Find results of this competition on the International Gymnast website.
Promise I will be back soon with some commentary!
Promise I will be back soon with some commentary!
Gymnastics has lost some of its appeal over the past few years, whilst Russian athletes have been out of competition. This might be an unpopular opinion, but it reflects the reality of international gymnastics without around a quarter of its leading protagonists. The international competitive field has not raised its performance in the absence of Russia's leadership; gymnasts from the top ten or fifteen have floated upwards in the ranks to fill gaps in the medal placements, and we see mediocre performances gaining gold, silver and bronze medals. Gymnastics has lost some of its imagination and vision without Russian athletes. This doesn't detract from the efforts of the world's best gymnasts. Gymnastics quite simply needs the special abilities of Russian athletes to provide competition for our international contenders and drive the sport to ever greater things. In particular, artistry has been almost entirely lost without Russian athletes to provide a good e...
Sorry not related to this post! Can you comment on the IG online article about China's coach underestimating the Russian team? I am not an expert on WAG but I can see Nabieva's Amanar is really poorly executed but I thought Mustafina's was not that bad?
ReplyDeleteI'm not familiar with this article but wouldn't dream of contradicting a Chinese coach - he or she is bound to be more technically knowledgeable than me!
ReplyDeleteI love Nabieva for her adventurous style and crazy abandon. There are plenty of mediocre gymnasts out there who can execute acrobatic moves with reasonable form. Far fewer have the courage to risk the kind of turbo-powered originality that Nabieva attempts. She is pretty much unique in this respect at the present time, and continues the long-held tradition of tricksters such as Olga Korbut, Albina Shishova and, especially, the young Elena Shushunova. What she is attempting is incredibly hard psychologically, especially within the framework of a sporting Code that seems to prefer careful accuracy to a flamboyant spirit of adventure.
I'm sure the Russian coaches will be working hard with her to improve her execution, and I'm certain that if she competes at a major again, it will be with better execution. But I hope this isn't all people see when they watch Nabieva. How many of those wooden routines have you sat through that have perfectly adequate execution, but lack any flair or interest at all?
Anonymous-
ReplyDeleteI have written something about this on my blog if you would like to see it. There are a few pictures of the vaults/dismounts. I agree that he could have believed that Nabieva's would be devalued, but certainly not Mustafina's, which was landed perfectly forward and stuck in the one video that I have seen of it prior to worlds.
What really bugged me about what he said was that because of his "miscalculation," the chinese had to use their most difficult bars routines to make up for the loss, causing them to make mistakes. Huang missed a kip after her pak salto, which she must do to get credit for a transition. Jiang missed her pak salto as well. But unlike what he said, she did downgrade her routine. I suppose she could have left out her ricna or not connected it to the pak salto, but it sounds like Lu is trying to find excuses for his team not doing as well as the could have. They made a lot of mistakes that ultimately cost them gold.