Deja vu?

Walter Bageshot, a nineteenth century politican and businessman, was once quoted as saying the following: “Life is a school of probability”. For us at least, he was right.

Our whole lives are peppered with the mention of probabilities, statistics, percentages and figures. Quite some time ago, these bitesize bores jumped into the world of advertising. Now, it is impossible to watch or buy anything without being bombarded with facts about its level of carbon neutrality, antioxidant performance, the number of years it will shave off your appearance and how many of your five a day it is. Sport is of course no exception: modern competitions are saturated with seedings, world rankings and future performance predictions.

In a world run by stats, is gymnastics exempt? In other words, are an athletes probabilities of striking gold affected by those that went before them? Inspired by a recent thread on intlgymnast, I began to wonder what the 2012 medal roster might resemble if history is anything to go by.

So, I took the gold medal winners from the four previous Olympics and collected their finishing positions in the world championships from the previous year (if they were not in the preceding final, their qualification placement was used, and if they were not in the previous worlds then their best mark at an international competition in the preceding year was used). I then took an average.

Vault

Finishing positions of Olympics gold medallists in the preceding worlds: 1,1,4,4

Average: 2.5

According to the average, the Olympic champion on vault in 2012 will be either Oksana Chusovitina or Phan Thi Ha Thanh.

Likely? Seemingly not, although these two gymnasts may well figure into the equation, it would take a catastrophic fall from American wonderwoman Mckayla Maroney for either to strike gold. The way things look right now, it will be a repeat of 1996 and 2000: the reigning world champ will be crowned the Olympic vault queen.

It is worth noting, however, that in all of the last 4 Olympics, the eventual vault champion competed in the world EF in the previous year. This is the only apparatus final of which this can be claimed. 

Uneven Bars

Finishing positions of Olympics gold medallists in the preceding worlds: 1,1,40,1

Average: 10.75

And here is a great example of how averages can be completely meaningless and useless. This is though an interesting selection of numbers nonetheless. With three first place figures, Uneven Bars is the apparatus upon which the reigning champ is most likely to repeat. Some may be confused about why there are 3 numbers ones listed here. As He Kexin was not age eligible in 2007 I took her score from the 2007 Cottbus Cup: a 16.800, which would comfortably have won her the gold at the 2007 world championships ahead of Ksenia Semenova. 40, on the other hand, is the position in which Emilie LePennec qualified on the bars in Anaheim, 2003.

Although none of these averages particularly mean anything, this means even less due to the skewing. According to this inspired system, the best bets for 2012 bars gold are Japanese Tanaka and Minobe. Unlikely.

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This does seem to show, though, that uneven bars specialists are more consistent leading from world championships into Olympics. This is, of course, skewed by Khorkina.

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Balance Beam

Finishing positions of Olympics gold medallists in the preceding worlds: 4,26,2,8

Average: 10

A very mixed bag of numbers and an average of ten, again pointless and misleading: this position would place Yulia Inshina as the favourite for beam gold next year. Again, not something I am expecting to happen.

What this does show is how unpredictable beam is, and this is of course true. We are relatively accustomed to multiple medallists on the uneven bars and vault, for example. But very few people seem to make an impact on the beam podium on more than a few occasions. Notable exceptions to this include Nastia Liukin and Shannon Miller.

What this suggests to me is that beam is a really hard one to call, and that a lot can change in a short space of time.

Floor Exercise

Finishing positions of Olympics gold medallists in the preceding worlds: 7, 12, 2, 8

Average: 7.25

Another mixed bag of results and another strange average. With this logic, Beth Tweddle would be the 2012 champ. As much as the thought of FX gold on home soil appeals to me, it just won’t happen this way.

So what does this show? In all honesty, absolutely nothing. It is obvious that the only thing impacting upon the medals later this year will be the performances on the day by the athletes present: anything else is just silly speculation (fun for geeks like me, though).

BUT what is interesting is the array of pre-olympic worlds placements we see above. Interesting that a high world championship placement on the Uneven Bars and the Vault is a much better predictor of Olympic success than a high finish on floor or beam. This is clearly because there are more uneven bars and vault specialists than floor and beam specialists, but why should this be? Within the new code, vault and bars are the places that really pack the punch score wise, so this is understandable here. Especially with vault, as such a weak second vault field means maximum payoff for those who can learn two.

To start with a quote and end with another: “from principles is derived probability, but truth or certainty is obtained only from facts” (Tom Stoppard, Playwright). In other words, the above means nothing.  

Top Scores

When we consider favourites and least favourites, we generally refer to routines, skills or medals. Perhaps even entire meets. However, is there something about a particular SCORE that could make us like it more than another?

Scores are numbers, and have no meaning except in the context of the routine they grade. Therefore ones liking of a score can never be (and has no reason to ever be) considered separate from the routine it scores. I do however find it interesting that the connotations attached to a score change completely depending on the quad: Kim Zmeskal’s 9.775 on FX in the 1992 AA locked her out of the medals and was considered a disastrously low score, but the same score by Produnova at the 2000 BB EF landed her an individual Olympic medal.

So with this in mind, here are a couple of my favourite (and least favourite) scores.

Favourites

9.862

The significance of this number is twofold. Two different stories, two different Olympics but two fantastic outcomes.

The first is Shannon Miller. Having made it to the Olympics a second time, she was a completely different gymnast to her former self. Having dominated the world for the two years after the Barcelona Olympics (where, in my opinion, she should have taken the all around gold, but more of that below), Shannon had experienced a rocky year prior to the Olympics, looking worn out, too tall for her skills and dogged with injury.

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But, she made it to Atlanta and put in a valiant performance to help take the historic team gold. She also managed to qualify second into the AA behind favourite and eventual champ Lilia Podkopayeva. But there were problems. Her vault wasn’t up to scratch and she suffered for the whole Olympics on her floor mount: a double layout that fell out of the air every time she performed it.

The  low floor score shut the door on the AA medals for Shannon, a huge disappointment all things considered: her domination of the quad, her qualification, her success in 1992 and the home crowd disappointment (whenever I watch the Atlanta AA it always shocks me how silent and moody the crowd sounds after the third rotation).

But there was salvation: her beam. From qualifications right through to the end she was consistent and stunningly beautiful to watch. Watching the beam final today, it is as though everyone in the arena knows that medal is Shannon’s. There is a certain quiet expectation that does not sound tense, but rather waits without fear for her perfection and the fulfilment of something that is already hers. The final stamping out of that full in dismount and the roaring of the crowd: Shannon Miller wins the 1996 beam final with a 9.862, a hugely well deserved title and a fantastic end to a shining Olympic career.

The second is gymnastics superstar Svetlana Khorkina, a gymnast whose spectacular decade long career was fuelled by disappointment on multiple occasions. The 2000 Olympics were her party, and I know some people don’t like her (and I must respect that), but I think she was fantastic. Never before or since has a gymnast had that much presence, that much attitude and that much fame.

Sveta was already a bars gold medallist. A MULTIPLE gold medallist. She won her first world title on the bars in 1995, and by the time of the Sydney Olympics she had four world titles on the apparatus and 1 Olympic title. So you could hardly say she was the underdog.

However, the ridiculousness of the vault scandal had stripped her of an AA chance. The bars final was her last chance for gold (her last legitimate chance anyway, had Zamo fallen and Sveta taken floor gold people would have been angry and rightfully so). She pulled out what I think to be the performance of her life, and her Ricna-pak-stalder combination is one of my favourites of all time.

9.862: Khorkina repeats as the Olympic champion on bars, a salvaged win from a terrible Olympics.

Two apparatus, two golds, two women, one score.

9.887

I hated Lilia’s floor routine. I thought the music was appalling, the choreography terrible. But I thought the tumbling was incredible. Never before have I seen a better front tumbler, and that first pass, unique to this day, remained among the most impressive feats ever attempted on the floor exercise.

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Lilia was one of the few true all around gymnasts, and the huge favourite for the win in Atlanta. Even in such a deep field, she was the only one who could convincingly have worn the gold medal (in my opinion).

Her floor routine, one of the last routines of the competition, was an absolute showstopper. I have already said that I hated most of its aspects, but it didn’t matter. The tumbling and her impeccable form is good enough for me.

Her score of 9.887, the highest of the night, gave her a deadlock on first place.

16.900

In the first departure from the 10 system, we have the score that currently holds the title of the highest score ever recorded in WAG at the world championship/Olympic level. It is of course the score posted for Nastia Liukin’s bar set at the 2008 Olympic WAG team final.

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Nastia’s bar set was, and is, breathtaking. By far the most fluently composed and well executed bar set of the quad, Nastia really stamped herself as a legendary uneven bar worker and was hence rightfully rewarded with the highest score of the meet for her TF effort.

Sadly, things didn’t go the same way in the EF, and we all know how that ended. Still, with changes to the code it is feasible that this score may hold its record for a long time to come. Further, with Nastia back in training she may get a second shot at gold.

Least Favourites

9.975

This is an odd one to list as a least favourite, because it is a fantastic score. But I hate it at the same time. Why? Because I think instantly of Shannon Miller on vault at the 1992 Olympics AA.

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The vault was one of the most perfect things I have ever seen. It was high, beautifully flighted, a nice tight twist, perfect form and an absolutely planted landing. I really think it should have been a 10.

Shannon was absolutely robbed in this final. It would potentially be more agreeable to say that Gutsu should have scored lower on vault and far lower on floor, but I hate this score because it was one of the best things Shannon ever produced and it didn’t get her the gold.

9.887

The more astute of you may notice that this has appeared on both my favourite and least favourite lists. Here it is with respect to Svetlana Boginskaya’s bars at the 1992 Olympics AA.

Yes, her bars were not as difficult as some. But the code didn’t seem to demand difficultly to the same level it does now. She performed her set the absolute best it could be performed, with not a form error in sight. I understand that those with more difficult routines should be rewarded more, but this score was way too low and prevented her from a medal that she definitely deserved. How did Kim, an appalling bar worker, outscore Bogi here? Scandal.

0.00

Poor, poor Pavlova.