These pictures of young Ivan Stretovich, taken by Elena Mikhailova at last week's European Gymnastics Championships, are available in a gallery at the Russian Gymnastics Federation website. I wanted to share a sequence of them with you.
Stretovich turns 16 in October, and comes from Novosibirsk in Siberia, where he is coached at the Dynamo club by B Konvissar. This young gymnast emerged at April's Russian Championships, where he took gold or silver medals in every event final except for vault. In Montpelier, he contributed to the Russian team's silver medal.
But pictures speak louder than words, and medals aren't all that matters. Stretovich's start values (in qualifying 5 (F), 5.1 (PH), 4.8 (SR), 5.4 (V), 5.1 (PB) and 4.9 (HB) leave some room for development, but the special quality of his work is even rarer than a double twisting double back somersault. That quality is the ability to elevate the simple to a pitch of perfection, and to make the difficult look simple: consider here the amplitude, line, pointed toe, outstretched hands, that exquisite positioning of the head, the alignment of the shoulders. The Code should value this ability more highly than it does: who needs difficulty when simple gymnastics can be this beautiful?
Little wonder that Valentina Rodionenko occasionally gets a little stroppy about standards of international judging, when you compare this junior gymnast's performances to those of some of the senior elite women who are regularly scoring in the high 50s all around.
I know I should be updating the results from the senior event finals, but this picture sequence seemed even more important to me at this particular time. You will probably all know by now that Garibov and Balandin both achieved gold medals on their events (high bar and rings), and that Ablyazin achieved two bronzes on floor on vault. I will provide a fuller account tomorrow.
Stretovich turns 16 in October, and comes from Novosibirsk in Siberia, where he is coached at the Dynamo club by B Konvissar. This young gymnast emerged at April's Russian Championships, where he took gold or silver medals in every event final except for vault. In Montpelier, he contributed to the Russian team's silver medal.
But pictures speak louder than words, and medals aren't all that matters. Stretovich's start values (in qualifying 5 (F), 5.1 (PH), 4.8 (SR), 5.4 (V), 5.1 (PB) and 4.9 (HB) leave some room for development, but the special quality of his work is even rarer than a double twisting double back somersault. That quality is the ability to elevate the simple to a pitch of perfection, and to make the difficult look simple: consider here the amplitude, line, pointed toe, outstretched hands, that exquisite positioning of the head, the alignment of the shoulders. The Code should value this ability more highly than it does: who needs difficulty when simple gymnastics can be this beautiful?
Little wonder that Valentina Rodionenko occasionally gets a little stroppy about standards of international judging, when you compare this junior gymnast's performances to those of some of the senior elite women who are regularly scoring in the high 50s all around.
I know I should be updating the results from the senior event finals, but this picture sequence seemed even more important to me at this particular time. You will probably all know by now that Garibov and Balandin both achieved gold medals on their events (high bar and rings), and that Ablyazin achieved two bronzes on floor on vault. I will provide a fuller account tomorrow.
that picture of Raismann.. well, she does get heavy deductions for her form on every international podium, and I must say that the judges have gotten quite good in recognizing and appreciating artistry over difficulty (Ksenka's golden floor at worlds or even Liukin's bronze on floor at the Olympics or her floor score in the AA- her tumbling form was always horrendous and yet..) Let's hope that London judges keep a close eye on the sheer execution beauty of our team. May the best ARTISTIC gymnast win!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Quenn Elizabeth on behalf of my Russian compatriots from around the World. I didn't found any tributes to the young Russian gymnasts yet except portrait you wrote and shared with us. You are the first again saying such a good words about future of World Gymnastics. Just one example: Ablyazin got bronze with an incredible difficulty on FX? Surprise? Not at all. I am not making a special research about deductions and mistakes. I am talking in general: why he would need to perform so many difficult tumbling passes having just a carpet with four corners? Is it the only one existing way to make Artistic Gymnastics more attractive for the young people making just a first steps into the difficulty? Is the real future of the FX looks like a 12 - 15 different tumbling passes performed on 4 - 6 Road Floors connected to each other? I really don't think so. I hope that very soon your voice will sound much louder because it is not a real fun to see Artistic Gymnastics without Artistic!
ReplyDeleteDon't the judges notice breaks in Iordache's execution (every jump... feet, arms!!!), in Ponor's (toepoint!!! everywhere), the American team...?
ReplyDeleteIt's often easy to understand Rodionenko's reaction!
Thank you both for your comments.
ReplyDeleteI think that the value of Stretovich's work goes beyond form and needs to be understood in a number of different ways (choreography, harmony, amplitude, line etc??).
Form deductions for lower level work can't really assess fairly work that is at a higher level. A human simply can't enumerate all of the deductions within the time frame available to judge international routines; and the beauty of this work goes beyond an absence of errors.
Surely it is about finding a way to reward virtuosity, and providing a positive bonus to the better gymnast.
There is such an over-emphasis on difficulty but the Code and the judges have also lost sight of the essential need to assess intuitively and respond to what is visually the better gymnastics.
It's such a tragedy that the FIG abolished compulsories - they really did provide a great baseline for discriminating performance level which also helped when it came to marking the optional exercises.
I think that the refereeing is better now than it was a perfect score but it would be fairer to bid up some sort of bonus for virtuosity
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