International Gymnast - January/February 2010

CERTAIN trends become evident at ev- ery major competition, and the 2009 World Championships had its share. Where the rules are concerned, it’s not too late to fix some of the flaws that continue to hamper the sport’s development. Whether the FIG takes action remains to be seen, however.

Team Size

The decrease in team size from six to five will increase the importance of all-around gymnasts for the 12 qualifying teams to London 2012, particularly for the men, who compete on 50 percent more events than women. Ironically, the 12 vacated berths will allow more specialists to qualify to London, since all individual medalists—not just gold medalists—from the 2011 worlds will receive an invite. The Olympic Test Event the year before will also serve as a qualifier, but I am not sure if the details have been finalized as to how.

I like that all the world medalists will get to compete in the Olympics, but perhaps the FIG should have considered leaving team size at six and qualifying 10 instead of 12 teams to accommodate these talented individuals.

The “continental representation” criterium, which adds three gymnasts to the Olympic field, is a noble concept that really does nothing to elevate the level of the games. Since when were the Olympics an Equal Opportunity Employer?

High Bar Travesty

DAVE BLACK (UCHIMURA); THOMAS SCHRE YER (ZOU)

Zou Kai was credited with a 7. 5 D-score to win high bar, but he did approximately 30 skills to accomplish that feat. His routine was 57 seconds long. Actually, it wasn’t a routine as much as a three-act play. I wonder how long it took him to simply remember it, let alone learn it. And this is not a knock against Zou, whose combinations on high bar were extremely difficult. They just weren’t performed with any sort of virtuosity. And you could tell he was gassed near the end, when he dumped a pirouette over the bar and caught at about horizontal. But if the Code permits such excess, who can blame him?

Dmitry Bilozerchev won the 1983 world high bar title in 36 seconds, about the same time it took Trent Dimas to win the 1988 Olympic gold. Did we think their routines were too short?

If the Code can objectively prove why the most beautiful high bar routine in the final deserved sixth place, then it is evaluating the wrong criteria….

International GYMNAST January/February 2010

Worlds in Review

Fact and fallacy from the 2009 World Championships

By Dwight Normile

How did gymnastics come to this? If a high bar routine can go on and on, why does floor exercise still have a time limit? Why is there no skill limit in the first place?

Zou’s E-score was 8.65, which means his final score of 16.150 was 54% execution, 46% difficulty. Kohei Uchimura had a 6. 4 D-score on high bar and placed sixth, but I’d argue that he was at least 1.10 cleaner than Zou. He looked flawless, gave a Kovacs clinic and stuck his dismount, but somehow scored only 8.775 for execution. He would have scored between 9.90- 10.0 in the 1980s.

Go to You Tube and compare Zou and Uchimura yourself. You don’t need an international Brevet rating to understand my point. If the current Code of Points can objectively prove why the most beautiful high bar routine in the final deserved sixth place, then it is evaluating the wrong criteria and truly flawed beyond repair. This Code was supposed to separate the wheat from the chaff, but the chaff is often winning the medals.

The trio of high bar medalists in London had arguably the worst form of the finalists. Seven-teen-year-old Danell Leyva, who placed fourth, .025 behind third-place Igor Cassina, was victimized by being a newcomer. Silly, isn’t it? Leyva had . 30 more difficulty than Cassina but was given .325 lower in execution, even though he was cleaner and technically better.

Perhaps the worst part about all of this is that virtually every gymnast who was in London will go home and try to add more difficulty to his/her routines—or get hurt trying—in an attempt to catch the winners. Obviously, the FIG’s mandate of curbing risky, dangerous gymnastics by strict execution judging has backfired. Or perhaps it wasn’t implemented accurately in London. Because if Uchimura scored 8.775 for execution, Zou should have received about a 7. 50. Here’s a thought: Maybe the E-score should be open-ended too, leaving room to reward originality and virtuosity.

If you didn’t read our interview with Dr. Larry Nassar, long-time trainer to the U.S. team, in the November IG, here is his response to my question about whether men’s routines are getting too long: “Overall, gymnastics is an anaerobic sport. Male gymnasts perform such highly strength- and power-driven skills that if their muscles and/or minds fatigue, their techniques

Uchimura Zou

become flawed, which then increases the forces
on their bodies. This, in turn, creates injury.”
It was encouraging to see the Women’s Tech-
nical Committee lower the counting skills from
10 to eight a year ago, but surprising that the
Men’s Technical Committee stuck with 10. Even
more confounding is that the FIG Executive
Committee would allow the WTC and MTC to
operate under different sets of rules.

Vault Variation

As stated in my blog from London, the handspring-rudi (front with 1½ twists) seems over-valued for women at 6. 3, compared with a Yurchenko-double twist ( 5. 8). Is it really . 50 harder? Is it a full point harder than a 1½-twist- ing Yurchenko ( 5. 3)?

For men, the handspring-rudi and double-twisting Yurchenko carry the same value of 6.2, and a 1½-twisting Yurchenko is worth 5. 8.

I realize the men’s vault table is higher and men are more powerful, but I don’t think women are that acrobatically inferior to men. This is just another example of how the MTC and WTC don’t see eye to eye.

Also, if the MTC is going to view a Lopez (Kasamatsu-double twist) and a Yeo 2 ( hand-spring-front with 2½ twists) as two different vaults, it needs to abolish its rule that both vaults in finals must show different pre- and post-flights. A better rule would be to require either pre- or post-flight be different. This would allow guys to show a Dragulescu (handspring-double front-half) and a Yeo 2, or a Yurchenko-2½ twist and a Melissanidis (Yurchenko-double pike).