that I know nothing about Russian social conventions. It may be perfectly acceptable to honestly express feelings both in joy and defeat, in which case she would have had no idea she would end up offending anyone.

WAG GYMNASTS ARE LITTLE MORE THAN CHILDREN

When you watch something all the time you develop an immunity to what you are seeing. When I first started watching gymnastics I DID notice the age of the competitors, but now it rarely if ever crosses my mind. Similarly, because gymnasts in general tend to have certain physical features, they standardize each other on the screen and you can miss the reality of the features. What I mean by this is illustrated by when I met Beth Tweddle: although I should have anticipated it, I was taken aback by how petite and small she was, and it made me realise how tiny the others must be!

Basically I think we often forget than many gymnasts are in their mid teens. Handling such huge pressure at such a young age must be insanely difficult.

SHE WASN’T THE FIRST, AND SHE WON’T BE THE LAST

The most important thing to do is keep this issue a level playing field: we have to acknowledge that gymnasts have been doing the same thing (and worse) as Komova for decades and have got off lightly compared to Komova. Why? Because fewer or us had the internet and blogs were less of a big deal (at least for some of the examples). Daniela Silivas is one of the best loved WAG gymnasts of all time and yet her reaction to silver in 1988 is incredibly similar to that of Komova.

Some of the best examples (I thanks newyearsgirl for most of these):

Alicia blanks Shawn in 2007

...AND Shawn was her teammate! Alicia owed Shawn a lot more than Komova owed Wieber, after all they were going to have to coexist throughout an entire Olympic process. Obviously this wasn’t a big deal for either of them in the longrun, but Alicia’s reaction here is not a million miles away from Komova’s.

Carly enjoys Romania’s misfortune

This doesn’t need explaining. I appreciate that she was probably joking and people goof around saying things like that all the time, BUT she must have known that camera was in her face and how that other girl might have felt if she ever heard what she had said. The worst thing about this is the commentators reactions. They do sound shocked by what she had said, but in a funny way as if she is being really amusing and outspoken. This is a huge part of the sportsmanship issue: the imbalance of perception between American and European/Asian behaviour. Carly here is interpreted as being funny and sassy, but imagine the shoe on the other foot. Imagine if Cheng Fei had been filmed saying the same thing when Alicia bombed her front pike in 2008. If Oana Ban had said the same thing when Carly messed up bars in 2004. They would be mobilizing the troops, not giggling.

The same applies for the below....

Bross and Asac have a good eye roll

...when Porgras wins the 2010 beam title.

The Russians reject silver

Pretty much the same situation as Komova, but for the majority of a team! Yes this is a famous and well documented example of disappointment but it is portrayed mainly as a SELF disappointment rather than a protest of injustice. Could the same not be true for Komova?

CONCLUSIONS

I think when considering the Komova issue in future (and issues like it) we should consider the above points (age, upbringing, spectator experience, past events) and many more. It is important we remember the past, especially because there wasn't the facility for nearly as much discussion and response at the times of many controversial gymnastics moments. Imagine if there had been blogs and gym forums after the 1992 AA? If there had been more of them after the 2000 vault scandal? Our initial reaction is to not compare the actions of today's gymnasts with fairness to those of the past.

I think maybe Komova was just upset. Just a young girl upset at what had happened, and that might be all there is to it. 

Compulsories: compulsory viewing

In the past I have elected not to spend much time watching compulsory routines. Why? Because I find watching them incredibly depressing.

This is not, however, due to me disliking them. It is simply due to the fact that I enjoy them to the point where my sadness that they no longer exist begins to outweigh the happiness I get from watching. This may sound like an exaggeration, but I truly believe that compulsory routines were one of the main factors keeping gymnastics artistic, polishing and brilliant throughout the 80s and 90s.

To some, compulsories must have seemed as normal a part of gymnastics as the four apparatus themselves. To others, such as myself, they are a strange and wonderful event which we never had the opportunity to view and discuss in the present tense (at least with any real perspective- I doubt my 7 year old self would have had much to say about the compulsory competition in 1996).

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A quick visit to Wikipedia provides the following description of compulsory routines: “[they] heavily emphasized perfect technique, form and execution” - three aspects of the sport that modern gymnastics whiners lament on a daily basis. Sure, there were bad aspects of compulsories; but for a brief few minutes lets indulge in a full scale whinge about one of the sport’s greatest losses.

WHY COMPULSORIES WERE GREAT

They provided (in theory) a standardized, comprehensive test of the basic gymnastic capabilities of every single competitor at a meet - but they were much prettier to look at than an SAT paper. Compulsory exercises, although technically far easier than the optional routines which followed, were just as hard in many aspects because the judges knew EXACTLY what they were looking for. Not once since has the quest for utter perfection been so wonderfully captured: compulsory exercises left no room for slouchy breathers between tumbling passes or half baked corner poses passed off as choreography. Every aspect of the routine was constructed with delivery and technique at the forefront, from the tumbling to the leaps to the simplest of delicate hand movements.

They encouraged real attention to the basics of gymnastics, the bread and butter which act as a solid foundation to all difficulty piled on later. Gluing ones legs together during a back handspring or hitting 180 on a split leap was not a cherry-on-top technicality but an essential pre-requisite to a good score (the attainment or failure of which had profound consequences on ones progression into event finals). Rarely have I seen anywhere else the striking technical perfection right to the tip of the toes that was the norm amongst the top competitors in the compulsory competitions.

Something we have seen less and less of over the years is the stuck landing. My opinions are mixed on this. Obviously nothing ends a routine better, or looks better, that an upright planted landing. However it does get incredibly wearing when commentators begin talking about this 30 seconds before the end and for the entire slow motion replay: it is cool, but not everything. These days, though, with the stuck landing being seen less and less, one can’t help but think that it is losing its place as one of the deciding factors for a medal. At the last Olympics, only 1 of 4 apparatus gold medallists stuck their dismount.

Sandra Izbasa's triple twist: the only "stuck" dismount from the Beijjing event finals

With technique and presentation paramount in the judging of compulsories, stuck landings were a necessity for a huge score (in all fair examples, anyway). Surely having the importance of such endings drummed into ones training regime would make the same mantra spill over into the optional routines? Maybe is compulsories were still around today, training would more greatly reflect the need for a stick.

This point precedes my main reason for loving compulsories: whether consciously or subconsciously, they set an example moving forward into optional routines. If gymnasts have to hit a proper split one day, why not do it the next? Stick a landing one day, why not the next? Polished, expressive choreography one day, why not the next? The list goes on. Basically, compulsories provided an “ideal world” in gymnastics, laying down the standard for technique and artistry.

It seems to me no coincidence that the interpretation of floor music and quality of choreography has declined in general since 1996. Even the floor routines we loved in 2000 had begun to lose some of their artistic edge (which can be seen in the wild differences between Lilia’s golden performance in Atlanta and Zamo’s golden performance in Sydney - but that’s not to say I dislike the latter, I think it is great nonetheless). With compulsory floor routines filled with compulsory choreography, even the least confident and able of dancers would have to learn and practice SOME classic dancing just to get through the stadium doors. Many gymnasts competing today look almost embarrassed by their choreography and unwilling to perform it wholeheartedly.

WHERE COMPULSORIES FELL SHORT

Ironically, although compulsories on paper appear to be the perfect, standardized ideal described above, the reality was often very different. It seems that, with everyone performing the same skills and hence the scoring entirely subjective of the performance, it may have been easier for judges to award the top countries the benefit of the doubt. I believe that the old compulsory system exacerbated the team “score building” phenomenon that was allowed to penetrate the scoreboards for far too long. Such bias acts as a roadblock for emerging gymnastics states, and one cannot help but wonder whether countries like Great Britain and more recently Vietnam (albeit with a single competitor) would have enjoyed the same breakout success had compulsories still been around.

An example from the top of my head comes from the 1992 compulsories, and from one of my all time favourites Svetlana Boginskaya. Svetlana was great, but she benefited from her celebrity. The Wag competitors in the compulsory competition on vault had to work very hard for 9.8+ on the vault, yet Bogi breezes through a 9.850 with a noticeably shaky landing. Would this have been the same if she wasn’t wearing the Unified Team leotard that night? Who knows, but I would venture a no.

Worth a 9.850?

This scored a 9.837...

Lastly, thoughts must turn to the athlete’s stamina. Compulsory competitions mean a whole other rotation of the apparatus. Would today’s girls manage modern difficulty during “optionals” with a whole other day added?

So, admittedly, compulsories were a two sided coin. However, with less international bias these days, and a sorry state of basic presentation and artistry, this gymnastics enthusiast for one would love to see a return of these much missed competitions. I actually think they might nowadays benefit smaller programmes: if added to the team competition and qualifying scores, they would allow basic presentation to factor into the medals as opposed to huge difficulty (in which the powerhouse countries seem to lead the field). They also might play a helping hand in outlawing skill chucking forever, and would definitely help the expressively challenged competitors of the modern day with both a real incentive to improve artistically and a subconscious inclination to do so.

For now, a return seems unlikely. But until such a point, the golden days of compulsory glory should be compulsory viewing for all gymnastics fans. 

THREE OF THE BEST (in my humble opinion)

1.The mother of all....

2. Shannon at her best....

3. Sveta keeps it classy....

Crème brûlée or Jell-O?

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With all the time I have spent recently talking about execution, artistry and irredeemably ugly skills, I got to thinking about what we actually look for in gymnastics, what about it we enjoy and for what reasons we say we enjoy certain skills (this may all seem very self explanatory but bear with me - I promise I will come to something resembling a conclusion).

To begin thinking about this, I found it useful to think back to the very first gymnastics I ever saw. In the early summer of 1996 (when I was the tender age of 7), my younger brother was born and my older sister and I went to stay with my Grandmother in Wales. I spent the daytimes in the sea and the evenings watching the gymnastics coverage, and it was great.

It wasn’t until 2000 that I watched more, but at this point I was old enough to remember specifics. I vividly recall thinking Viktoria Karpenko’s vault was amazing, specifically because it was among the first pieces of gymnastics I had ever seen. When I look at this vault now, my neck hurts in empathy with the arch of her body; I notice how painfully low it is and overall have nothing particularly positive to say about it. And this is exactly my point: what we enjoy comes with experience, and what level of experience we have determines our favourites.

Viktoria Karpenko putting her spinal chord to the test

I thought further about this due to the recent comments of a non gymnastics fan: my boyfriend. Having been subjected to my perpetual youtube trawling he has (through sheer bombardment) seen his fair share of skills but obviously has no knowledge of what they are and no particular interest. This makes him an interesting candidate for opinions: he has seen enough to not be impressed by anything but doesn’t have specific knowledge and can hence judge on visuals alone.

I clocked onto this when I was sitting and randomly watching Catalina Ponor on FX from Tokyo (with BBC coverage incidentally: Mitch Fenner is just hilarious), and my impartial judge happened to look up and watch for the first two passes. Not being one to usually pass comment, I was surprised how impressed he was by a double layout. I asked him why: “because she goes around twice, thats really cool” (or something to that effect). A basic assessment, yes, but an interesting one. Here is someone who has probably seen plenty of double doubles, double Arabians, double pikes, full ins, double tucks....but it took a double layout to realise that the gymnasts are performing double somersaults. Imagine, if you will, a similar commentary to Matt Baker: you don't get the impression they really know anything but they are enthusiastic.

Ponor: Clean up a bit and I will love you forever.

(I will point out to anyone who was as horrified as I was at the thought of one’s first double layout being Catalina Ponor’s that I referred him instantly to Pav’s 08. Phew.)

I have a theory, and it goes as follows. The impartial judgment of the beauty of skills by seasoned fans like me and likely the readers of this blog is compromised by having too much knowledge. In knowing how difficult a skill is, we become biased and fail to see the real truth: that there are a few skills that transcend difficulty and are far more beautiful than their trickier counterparts. I believe one of these skills is the double layout.

To test this theory, I bored my judge for a little longer. I reasoned (based on the views of countless friends and family unfamiliar with the sport over the years) that the vault is the piece of apparatus on which the non knowledgable viewer finds it hardest to judge the difficultly of the skills performed (as they all looks pretty similar to a non experienced eye and are over very quickly indeed). So I quickly chose a selection of vaults (all in the layout position for simplicity) of varying difficulty and asked him which were his most and least favourites.

The options were:

-Shannon Miller 1992 AA Vault 1

-Yang Yun 2000 TF Vault 1 (one of the best vaults ever IMO)

-Elena Zamolodchikova Vaults 1 & 2 2000 EF

-Monica Rosu vault 2 2004 EF

-Cheng Fei Vault 2 2005 EF

My prediction was that he would not necessarily find the vaults that I knew to be the most difficult the most impressive. Indeed, he chose the best as Miller, Yun, Zamo 2 and the worst as Zamo 1 and Fei.  And I can see why. Tsukahara doubles and half on vaults are very difficult, but they don’t look particularly good. They are often messy, low and laboured and the non-knowledgeable viewer may not expect them to be difficult. It seems that simplicity and/or perfect landings won the contest.

One of the "best"

One of the "worst"

A similar thing happened when I happened to be watching some of the world champs with my mother. I kept setting her up for big skills, anticipating them with “this is so hard, watch”. But often she wasn’t bothered by them at all. She brushed off a double double with “looked a bit messy and I couldn’t tell what was happening”, only to be awestruck by a whipback.

So my conclusion, weak as it may be, is this: difficulty and beauty are not the same thing, and the perceived difficulty of a skill is not often anywhere near accurate (for the non fanatic viewers). When I think about it though, I have to agree. There is something fantastic and beautiful about a certain few well executed skills that others cannot match up to.

To use a tenuous example, lets turn to Julia Robert’s in the fantastic “My Best Friend’s Wedding”. Here she is talking about the potential relationship choices of her best friend, but just pretend for the purposes of this argument she is talking about a TTY and an FTY.

Skip to 0:42

Sometimes, we all want Jell-O. Obviously our respective jell-Os are different. After careful consideration, these are mine:

-Double layout

-A really high straddled jaeger

-A perfect piked full in

-A stuck Pod vault

-A stamped out front tuck on beam

-A switch ring

So what are yours?

The Side Somi - a rant.

I like to think of myself as a level headed person, i.e. pretty chilled out about most things. And mostly this is true. Sadly it is a part of the human condition that we all must for some reason be riled by particular people and experiences.

Very few things annoy me as much as the side somersault (for those that are interested, the other few things include excessive hugging, the smell of Britney Spears Fantasy and Tyra Banks’ dress sense).  It is just horrible. I remember when I first saw one I thought something had gone horribly wrong. I thought innocently to myself, why would there ever be a coded skill that rewards an ugly takeoff, flight with flexed feet, knees a metre apart and a deep landing? I know more these days, but the question still holds. Why?

Well, as commentators over the years have been keen to point out (such as Christine Still who I believe once said the following: “always a difficult skill to spot”), it is a quite tricky move. I don’t doubt this. It takes a gymnast out of line with the beam and involves what is basically a blind landing: similar issues to a standing Arabian but made easier by less of a twist and the ability for stepout. It is D rated for a reason.

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 Alexandra Eremia shows us all how its done. Breathtaking.

 

But what on earth is the point of doing something if it looks so heinous? As is so often forgotten these days, the sport is called “artistic gymnastics”. I would love to know what is artistic about a skill that involves flipping in a position more suitable for giving birth than a beam exercise. In a similar vein to my thoughts on the handspring double front the other day, this is a skill that is by definition ugly, because even textbook execution results in something abysmal looking (a statement which holds at least for the tucked variation). 

Essentially, it would make no difference to me if it were rated a G: it still has no place in an otherwise good beam routine. I hate the code for doing things like this because it almost encourages gymnasts and coaches to pay no attention to the flow of the routine in favour of  shoehorning another D in there. Difficulty is one thing but something as offensive to the eyes as this skill is another thing entirely. For example, say some girl could do a triple somersault on floor in a LOVELY position like in the following video, would you want it?

I'm alright for now, thanks.

In a brief visit to a less bitter and more fair attitude, however, props to those few who manage to make it look somewhere near presentable. I am thinking mainly of Koko Tsurumi here. But there are not nearly enough like her to outweigh the onslaught of John  Waynes just dying to get gun happy. I am looking at you, Nastia. Leave it out next year, yeah? 

Nastia Liukin holds up the 2011 qualifications with a special announcement.

produ[NO]va

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Any gymnastics anorak knows about the Produnova. It has become a modern gymnastics legend. Few skills are considered with such high regard and such awestruck anticipation. Since we last saw Produnova herself (one of my all time favourite athletes) perform the double front in 1999, we have been waiting with baited breath for another powerhouse to come along and perform it. The hype and dreaming that comes with the handspring double front in women’s gymnastics is matched only by a very small handful of other skills of equal insanity (the mythical double layout beam dismount, the TTY, the quad on floor). For years now we have speculated on who might appear to pick up this Holy Grail and stun the world.

                                                                   Elena Produnova in 1999

...and as if from nowhere, Yamilet Pena popped up in Tokyo: a mostly unknown gymnast prior to this competition (and also from a minor country in gymnastics terms – the Dominican Republic). She threw a good few double fronts in training and warm-ups (not all of them landed, not all of them an easy watch for someone with legs) and after qualifications earned a ticket to the event finals.

Then came the crisp camera quality, commentary and slow motion. The few vaults we had seem Pena throw in Tokyo prior to this EF were mainly through shaky, long distance camera phone recordings from which little could be made out except the rotation and the landings. But the EF performance was a different story.

It was different because of this: it was a hideous, hideous vault. I don’t even mean this because she didn’t land it (if anything I am glad for her ankles that she let her back take the hit). I mean instead that the hype, history and legend of this vault have masked an uncomfortable truth: the handspring double front is not at all nice to look at.

What stopped me reaching this conclusion a decade earlier is the advances in sport coverage. My memory of the Produnova is based mainly on 3 videos from 1999: 2 at the worlds, 1 at the University games. This grainy coverage allowed the imagination to fill in the gaps, with an end product being a mental picture of an explosion of the horse into a light speed flipping and a crisp, planted landing. But in reality the vault falls short, as there are so many unsightly adjustments that have to be made to make the vault attemptable. These include a cowboy stance, an uncomfortably deep landing and clown feet. Also, so many flips make the whole vault seem completely downhill, with mechanics equivalent to under rotated twisting vaults which “twist into the ground”

All in all, I am not so sure how comfortable I am about the return of the Produnova, in almost every aspect. I think that new slow mo footage shows that even if the vault is landed, it would still be an unsightly piece of gymnastics. Further, it is clearly downright dangerous. That much rotational speed onto a blind landing seems to just beg for an injury, especially with girls like Pena who clearly haven’t got the skill competition ready. Also one has to ask the question, could it be satisfying for a gymnast to win a vault title with a messy 1.5TY and an ugly but hugely high tariff vault? I am thinking not.

With all the 2.5 chucking of last year I never thought I would say this, but I am all for the Amanar over the Produnova. Mckayla Maroney showed us what vaulting is all about: power combined with beauty. Not to be mean to Pena (she deserves real respect for her attempt) but I doubt there is any gymnast anywhere who could make the Produnova pretty.

With rumours of other gymnasts (including Mai Murakami) training this vault, let’s hope hard for gymnastics as opposed to cowboy legged circus tricks in the coming years.



Decoded?

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.