Skip to main content

'Those who do not risk, cannot win'

Who said, some time in the late 1980s, ‘those who do not risk, cannot win’? I think it was twice World Champion Yuri Korolev, but do correct me if I'm wrong and you have the reference to hand. The sport has virtually been turned on its head. Just look at team competitions – all scores counting – teams can’t possibly afford to take a risk if they want to win gold. The sport has been turned into something akin to diving or trampolining – technical and interesting to watch, but almost totally devoid of artistic depth.

Which brings me back to ROV. A reader has queried the validity of my use of Groshkova as an example of ROV, given that (s/he states) ROV disappeared from the Code of Points in the late 1980s. I suppose this is fair comment given my assumption that the form of the sport reflects the state of the judging codes. But it does also introduce an interesting idea, that of the legacy of past sporting codes. Gymnastics is constantly in evolution, not total re-invention, and this would suggest that the influence of the Code of Points takes some years to embed itself into the body of the sport. In Groshkova’s routines, the values of ROV are still clearly evident. When I talk of ROV, I don't just mean a term used to judge the sport, I am also referring to a quality embedded within the sport.

I think that, these days, gymnasts are generally risk averse and virtuosity has almost been wiped from the sport, even at the very top ranks. I consider this to be due to a number of factors: (i) the evaluative, prescriptive nature of gymnastics marking that virtually alienates all ideas of artistic judgement; (ii) changes in competition formats; (iii) the relative de-emphasis of single moves of great difficulty. There are always exceptions, of course. But ROV has, mostly, disappeared from the sport.

A longitudinal analysis of major changes in the Codes of Points and alterations to competition formats would be necessary to evaluate the relationship between these changes and how the sport evolved in their wake, although this would not answer the wider ethical and political questions. Also necessary is an awareness of who has the administrative leadership of the sport at the time, who the various political groupings are, and what influenced the changes.

In a comment made to yesterday’s posting, it was suggested that Bruno Grandi had pushed through changes in a deliberate attempt to favour a wider variety of gymnastics countries in winning medals, and that his election as President of the FIG was largely supported thanks to promises made to certain gymnastic nations. Much anecdotal evidence exists of such arrangements in gymnastics, and indeed in other sports, but systematically collected and evaluated evidence from multiple sources is required to speak of this with any authority.

I doubt that Yuri Titov’s time as President of the FIG was much different, though assumptions about sport and its role in society presumably differed quite considerably between the two Presidents. Riordan (1977) offered up the idea that the West generally views elite sport as a means of accumulating financial and commercial capital, while the Soviet Union’s view was more greatly imbued with social and diplomatic aims underpinned by deeply held cultural assumptions.

I am sure there are many people out there who view Titov's presidency with great cynicism, and say he was only in the job to secure as many medals for the Soviet bloc as possible. But wasn't the sport 'better' and more artistic in those days? Weren't the Soviets clearly the best, by far? What was it that made the sport so much more ... entertaining? Youtube is heavily populated with videos of 1980s Soviet gymnasts and message boards abound with gasps of wonderment at the fine gymnastics on display at this time. They really did have something.

But then quite a few gymnastics federations around the world would bemoan the fact that they never got a chance to win a single medal while the Soviets were around. The Code of Points, and many of the deliberations around it, was generated primarily in the Russian language, containing such terminology as 'harmony' and 'choreography', which in Russian are imbued with subtle meaning that does not translate entirely, word for word into the English language, at least. Even the meaning of 'virtuosity' is somewhat open to interpretation. I could argue that the Soviets took a constructionist view of their gymnastics, while the current sporting codes are more scientifically based ... but let's not think about that today. Suffice it to say, however, that in 1993 anecdotal evidence suggests that the Russians first viewed the new Code of Points only six weeks before the World Championships ... it was written in English, and there was no translation available. Who won? Shannon Miller of the USA. Tit for tat?

The majority of us approach the Soviet sports ethic with a fair deal of cynicism, but are lamentably unaware of our own assumptions about sport. A new set of search terms for my literature review, along with ‘sport governing bodies’ will encompass ‘Western cultural values and sport’.

Riordan, J (1977) Sport in Soviet Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Comments

  1. "Youtube is heavily populated with videos of 1980s Soviet gymnasts.."

    Using video population as an indicator of popularity has a built in bias. Most of the videos on UTube are TV broadcasts that focused on the top athletes, which meant that if the Soviets were one of or the top team most videos focused on them. Many fans of gymnastics never saw the lesser athletes regardless of their quality of performance. The 2008 Olympics was the first Olympics where all athletes could be seen from video from the NBC feeds (if you lived in the USA at least). One rarely saw the gymnasts who finished places 10th-36th in the 1980s, so their is little opportunity to discus them.

    ReplyDelete
  2. 'Using video population as an indicator of popularity ...'
    I didn't.
    Wish I lived where you lived - our coverage of gymnastics often left frustrating gaps in the coverage of the Soviets in favour of a random hotchpotch of gymnasts from across ability ranges and often favouring local gymnasts. Youtube videos are internationally sourced.

    Oops - Lisa Elliot's floor routine is on Youtube, Don't think she ever even qualified to an all around final at worlds level!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6ZuYH-zMPA


    Don't you think this is more watchable than Beth Tweddle's routines today, despite the terrible issues with flexibility?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

‘We all love her very much’ - Roschina speaks of Mustafina and the need to perfect an Amanar vault

From sport.ru via vk.com.  Google translate  A big interview with Anastasia Loginova from Sport24 with Lyudmila Roshchina following the Strongest Cup, where the gymnast won four out of five gold medals. We quote several fragments, the full version is available on the publication's website, link at the end. ❓ The Strongest Athletes Cup has recently ended. Did you have time to analyze your performances? 💬 I just rewatched the broadcast, looked at my shortcomings. ❓ Did you set a medal plan for this start? 💬 I didn't think about it. Only that I needed to do my program - and then what will happen. ❓ Did you have time to discuss the competition with your coach? 💬 She praised me, said that I was great. She didn't scold me for mistakes on the beam - on the contrary, she supported me. ❓ Can we say that the beam is your weak spot? This is the only final you didn't get to. 💬 Probably yes. I have this apparatus that is a bit unpolished, so to speak. Treacherous. I need to work...

Tatyana Nabiyeva on work and love in China

Some highlights from a long interview with 2010 World champion Tatyana Nabiyeva.  Source: Russian team page on VK.com.  Translation - Google translate A big interview with Tatyana Nabieva about the peculiarities of work and life in China, the bright years of her sports career, a little about modern gymnastics and about love. On the Nabiyeva flight — At the same championship, you presented a new element on the bars, which was later added to the rules with your last name (flying over the top bar with a straight body, difficulty group F. — Sport24). How did you come up with the idea to try something new? — Actually, it happened spontaneously, I think. We worked with Vera Iosifovna [Kiryashova] on the purity of the elements on the bars, sometimes I didn’t fly all the way to the Shaposhnikova element. Once I didn’t fly all the way to the bars either and stood on my feet between the bars, bending my legs in flight for safety. Then Vera Iosifovna said that this was a different eleme...

Angelina Melnikova photo session

Daria Isaeva has done a photo session with Angelina Melnikova at Dynamo Moscow.  Here are Angelina’s words about it.   "  The first time I was on a balance beam I was six years old. I was scared because of the height, so at first I walked hand in hand with my trainer." "The hardest thing on this apparatus is to keep your balance. Usually, when I'm on the beam, I imagine that I'm in a corridor 10 centimeters wide." "You can't be afraid of the beam! Coaches say that if you have fear, you will perform poorly." "The first difficult element I did at the age of eight was a backflip. In adult gymnastics, this element is considered one of the easiest." “I still can’t do a cartwheel on a log; I can easily fall off it, although children can do this element at the age of six.” "It's better to perform on the balance beam barefoot - you feel the apparatus better that way. But to avoid injuries, we sometimes tape our ankles." "It...

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more