Skip to main content

Media update - Martha Karolyi 'We cannot have the FIG thinking that only ballerinas can be gymnasts'

What an extraordinary statement. What on earth does Karolyi mean by this?


What does she mean - ballerina? When we hear the word, our immediate associations are - elegance, grace, posture, effortless poise, beauty. Aren't they? And isn't this exactly what we would want from our gymnastics?


Well, I can entirely understand why Karolyi wouldn't want elegance to win. Given the state of some of the gymnastics that emanates from her training camps.


This often gets confused with a question of body type, size, shape, weight or looks, quite a sensitive issue given the age of many of these competitors. But I will take just one example that perhaps even isn't at the extreme end of the scale. America's Rebecca Bross. She has more or less the same basic body type as say, for example, Mustafina - powerful, proportionately long limbs, strong bodied. But look at the differences. Just look at the differences. Consider line, elevation, fluidity of movement, range of movement, expression. What makes them so different? I would suggest it is the training ... nothing personal.



Karolyi goes on to say that difficulty is also important, which I would agree. But, as has been demonstrated here in the Ahoy Stadium this week, it is possible to combine elegant grace with difficulty without compromising the balletic qualities of the sport.



Embedded in Karolyi's statement is a deep assumption that it is possible to exert influence over the FIG as regards what constitutes good gymnastics - that she can control what they think. Hrmph. I certainly hope the other Federations, those with good, elegant gymnasts such as Lauren Mitchell, the Chinese whose team are always well prepared, do not let such ignorance pass without comment.



The whole of Karolyi's discussion can be read here.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/brian_cazeneuve/10/22/karolyi/index.html

Comments

  1. I think you are taking that quote out of context. This is the full quote:

    "We cannot have the FIG [International Gymnastics Federation] thinking that only ballerinas can be gymnasts. We must have the difficulty level. We need the skills to combine both components really well."

    She's not advocating getting rid of ballerinas but rather a balance between elegance and difficulty. In a way, she's right. Just as gymnastics would be boring with people who all looked like Shushunova, it would be boring if everyone looked like Khorkina or Boginskaya. And ballet is not the only way of artistry. Look at Maja Hristova. Her pump up the volume floor routine is no less artistic than most floor routines performed by your beloved Soviets, but she had a stumpy body type (as evidenced by her inability to swing bars) and had to work around it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. There is BS from judges judging the women based on how the LOOK versus what they do in terms of SPORTS. Oh..and the leap thing in FX is way overdone. You want rhythmic or ballet, go watch that! But don't convert gym into being that.

    And Nastia was not "elegant" if elegant equals "having good form". She had a grotesque cowboy on flips and crossed legs on twists. Look at the MEN for real "good form". They don't do any fruity ballet crap and they have good form, way better than the women.

    ReplyDelete
  3. But if she is looking for improvement, why de-emphasise artistry when this is clearly the area in which her gymnasts are deficient?

    And why now? We finally have a world all around champion who is at least moderately artistic and undoubtedly powerful. Surely gymnastics is getting back on track again after the artistic horrors of Johnson, Memmel and Ferrari.

    Isn't this just an implicit admission of failure on Karolyi's part - she still hasn't managed to find an American who can combine difficulty with artistry and win the world championships and she isn't likely to, with this attitude.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I don't know on what level we should analyze Martha's comment, but it seems to me like, maybe subconsciously, she was getting at something deeper - not so much that every gymnast can't be a ballerina, but that gymnastics can't be ballet. We wouldn't want it to be - that would require getting rid of all apparatus but floor, moving from an arena to a stage, getting rid of the competitive nature, etc (you get the point). While no one is advocating that, I see so many people in the gymternet who are so adamant that gymnastics be balletic, that it seems like they are wanting a different sport entirely. If only one team, for one brief era, was able to "properly" compete the sport - are the expectations off, or is the sport off?

    Now, don't get me wrong - I think artistry is critical, and under-appreciated, and undervalued, etc, and I think gymnastics can learn a lot from dance. (And I was as thrilled as anyone at Russia's artistry at worlds.) But I also think that gymnastics artistry can be achieved in ways that dance artistry cannot. And I think if we define gymnastics as "the more balletic the better - and it must achieve a minimum standard of balletic to qualify (or score well)," we risk defining gymnastics out of existence.

    ReplyDelete
  5. "And I think if we define gymnastics as "the more balletic the better - and it must achieve a minimum standard of balletic to qualify (or score well)," we risk defining gymnastics out of existence."

    Well said.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Svetlana Boginskaya: I was always a bitch* in gymnastics

Svetlana Boginskaya, 15 years old, with her medals from the Seoul Olympics Nico translates the latest interview with gymnastics legend Svetlana Boginskaya, during a recent visit to her home country of Belarus. Svetlana Boginskaya: I was always a bitch* in gymnastics, so now I ask for forgiveness from everyone who came in contact with me. The National Olympic Committee of Belarus held a press conference with three-time Olympic Champion in artistic gymnastics, Svetlana Boginskaya. The meeting was devoted to the 25th anniversary of the Olympic Games in Seoul. In South Korea the Belarussian won two gold medals in the team competition and vault. As a gift to the Olympic Hall of fame, the famous gymnast, now living in the United States, donated one of her trophies that she won at the 1990 European Championships and a pennant for Best Female Athlete of the USSR in 1989. How happy we were when we could share with such stars as Boginskaya, Scherbo, and Ivankov,...

Natalia Yurchenko - an exclusive interview

Natalia wins gold at the World Championships in Budapest, 1983 1983 World Champion Natalia Yurchenko speaks directly to readers of RRG in this exclusive interview.    Early years: In the summer of 1976, at the age of 11, I was accepted to a sports boarding school in Rostov-on-Don. I remember it was a 4-level building with the cafeteria on the first floor, academic classrooms on the second floor, rooms for girls on the third floor and rooms for boys on the fourth floor. There was one TV on the ground floor and the kids who stayed at school over the summer (about 20-30 kids), were able to watch the Olympics. Nadia Comaneciā€™s outstanding performance made us feel jealous because usually the Soviets were the unbeatable favorites. We did feel some relief with amazing performances from Nellie Kim and Ludmilla Tourischeva. Besides Ludmilla, there was a gymnast from Rostov-on-Don, Svetlana Grozdova! And, we were really thrilled to see the very little and cute Maria Fi...

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more