Pre-Olympic Turmoil
AS WE MOVE into the final year of preparations for the 2012 London Olympics, the excitement will natu- rally start to build. Coaches and gym- nasts must measure very carefully whether or not to add that extra twist
or element to the routines. Is the risk
of injury and/or falling worth it? Who
will the newcomers be, and can they
get enough experience to handle the
Olympic pressure?
Of course, all of these situations
have arisen in most of the previous
Olympic years, but what’s different
this time is that monstrous, gymnast-eating Code of Points!
Who will be able to dodge those
ACL-tearing Amanar landings? Who
can hold on long enough to have the
most difficulty in her uneven bars
routine? Will anyone be able to show
any choreography on balance beam
or floor exercise without sacrificing
those precious “D” points? Will any
gymnast be able to earn an “E” score
above 9.00 on beam or floor? Exciting stuff, right? I don’t think so!
It really bothers me that our won-
derful sport is in such a state of
chaos. I hope that I’m not the only
one who remembers how FIG Presi-
dent Bruno Grandi pushed this pre-
sent Code of Points through, com-
pletely deaf to the criticism of a huge
majority of the global gymnastics
community. Many of us spoke out
about the direction this Code would
take our sport, including an over
emphasis on difficulty, a huge escala-
tion of serious injuries, medals won
with falls and an increase in cheating.
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Of course, all of these
situations have arisen in
most of the previous
Olympic years, but what’s
different this time is that
monstrous, gymnast-eat-ing Code of Points!
PHOTOGRAPHERS
CONTRIBUTORS
Anneleen Kaptein-Dekker, Amy Van Deusen
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I hope all of you were able to catch
Raj Bhavsar’s blog on our website
( intlgymnast.com), where he took us
through his new career with Iris, the
new Cirque du Soleil show coming
to the Kodak Theater in Hollywood,
Calif. We’ll have more from Raj and
the opening of this really spectacular
show, so stay tuned.
In addition to this exclusive in-depth look at how one celebrated
gymnast moved from the competitive
venue to the theatrical one, we have
more exciting things coming to both
our magazine and website in this
explosive year leading into the
Olympics.
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