Crossing the beam - a legacy of moves

I'm often talking here of gymnastics as a sporting cultural form.  A cultural form is the physical or material manifestation of beliefs, traditions and identity and is constantly changing in response to social, political and economic shifts, and vulnerable to the forces of globalisation.  Sporting cultural forms are especially fragile as they can be subject to direct intervention in matters of taste or regulation by political administrative bodies often more interested in TV income or the bottom line than in the cultural 'health' of their sporting form.  In gymnastics terms, this could be interpreted as meaning that the power of the dollar usually speaks more loudly than, for example, the intrigue of the classical or the appeal of folk tradition.

Artistic gymnastics has seen more than its fair share of intervention over the past twenty five years or so as it has adapted to a new world order.  The FIG makes continual changes to the Code of Points and to competition formats that directly influence the way the sport is performed, the content of the routines we see in competition and the quality of performance.  The nature of innovation has even been dampened down by current rules.  While we see an immense amount of content and brand new connections thrown into the sport there aren't often those heart-in-mouth moments that the first Tkachev or Yurchenko vault induced.  Then again, your perception of what is brand new is bound to be influenced by what you have seen before ... perhaps I am just too old to be impressed any more?

Gymnastics nevertheless possesses a huge legacy of innovation and imagination that guides its development into the future.  I wanted to provide an example of that in the form of a few video extracts to show the development of myriad sideways manoeuvres on the beam (you will no doubt be able to think of more, so please comment!)  Palmer (2003) discusses the idea of a 'sieve of taste' whereby new and innovative techniques and movements gradually disappear or become integrated into the canon of 'classical' gymnastics thanks to a process of collective appreciation and peer imitation.  (He comments that the classical is increasingly rare in gymnastics, something he attributes to the strongly prescriptive direction of the Codes of Points.)

It is true that there is a current Code requirement for sideways movement on the beam but this seems to have resulted in little more than a few cautiously handled side steps or an isolated side somersault or two.   2014 European beam champion Maria Kharenkova, and 2014 World beam champion Simone Biles both dismiss sideways moves in less than a few seconds, presumably to make more time for the somersaults and turns along the beam that make up more of their D value. It's true that work across the beam is notoriously difficult because of the danger of losing balance, and of course consistency and reliability is vital if you are to contend for medals. 

However, some of the most spectacular moves in gymnastics were worked across the beam.  This is a whole family of moves that were considered revolutionary in their time.

Beam - the Crossways Legacy

Svetlana Grozdova, born 1959, competed for the Soviet team at the 1976 Olympics and was renowned for her innovative work across the beam, her best piece.  (She went on to become a World Champion in mixed pairs sports acrobatics.)  She was coached by Ruslan Lavrov from the CSKA Club in Rostov-on-Don.  Lavrov went on to coach 2000 Olympian Elena Produnova, and the 2014 European beam champion also trains at the same club.  

View Grozdova's 1976 Olympics routine here to see her pirouette in handstand to forward loop around the beam - the first of its kind.



Natalia Yurchenko, 1983 World Champion, had a pre-career in the late 1970s as a 'Wunderkind' whose extraordinary difficulty exceeded that of her older, more experienced, contemporaries.  However, ill health slowed her progress.  It wasn't until 1982 that the Rostov based gymnast (trained by Vladislav Rotstorotsky) began to harvest good competition results.  Watch her beam routine from that year's World Cup to see the Yurchenko loop.  It is a direct progression from Grozdova's work.



In 1987, defending AA world champion Oksana Omelianchik, from Kiev, took the next step: a flick quarter turn down to circle around the beam. Anastasia Kolesnikova performed a variant of this at the 2000 Olympics.



In the same year, at the Batumi junior competition, we saw a tiny Marina Goriounova from the Moscow Dynamo club, trained by Elvira Saadi and Vladimir Zaglada, complete a flick flack across the beam.



Her team mate, Tatiana Groshkova, was already doing an amazing combination : crossways flick flack, followed by the Yurchenko circle :



At the 2001 European Championships, 2004 Olympian and 2002 European beam champion Liudmilla Ezhova from Moscow presents her version of the move: flick half turn splits, half turn to swing down.



I can't finish this post without referring back to the brilliance of Grozdova; the video records may now be fuzzy and difficult to watch, but the gymnastics still shines.  Grozdova innovated more than just the crossways moves we have been discussing, she also began the trend for one armed handstands.



And any record of beam innovation can't omit the fantastic Natalia Shaposhnikova, 1980 Olympian.  'Shapo', as she was known by her team mates and close friends, took the one armed handstand into another atmosphere as she tilted off the axis of the beam, a feat rarely if ever repeated in future.  She is another Rostov gymnast, coached by Rotstorotsky and Tourischeva and a contemporary and team mate of Yurchenko.