I just watched the most discouraging competition of my life in WAG, the AA. Maybe the team competition yesterday was better - I didn't watch - but the AA left me dead cold. The highlight was an energetic floor routine from Jordan Chiles. The rest was complete and utter baloney. The standard of vault has improved, but elsewhere there were falls aplenty (in fact the only gymnast to go four for four was Ellie Seitz, who finished second). Beam routines lacked any fluidity and were almost all staccato, stuttering shambles. The standard of tumbling on floor was fairly good, but choreographically the routines were empty. Where did split leaps go? When did bouncing on the spot take their place? When did shuffling while pathetically waving wrists about or wiggling hips and shoulders semi-suggestively qualify as connections? When did it become OK to fudge half hearted leaps into the corner of the floor mat, as if no one would notice?
In the end, no one will notice, because they will stop watching ... The only way of differentiating this field was by difficulty, which left Seitz in second place despite her being the only gymnast to live up to her potential.
Poor Melnikova says she was trying out upgrades today, suggesting that explained the fact that her only strong piece was vault. She is determined and works hard, but the first error (in this case on bars) always leads to subsequent ones. Without the meltdown she would easily have won this competition, but then there was a collective meltdown across the whole cohort. Perhaps it is a kind of moral breakdown of the sport after so much dirt has been thrown at it in the wake of the Nassar Affair.
Is it time for the FIG to lower the bar, to make room for good execution, to remove the incentives to increase difficulty? To reduce the importance of the D score and increase the weighting of the E score? Or is this just an anomaly? MAG seems to go from strength to strength.
Do you agree that WAG has lost its zizz? Please comment.
I have found myself watching more men's gymnastics over the last few years for precisely this reason. The quality of the field just seems much higher and consistent overall. Compare the all arounds at last year's world championships. I like Hurd and Eremina, but there wasn't nearly the same depth in the women's competition. Even with Uchimura injured and others in post-Olympic recovery, the men had Xiao Ruoteng, Lin Chaopan, Kenzo Shirai, Belyavsky, Vernyaev, Nagorny, Larduet; plenty of top tier talent. MAG team finals are still competitive and exciting. Often 5 or 6 teams are possible worthy medalists.
ReplyDeleteMy own big hope is that Biles and Komova both make full comebacks and we get to see them compete together. In my opinion, they're the two most talented gymnasts of their generation. Very different, but both innovative, exciting and masterful.
I agree. I think that other than Simone Biles and Aliya Mustafina and Maria Paseka (my fav), none of them have the same energy or spirit, just the same skills with a bit of hand-waving. I would include Larissa Iordache but she's just been plagued with bad luck no matter what she does. There's just no one after 2013+ that really has that star power like Nastia Luikin, Shawn Johnson, Ana Porgras, Yao Jinnan, Jiang Yuyuan, Viktoria Komova, Ksenia Semenova, Sandra Izbasa, Ponor in her peak, Steliana Nistor who was a fav of mine, Vanessa Ferrari in her prime, Anna Pavlova (another 2008 fav), even Lauren Mitchell. Even the US, which was almost completely carried by Biles for the past four years, doesn't have anyone truly special, just difficult skills and hard work but not that it-factor. Romania is really struggling, which breaks my heart, and obviously China had NO all arounders if they put Shang Chungsong who is lovely, but really just isn't in the same league as the other girls (otherwise she would have made the 2008 team). The UK especially is benefitting from this, winning medals just by default because they are more strength focused like America so they have more stamina to throw big tricks, rather than a classy fluid routine. I think Melnikova is actually quite lovely, so I have hope the Russians at least will get stronger, but as much as I think Seda Tutkhalyan is a great girl, I question why Russia keeps using her when she ALMOST NEVER hits.
ReplyDeleteWhen I completely forget about my country's national championships, held in a venue just a few kilometres of my home, and decide to go to Bali for a holiday, you know there's something rotten in contemporary gymnastics.
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