Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

The FIG managed to do it again and set us all off talking about the scoring and how dreadful it was, rather than the performances and how brilliant they were. I personally loved that Alice d’Amato won beam with the best executed routine.    I think that the sport undervalues good execution in general, and this was a moment when the judges got it right. It’s a pity that there weren’t fewer falls overall in this final, but it’s the nature of the beam that people fall from it, and the major good thing today was that the champion was the one who stayed on the beam.   I’m an oldie.    I used to love the hushed silence in the audience that fell as the best gymnasts were performing.    The first time I experienced this in person was in the Ahoy Stadium in Rotterdam, at the 1987 Worlds, when Silivas stepped up to the uneven bars.    It reminded me of Korbut in Munich, and Comaneci in Montreal.    It didn’t happen all that often, but it...

This picture, of 1985 Soviet World Championships team member Irina Baraksanova, is a symbol of what is now lost to gymnastics as a whole, and Russia in particular.  Black and white, the picture was taken at another time when imagery came at a premium, technology was simple and memory and emotion played an important part in documenting sports history.  A similar picture taken today might be more colourful and have a sharper focus, but lack the nostalgic significance, the scope to challenge the imagination.  For all its lack of precision and technical sophistication, this box brownie snap captures the feeling of a unique moment.  Baraksanova, in common with many of her team mates, used floor exercise to tell an enigmatic and gentle story built on line, air and just a little bit of acrobatic magic.  The position of the head, the asymmetry of the position, the downcast eyes, all speak to me.  She combined grace and power, innovation and tradition to make the ...

There is a really good comment on my post 'Maybe it's the end'.  It is from Cami, and I didn't want it to remain relatively hidden at the bottom of the post as it is full of ideas for discussion.  Thank you, Cami ...  Cami says -  'You make excellent points, about how the identity of artistic gymnastics is changing. that’s the nature of sport though. i feel artistic gymnastics is still unique from any other branch because it is gymnast and apparatus, and nothing else. they are artists with their own bodies (no balls/hoops/or partners). a gymnast must be entirely focused on their physical, emotional, and mental self-awareness.  but if you are to give a gymnast a numerical score, there must be objectivity. in hockey, soccer - all goals are worth the same regardless of how much style they have. in basketball, “easy” shots are 2 points and “hard” shots are 3, regardless of whether they’re jumpshots or layups, half-court or right at the 3point line.  Gymnastics ...

1988 Olympic Champion Shushunova, a power gymnast with artistry, who scored three tens in the team final in Seoul. In 2006 the Code of Points was overhauled and changed, almost beyond recognition to the public eye at least.  The maximum mark of 'ten', the symbol of perfection that was for many the brand of the sport, was lost. It was an inevitable change; a ceiling mark of any number was quite simply no longer practical.  However, the concept of the round ten did bring with it an important principle - the idea that judges were marking whole routines.   And the loss of that ceiling and of the idea of the mark as a representation of the 'whole' brought with it the possibility of skewing scores in favour of those gymnasts who attempt high levels of difficulty.   I'm fairly certain that this was an unintended consequence.  It is a consequence that makes it possible for girls with a mediocre level of gymnastics to contend for medals, provided they can bash together a...

   Elena Produnova - one of the most beautiful and powerful gymnasts ever Ahead of today's Commonwealth Games WAG vault final, where India's Dipa Karmakar will attempt her handspring double front vault, I just wanted to take the opportunity to remind people that it IS possible to perform this risky skill safely and well. http://youtu.be/nQuIQ9s3ddM Produnova cowboys this attempt but it is high, flighty and well landed.  She was ahead of her time, launching into space off an old-style vaulting horse that did not offer the benefits of the new vaulting table. Dipa Karmakar (see video below) has managed to qualify to event finals at the Commonwealth Games as a consequence of a difficult vault performed very poorly.   http://youtu.be/yE8v5-jlOoY The second vault scored 14.4 with an E score of 7.4.  The difficulty value of the Produnova is 7 - almost a mark higher than the Amanar vault that is otherwise considered to be the acme of women's vaulting achievement.  ...

I responded to a question on Gymternet Clan on Facebook recently; which gymnasts did you see in competition first?  Being rather old, my reply was that at the 1976 Soviet Display at Wembley, I was lucky enough to see Ludmilla Tourischeva, Nelli Kim and Olga Korbut.  Quite a heady memory, and one that for some unknown reason sent me in search of Chopin's Nocturne, 9-2, a piece of music that always reminds me of the deep, emotional and expressive Tourischeva.  She is the standout for me these days.  At the age of 16, Korbut's pyrotechnics appealed more.  Olga is still beautiful, very special, but somehow Ludmilla's gentle, complex gymnastics come from somewhere more intense and soulful, closer to me, these days. I haven't posted enough recently, having been busy at a Conference on Cultural Tourism in the Digital Era, in Athens, where as well as listening to and questioning others on their interesting research in this topic area, I had the p...

Elena Produnova - one of the most beautiful and powerful gymnasts ever There is a lot of discussion about this at the moment and I felt moved to add this blog's voice to the rising tide of opinion. The vault you can see below (a) should not be banned as it is exciting, innovative and beautiful. Vault (a) http://youtu.be/nQuIQ9s3ddM But the vault below (b) should receive a zero, leaving the coach and gymnast effectively disqualified from the running for team, all around and apparatus finals.  While you might argue that the gymnast nominally lands with her feet on the ground, she can't sustain the landing and her weight is taken by back, head, neck and several other body parts.  Surely common sense dictates a zero score.  You can argue, if you like, that common sense shouldn't come into judging, but surely it is not too much to expect judges to make judgements.  Or perhaps a minor change to the wording of the Code if Points is required to make this more comfortable for...

In an interview with Alexander Alexandrov in this month's (January/February) edition of International Gymnast magazine, the former head coach of Russian WAG makes it clear that his opinions of the problems of Russian gymnastics have remained the same since his August  conversation with RRG.   Alexandrov looks ahead to his job in Rio and elsewhere in Brazil, and discusses some of the prospects; I'll leave that to the excellent Brazil gym blogs to cover.   However, despite his current commitment as Head of the Brazil WAG team, he takes pains to comment on the somewhat dismal state of affairs on the Russia WAG team.  At one point he goes so far as to say 'I personally believe that there should be separate programs for the development and growth of the sport for the entire country, and these programs should be different.  This in my opinion will help to develop and raise the 'masses' and will help with the retention problem in gymnastics. One o...

        Lupita translates a Prosport interview with 1976 and 1980 Olympic Champion, President of the WTC, Nelli Kim.    Not long ago, Nelli Kim came to Almaty on the invitation of the Kazakhstan Gymnastics Federation. Nelli Kim is a well-known five-time Soviet Olympic champion, European champion, master of sports of the Soviet Union. This time her visit to the capital was due to an international judges’ course. The talented gymnast’s name competes with the name of excellent gymnasts like Olga Korbut, Nadia Comaneci and Tourisheva. It will always be related to the history of sport at the world level. Nelli Kim was the first gymnast to receive a mark of ten in floor and vault. In 2004 she was elected president of the Women’s Technical Committee of the FIG and she became one of the major promoters of the introduction of a new judging system in artistic gymnastics. Being an important specialist in this field, she runs specialized cou...