February 3, 1959 is often referred to as, "The day the music died." That was the day the popular musical pioneers Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson died in a plane crash. August 2, 2012 will be forever known to me as the day that Artistic Gymnastics died. The sport of artistic gymnastics has been dying for a long time. But yesterday's Olympic women's all-around final "pulled the plug" on the sport that I have loved for 40 years. The American gymnast Gabrielle Douglas won a close duel with Russian Viktoria Komova. Douglas is a "new style" gymnast who does a lot of difficult tricks without necessarily paying attention to detail and form. Komova represents the Russian school of gymnastics, which emphasizes artistry and form alaong with big tricks. Her form reminds people of the former Soviets. Many people, myself included, felt that Douglas was grossly overscored on bars and beam, while Komova was underscored for her beautiful floor routine.
The sport of gymnastics had its heyday in the years between 1972, when Olga Korbut captivated the world at the Munich Olympics, and 1992. Equipment improved a lot in those years, allowing for more difficult skills. Even though gymnasts did more difficult routines, there was still room for artistry and dance. Routines were tailored to the individual gymnast to fit their body types, ages, and personalities. Dance training was required to be a great gymnast. The Soviets in particular spent a lot of time doing ballet training and it showed in their work on all four events. The Risk, Originality, Virtuosity (ROV) bonus gave gymnasts incentive to invent new moves or new combinations of moves. It was truly the golden age of gymnastics.
The first sign that artistic gymnastics was going to die was back in 1997. The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) eliminated compulsory routines for high-level gymnasts. While many people felt that compulsories were boring, they were the best way that the judges could directly compare the gymnasts. Compulsories also require mastery of basic skills. Those gymnasts with great basics performed excellent compulsory routines. The Soviets and Romanians were masters of compulsories. It was no coincidence that they also had great optional routines. The form and technique required for compulsories carried over to their optional skills. Even power gymnasts in the '70s and '80s, like Yelena Mukhina or Yelena Shushunova (both from the Soviet Union), had great compulsories. Two of the all-time best compulsory routines were those performed by Daniela Silivas of Romania on floor exercise in 1988 and Olga Mostepanova of the Soviet Union on beam in 1985.
The Code of Points that came about after the 2004 Olympics hastened the death of artistic gymnastics. Instead of using the old scoring system, which had a maximum score of 10, a new open-ended system was used starting in 2006. Gymnasts received a difficulty score, based on the 10 (later reduced to 8) most difficult elements in their routines. They also received a score for execution. Both the difficulty and execution scores were added to get a total score. Because vaulting is one skill, each vault was assigned a difficulty value.
What happened after the new Code of Points was introduced was that routines started looking more and more alike. Gymnasts chose skills for their routines based on their point, and not for their aesthetic, value. Since gymnasts wanted maximum difficulty points, they used the same skills in their routines. Originality went out the window because gymnasts were packing their routines with difficulty. Bar routines all looked alike and used the same bar-to-bar transitions. Beam routines were trick, pause, trick, pause with no flow. Floor routines had a lot of difficult tumbling and very little actual choreography. Instead of working to the music, the music was more like background noise. Very few gymnasts choreographed their moves to the music, like they did in earlier times. Form also went downhill because difficulty was rewarded over how well the skills were actually performed. Gymnasts were able to get away with bent legs and unpointed toes.Those sins would have been unforgiveable in the '70s and '80s. Even as a Class 3 gymnast in the mid-'70s, I would have been yelled at by my coach if I performed skills sloppily with unpointed toes. But this is common now.
There were a few bright spots, and hopes that the artistic part of gymnastics was still alive. Anna Pavlova of Russia had the attention to detail that was lacking in most routines. In 2009 Romanian Ana Porgras captivated the world with her beautiful floor and beam routines and was reminiscent of the former Soviets with her beautiful body line. At the current Olympics there were several gynnasts who had exquisite form and even some originality: Vasiliki Millousi of Greece on beam, Ksenia Afanasyeva of Russia on floor, Viktoria Komova of Russia on bars, beam, and floor, Sandra Izbasa of Romania on floor, Sui Lu of China on beam, and Victoria Moors of Canada on floor. But it was clear that artistic gymnastics was quickly circling the drain.
Last night's death blow to artistic gymnastics came as the judges awarded the big tricks and power gymnastics of Douglas over the form and artistry of Komova. While Komova had a mistake on vault, she was spectacular on the other three pieces of apparatus. I felt like the judges all favored power gymnastics over the artistic from the beginning of the competition and wanted a power gymnast to win. I think this sends the wrong message. It tells young gymnasts that form, extension, and perfection of a skill are not important. The way to get points is to throw difficult tricks, regardless of whether or not they look good. This was the first time I watched an Olympic all-around final and actually got upset at the result. In close competitions like Gutsu-Miller in 1992 or Shushunova-Silivas in 1988, I was cheering for the second place gymnasts (Miller and Silivas). But I also felt like the winners deserved their titles and I was not upset at the final result. Last night made me feel like there will be no more hope for real artistic gymnastics.
If I ruled the FIG, one of the things I would do would be to bring back the old ROV bonus. What makes a routine memorable is either its originality or excellent form. Two gymnasts at this Olympics stand out for their floor exercises: Sandra Izbasa of Romania and Ksenia Afanasyeva of Russia. Izbasa does a great job of interpreting her music. Afanasyeva shows some unique moves in her floor routine. Both of those gymnasts would get ROV points if I had my way. But they were outscored in preliminaries by a gymnast with big tumbling and almost zero choreography (Aly Raisman of the USA). Another thing that I would do would be to take major deductions for bent legs, incomplete leaps, sloppy skills, and unpointed toes.
It would be one of my dreans for gymnastics to get back to how it was from 1972 to 1992 with its mix of difficulty and style. But it looks like that dream is as dead as the "artistic" in Artistic Gymnastics.
Showing posts with label gymnastics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gymnastics. Show all posts
Friday, August 3, 2012
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Gymnastics and Skiing
Two of my favorite spectator sports are gymnastics and skiing. I've been watching gymnastics since 1970 and ski racing since the 1990s. When I was younger I did gymnastics and now I ski. Even though both of these sports seem quite different, they actually have a lot in common. I don't just mean that both of them require coordination, agility, balance, strength, and overall athletic ability. Here are some other ways that these two sports are alike:
Each event requires different skills: In women's gymnastics there are 4 events: vault, uneven bars, balance beam, and floor exercise. Each event is unique and takes different skills. Vaulting requires sheer power, floor exercise takes a combiniation of power, grace, and endurance, beam requires balance and precision, bars require split second timing and agility. Gymnasts tend to be grouped into either being power gymnasts who excel in vaulting and floor exercise or more artistic ones who are better on the balance beam, bars or floor exercise. Many gymnasts only specialize in one or two events. There seem to be just a few who excel in all events and are great all-arounders.
Skiing has 5 different events: downhill, Super-G, giant slalom, slalom, and super combined. Super-combined is one run of downhill and one run of slalom. Like with gymnastics, each skiing event uses different skills. Downhill and Super-G are speed events. They require the ability to think quickly at high speeds while hurtling down an icy course, plus muscular strength and endurance. Super-G has the speed of downhill with the coordination and technical turning skills of giant slalom. Giant slalom requires some speed, but also the ability to turn around gates on a narrow course. Slalom is the slowest event, but probably the most difficult. It requires the ability to turn around gates that are spaced at different intervals while keeping a constant rate of speed and rhythm. Super-combined requires both the speed and split-second timing of downhill and the technical skill of the slalom. Like gymnasts, there tend to be two groups of skiers: speed skiers who excel in the downhill and Super-G or technical specialists who are better at the giant slalom or slalom. There are just a few skiers who are great all-arounders who can excel in all of the disciplines. They are the ones who are also best in the super-combined event.
Evolution: Both gymnastics and skiing have come a long way in the past 50 years. When I did gymnastics in the 1970s, I trained on a hard gym floor or two-inch mats. Now gymnasts train on Tumble-Traks or into foam pits to protect their bodies. The bars and beam were made of wood and were inflexible. Now the beam has springs and has a leather covering. The bars are now flexible and not simply men's parallel bars with different settings. The vaulting board was less springy than what is used now. Even competition floors now have springs in them, which allow for higher and more difficult tumbling. The newer equipment, like hand grips used for the bars, has allowed gymnasts to do much more difficult skills than they did back when I did gymnastics. The skills that were considered difficult in the 1960s and '70s are now being done by beginning and intermediate-level gymnasts now. Here are some different routines to show just how much gymnastics has changed:
Vera Caslavska (Czechoslovakia) vault 1968 Olympics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m4oXnfqRpk
Monica Rosu (Romania) vault 2004 Olympics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wELTSObqZtE
Uneven bar developments 1950s to 2005: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SV_r5UePZI
Cathy Rigby (USA) balance beam 1970: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpoORvcTbJU
Ana Porgras (Romania) balance beam 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPjlmeqNmso&playnext=1&list=PL070300B2DCA940CF
Natalia Kuchinskaya (USSR) floor exercise 1966: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGA-p-mWv4k&feature=related
Viktoria Komova (Russia) floor exercise 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljfYrzZq3xI
Ski racing has also evolved from its early days. Back in the 1930s and into the '60s, many races were held on intermediate-level slopes. One of the fairly easy intermediate-level runs that I ski on here, called "Olympia," was the run used for the women's downhill competition in the 1936 Winter Olympics. Now racers hurtle themselves down steep expert slopes at speeds of up to 130 km/hour (about 80 mph). There was no course preparation in the early days. Racers had to ski on courses however they were. Now World Cup courses are prepared weeks in advance so that they will be fast. As speeds increased, the safety equipment improved. Old-time racers wore beanies and regular ski clothing and used wooden skis. Now all ski racers wear helmets, back protectors, high-tech boots, bindings, and speed suits. Ski racers also wear special arm and leg guards in the giant slalom and slalom events. Their skis are made of the latest high-tech materials and waxes are specially formulated for every snow condition. In old-time World Championship or Olympic competitions there were no safety fences along the courses. Spectators could stand at every point of the course and hope that a skier didn't fall into them. Spectators also came right up to the finish line. Fortunately for them, skiers back in the day didn't go as quickly as they do now. Today's finish lines are about 200 meters from the stands and the only non-racers allowed on the courses are the officials. Here are videos from the 1958 Worlds and some of more modern skiers. Skiing starts at around 1:20 in the 1958 video. It's in German, but you don't really need to understand German to see ski racing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceIViCbbTIg
More modern skiers:
Hermann Maier (Austria) super-G 2006: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ3jgtLdU6A
Elizabeth Goergl (Austria) downhill 2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biilXSmhsiE
Ted Ligety (USA) giant slalom 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qw6S-bRSSw
Marlies Schild (Austria) slalom 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wJLPqAk3io&feature=related
I included women in some of the modern videos to show that they are faster and more aggresive than men were back in the 1950s.
Dominant Teams: From 1952 to 1992 the Soviet Union was the dominant team in gymnastics. Soviet gymnasts won the most Olympic and World Championship medals in that period. Starting in the late 1970s the Romanians were the only team to challenge the Soviets' dominance. Both of these countries had an organized system for developing gymnastics talent. As senior gymnasts retired, new ones took their places on the team. Both of those teams were very deep, with many talented gymnasts who would be the #1 from any other country not being able to make a Soviet or Romanian Olympic or world championship team.
Austria is the dominant team in skiing and has been for at least the past 50 years. The Austrians have a very successful system for developing Alpine skiers. When one Austrian skier retires, there is someone who comes up from the junior ranks to take his or her place. Austria has a very deep team. There are so many great Austrian skiers in each discipline, some of the best in the world get left off of Olympic and world championship teams. Austrian skiers have also won the most medals in Olympic and world championship competitions. Switzerland also has a strong, deep ski team that always has skiers in the running for medals. If skiing was gymnastics, Austria would be the Soviet Union and Switzerland would be Romania.
As a former gymnast, I would loved to have trained and competed on the equipment that is used now. I remember doing rolls on hard wooden beams and tumbling on mats that had no spring to them. When I started skiing, it was customary for recreational skiers like myself to have long, straight skis. Now the trend is to have shorter skis that designed to turn easier. I can't imagine skiing on wooden skis, though the gymnastics equimpent that I used was almost that same vintage. It will be interesting to see how both gymnastics and ski racing evolve in the next 50 years.
Each event requires different skills: In women's gymnastics there are 4 events: vault, uneven bars, balance beam, and floor exercise. Each event is unique and takes different skills. Vaulting requires sheer power, floor exercise takes a combiniation of power, grace, and endurance, beam requires balance and precision, bars require split second timing and agility. Gymnasts tend to be grouped into either being power gymnasts who excel in vaulting and floor exercise or more artistic ones who are better on the balance beam, bars or floor exercise. Many gymnasts only specialize in one or two events. There seem to be just a few who excel in all events and are great all-arounders.
Skiing has 5 different events: downhill, Super-G, giant slalom, slalom, and super combined. Super-combined is one run of downhill and one run of slalom. Like with gymnastics, each skiing event uses different skills. Downhill and Super-G are speed events. They require the ability to think quickly at high speeds while hurtling down an icy course, plus muscular strength and endurance. Super-G has the speed of downhill with the coordination and technical turning skills of giant slalom. Giant slalom requires some speed, but also the ability to turn around gates on a narrow course. Slalom is the slowest event, but probably the most difficult. It requires the ability to turn around gates that are spaced at different intervals while keeping a constant rate of speed and rhythm. Super-combined requires both the speed and split-second timing of downhill and the technical skill of the slalom. Like gymnasts, there tend to be two groups of skiers: speed skiers who excel in the downhill and Super-G or technical specialists who are better at the giant slalom or slalom. There are just a few skiers who are great all-arounders who can excel in all of the disciplines. They are the ones who are also best in the super-combined event.
Evolution: Both gymnastics and skiing have come a long way in the past 50 years. When I did gymnastics in the 1970s, I trained on a hard gym floor or two-inch mats. Now gymnasts train on Tumble-Traks or into foam pits to protect their bodies. The bars and beam were made of wood and were inflexible. Now the beam has springs and has a leather covering. The bars are now flexible and not simply men's parallel bars with different settings. The vaulting board was less springy than what is used now. Even competition floors now have springs in them, which allow for higher and more difficult tumbling. The newer equipment, like hand grips used for the bars, has allowed gymnasts to do much more difficult skills than they did back when I did gymnastics. The skills that were considered difficult in the 1960s and '70s are now being done by beginning and intermediate-level gymnasts now. Here are some different routines to show just how much gymnastics has changed:
Vera Caslavska (Czechoslovakia) vault 1968 Olympics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m4oXnfqRpk
Monica Rosu (Romania) vault 2004 Olympics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wELTSObqZtE
Uneven bar developments 1950s to 2005: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SV_r5UePZI
Cathy Rigby (USA) balance beam 1970: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpoORvcTbJU
Ana Porgras (Romania) balance beam 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPjlmeqNmso&playnext=1&list=PL070300B2DCA940CF
Natalia Kuchinskaya (USSR) floor exercise 1966: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGA-p-mWv4k&feature=related
Viktoria Komova (Russia) floor exercise 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljfYrzZq3xI
Ski racing has also evolved from its early days. Back in the 1930s and into the '60s, many races were held on intermediate-level slopes. One of the fairly easy intermediate-level runs that I ski on here, called "Olympia," was the run used for the women's downhill competition in the 1936 Winter Olympics. Now racers hurtle themselves down steep expert slopes at speeds of up to 130 km/hour (about 80 mph). There was no course preparation in the early days. Racers had to ski on courses however they were. Now World Cup courses are prepared weeks in advance so that they will be fast. As speeds increased, the safety equipment improved. Old-time racers wore beanies and regular ski clothing and used wooden skis. Now all ski racers wear helmets, back protectors, high-tech boots, bindings, and speed suits. Ski racers also wear special arm and leg guards in the giant slalom and slalom events. Their skis are made of the latest high-tech materials and waxes are specially formulated for every snow condition. In old-time World Championship or Olympic competitions there were no safety fences along the courses. Spectators could stand at every point of the course and hope that a skier didn't fall into them. Spectators also came right up to the finish line. Fortunately for them, skiers back in the day didn't go as quickly as they do now. Today's finish lines are about 200 meters from the stands and the only non-racers allowed on the courses are the officials. Here are videos from the 1958 Worlds and some of more modern skiers. Skiing starts at around 1:20 in the 1958 video. It's in German, but you don't really need to understand German to see ski racing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceIViCbbTIg
More modern skiers:
Hermann Maier (Austria) super-G 2006: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ3jgtLdU6A
Elizabeth Goergl (Austria) downhill 2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biilXSmhsiE
Ted Ligety (USA) giant slalom 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qw6S-bRSSw
Marlies Schild (Austria) slalom 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wJLPqAk3io&feature=related
I included women in some of the modern videos to show that they are faster and more aggresive than men were back in the 1950s.
Dominant Teams: From 1952 to 1992 the Soviet Union was the dominant team in gymnastics. Soviet gymnasts won the most Olympic and World Championship medals in that period. Starting in the late 1970s the Romanians were the only team to challenge the Soviets' dominance. Both of these countries had an organized system for developing gymnastics talent. As senior gymnasts retired, new ones took their places on the team. Both of those teams were very deep, with many talented gymnasts who would be the #1 from any other country not being able to make a Soviet or Romanian Olympic or world championship team.
Austria is the dominant team in skiing and has been for at least the past 50 years. The Austrians have a very successful system for developing Alpine skiers. When one Austrian skier retires, there is someone who comes up from the junior ranks to take his or her place. Austria has a very deep team. There are so many great Austrian skiers in each discipline, some of the best in the world get left off of Olympic and world championship teams. Austrian skiers have also won the most medals in Olympic and world championship competitions. Switzerland also has a strong, deep ski team that always has skiers in the running for medals. If skiing was gymnastics, Austria would be the Soviet Union and Switzerland would be Romania.
As a former gymnast, I would loved to have trained and competed on the equipment that is used now. I remember doing rolls on hard wooden beams and tumbling on mats that had no spring to them. When I started skiing, it was customary for recreational skiers like myself to have long, straight skis. Now the trend is to have shorter skis that designed to turn easier. I can't imagine skiing on wooden skis, though the gymnastics equimpent that I used was almost that same vintage. It will be interesting to see how both gymnastics and ski racing evolve in the next 50 years.
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