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...

I hadn't seen this fascinating documentary before last week.  It provides some great history on the heritage of the sport.  In German, with English subtitles. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

It was 1978 and we were watching the Strasbourg World Championships.  Rivalry between the Soviet Union and Romania was at its height; only a few months earlier the Romanian team had walked out of the European Championships, held in Prague, as national coach Bela Karolyi bitterly contested scores and alleged cheating by the East German and Soviet-led judging panels. In the Soviet Union women's team there had been a changing of the guard since the 1976 Olympics. Key new faces on the team included the eventual all around champion, Elena Mukhina, and bronze medallist, Natalia Shaposhnikova.  Legends Ludmilla Tourischeva, Olga Korbut and Elvira Saadi had left the playing field, and now Nelli Kim led the team, alongside the young veteran of the 76 Games, Maria Filatova. The video below, a Soviet produced, black and white information programme, shows important gymnastics from these Championships, including all of Elena Mukhina's routines.  Mukhina is featured here as an origin...

It's hard to believe that it is now 36 years since Nadia fought Nelli at the Montreal Olympics, since Maria unveiled that trademark cheeky charm, since Ludmilla broke her heart and Olga broke ours. The sport has come a long way since those heady days. Turn the clock back another 36 years and we pre-date the beginning of the 'new' era of gymnastics that began with the entry of the Soviet Union into Olympic competition in 1952. In that sense only, the sport was still in its infancy. Just think of all the twists and turns since. Gymnastics was on the cusp of an acrobatically led revolution. Just look at the bars routines of Saadi, Tourischeva and Grozdova and compare them to those of Filatova, Comaneci and Korbut. Comaneci looks well ahead of the field on bars, but Nelli Kim soars ahead on floor and vault. This video reminds us that Comaneci's victory in Montreal was not as emphatic as the legend may lead us to believe: her floor is unsophisticated and relatively ...

The most important thing at this time of year is to wish you all a very Happy Christmas! And I have to record some more thoughts further to Thursday's post on Clive Palmer's thesis.  My work on this prophetic piece is ongoing, but there is a considerable volume of thought to digest.  To provide the necessary emphasis to each of the author's points, and add currency to his thoughts, will take more than a few days. Palmer's work had me thinking about the degree of authority the FIG wields over the sport, yet seemingly without any consciousness of the gravity of the decisions it takes competition by competition and year by year.  The FIG constantly reminds us of the 'accuracy' of judges' decisions, yet recent events and media coverage only serve to stress how wrong this simple assertion is.  One example is the ease with which the E or execution judges can award inconsistent and unfair marks without risk of reproach. This is in stark contrast to the closel...

I'm just collating the voluminous amounts of results and video links relating to the Russian Federal Championships, though I'm afraid my progress is rather slow thanks to the recent adoption of two adorable black and white cats, Harry and Ron, who are of course my priority at the moment, alongside large volumes of assessment I must complete as part of my 'proper' job!  However, to keep you interested, here are some links I located via the Russian Gymnastics Federation website .  First of all, an interview (from 2007) with 13 time Olympic medalist and long-serving member of the Men's Technical Committee, Boris Shakhlin (RIP).  Boris reflects on the relative increasing difficulty levels in gymnastics (he competed at Olympics in 1956, 1960 and 1964), on the rewards accorded to sportsmen in his time, and on his premature retirement from sport, brought on by a heart attack at the age of 35 as he prepared for the 1968 Olympics.  When asked to rank the best gymnasts of ...

In my usual butterfly manner I am dipping in and out of matters somewhat haphazardly, without looking at individual areas in too much depth. This is partly because I lack concentration at the times I come to write this blog, but also because I tend to like to see a whole picture, even if slightly out of focus, rather than part of a picture in intense focus. Inter-relationships between different phenomena interest me more than single ideas. Also, my passion is for gymnastics and what lies behind its creative and expressive development, rather than a particular set of theories. Gymnastics is not something I observe coldly from the outside; I live each new and old routine, and my judgement of them comes from within me, and is preceded and shaded by many previous experiences. I am an armchair admirer of the sport; my main gymnastic achievement ever was to execute a forward roll without breaking my neck, and yet my recollection of my ‘favourite’ routines is always tinged with emoti...