Does she appreciate classical dance in gymnastics?
It was a Sunday morning. I was drinking my coffee and contemplating the day ahead - a workout at the gym, shopping for groceries, an evening reading a book, or catching up on last night's episodes of crime thriller The Bridge . How nice it was not to have to think about work for a day. Then I saw it - a story about the history of doping in The Observer . Interesting reading. Of course, cheating is as old as the hills. It is, unfortunately, human nature for some people to try to gain easy advantage in any kind of competition. That is why we have laws, rules, ethical guidelines. People who cheat should face justice and shouldn't complain when they are found out. But the story about pregnancy doping bothered me. Hadn't that been found to be fictional? The author began with Olga Kovalenko's allegations made in 1994 - but the rumours had started way back in 1991 with the documentary series More Than A Game . The practice...
Beautiful picture. Queen Elizabeth, I would love to hear your thoughts on the 2020 4 person team final situation. I have really only heard various American viewpoints at this time.
ReplyDeleteThe new format is about reinforcing the importance of the World Cup circuit.
DeleteI do not really understand the changes otherwise. I know Rodionenko does not like the new format.
I happen to think that gymnastics is at its brightest as a team sport yet this seems likely to sideline the quality of the team and all around competitions. I don't see the point of the specialists if they can't compete for the team. This new format doesn't address the hit and miss nature of three up three count.
I think it is very confusing for the public and apart from the improved emphasis on the World Cup circuit I am unsure what the benefits are. Hopefully the FIG will think twice before filling out the detail.
The best format IMO was 6-5-5 in both quals and finals. Oh and compulsories. And the perfect ten. Nothing ever stays the same. But the sport has been subject to so many random changes over such a short period of time. Why not just have one good format and stick with it.
I like the new rules because it allows 6 girls to go instead of 5. People are arguing that the new format ruins team prestige and will further spread the margin between the big counties but 1. The target of the rule is small country participation and 2. Team prestige has been lost. I mean USA has been winning by ridiculous margins and the silver and bronze teams have been having 3-4 falls. What's the difference of USA winning by 5 or 10 points? Countries like Russia and romania depend too much on specialists and Octavian belu can't have an excuse for not getting a bars coach after that. Also I would kill to see Russians being complete gymnasts again
DeleteCan someone explain the formats mentioned?
ReplyDeleteAs far as TF goes, I think smaller teams do diminish the excitement and "buzz" so that doesn't help. Furthermore, team strategy is now fairly cut and dry for the Big4 as they can't afford to not try to have 4 AAers otherwise you risk not even making the podium if one of your 3 AAers injured and the other person can't put up that one missing routine or is too weak in that one event. I can see a non Big4 team risk putting less than 4 AAers if they have good specialists in an all or nothing bet.
ReplyDeleteAAers become more important due to new TF format for obvious reason. Hopefully China and Russia will adapt and become better producers of 58+ AAers which would be a good thing since right now it seems like US is the only team that can put up 5 or 6 58+ AAers.
EF final will be stronger as it will be dominated by even stronger specialists who doesn't have to train for AA and just for one event.
I still wish that they would have done like a hybrid of 5+1 (with the additional specialist needing to qualify thr cup events for example if they want to increase cup participation) rather than just cutting down team to 4.