Gymnastics News #21 - Tumbling on to Tokyo

[VGThuy]

Maybe Simone can attempt the Biles to front layout that she was seen practicing in the past.

 

[danafan]

Very disturbing news: http://gymcastic.com/us-olympian-files-sexual-assault-lawsuit-against-us-team-trainerphysician/

No actual names are in the document, but it is very easy to figure out who the plaintiff is if you followed gymnastics at that time

 

[Chemistry66]

Very disturbing news: http://gymcastic.com/us-olympian-files-sexual-assault-lawsuit-against-us-team-trainerphysician/

No actual names are in the document, but it is very easy to figure out who the plaintiff is if you followed gymnastics at that time

http://www.indystar.com/story/news/2016/09/12/former-usa-gymnastics-doctor-accused-abuse/89995734/

Further information, which also explicitly names the main defendant (who was also especially obvious if you follow gymnastics)

 

[VGThuy]

U.S. Gymnastics seriously does not have it's sh*t together when it comes to this stuff. If there is any hint of anyone in USAG covering up for Nassar or any of the multiple people in the past who have been involved in sex scandals in this sport, I'd like to see an outside investigation.

 

[gk_891]

Maybe Simone can attempt the Biles to front layout that she was seen practicing in the past.

That would be something! Simone has so much power in her legs that rebounding would probably not be a problem for her. The only concern is that doing punch front elements can be hard on the knees. I remember in the late 80s, there was a Soviet junior named Svetlana Ivanova who could do some incredible difficulty for that era and was also known for her punch fronts on the floor. I wasn't surprised that she disappeared soon after she made her senior debut in late 1988 because apparently she blew out her knee in training.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUY1yaW28Yw

 

[bardtoob]

That would be something! Simone has so much power in her legs that rebounding would probably not be a problem for her. The only concern is that doing punch front elements can be hard on the knees. I remember in the late 80s, there was a Soviet junior named Svetlana Ivanova who could do some incredible difficulty for that era and was also known for her punch fronts on the floor. I wasn't surprised that she disappeared soon after she made her senior debut in late 1988 because apparently she blew out her knee in training.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUY1yaW28Yw

Wow ... Was this a spring loaded floor?

 

[gk_891]

Wow ... Was this a spring loaded floor?

I think so

 

[dramagrrl]

In a more general note, gymnastics always makes major changes to the code after every Olympics. I've never seen any other sport retool their scoring system and dictating what sort of skills they want their athletes to perform and what routines they want to see. Even figure skating's code of points doesn't nearly go through as much retooling...at least not since the change before the 2007-2008 season after the IJS's initial years and ironing out the things they didn't want to see anymore...and then re-upping the quad and changing the UR situation to allow a bit more flexibility for skaters who are close to rotation. The actual routines themselves and skills done haven't really changed. Gymnastics, on the other hand, looks seriously different after every change and it gets fuglier.

I recently read The End of the Perfect 10: The Making and Breaking of Gymnastics' Top Score -- From Nadia to Now by Dvora Meyers. One of the most interesting sections, to me, was the part in which she writes at length about the introduction of the gymnastics code and all the changes it has gone through since then. She interviewed several coaches about the code and its changes, and more than one American coach told her that when they travel to international competitions, they spend time networking with judges, officials and coaches from other countries to try to find out what changes are in the pipelines for the next quad's code. They then take that info home with them and begin training the junior elites and the level 10 gymnasts in the skills which are going to be worth more in the next change of the code so they will be prepared to score higher marks in the next quad, when they are competing as seniors. The current code's emphasis on forward tumbling was used as a prime example. No one used to bother with forward tumbling because it was effectively worth nothing in terms of bonus/difficulty, but then the code changed and suddenly, forward tumbling became crucial to earning high scores.

 

[skatesindreams]

News of interest:
http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/13/news/wada-hacked-russian-spies/

 

[Erin]

No real surprise, but the official announcement that Valeri Liukin is taking over Martha's role as national team coordinator:
https://usagym.org/pages/post.html?PostID=19236&prog=h

 

[Erin]

I read a couple of gymnastics books in the past couple of weeks - The End of the Perfect 10 by Dvora Meyers, which was mentioned in the Ugly Gymnastics thread and Chalked Up, a memoir by Jennifer Sey, the 1986 US national champion (her article about Don Peters is linked earlier in this thread).

I wasn't crazy about Chalked Up. There was something off-putting about Sey, either her writing style or the way she described herself or something. The types of things she reveals in the book, mainly that the Strausses at Parkettes were weight-obsessed, are unfortunately nothing new It was a sad story to read and I can understand why she wanted to share her story but having already read Little Girls in Pretty Boxes and Dominque Moceanu's autobiography, I probably didn't need to read another book in this vein.

The End of the Perfect 10 OTOH was a great read. I thought it did a good job of giving a fair and balanced portrayal of some of the good and bad side both of the open-ended scoring system and of gymnastics in general. I think my favorite story was the completely speculative theory from Hardy Fink (the sort-of designer behind the open-ended scoring system) about the political machinations that led to Nadia's first 10. But there were lots of other interesting bits throughout the book. The one distraction was the quotes from Larry Nassar, given the recent allegations about him. Obviously these weren't known when the book was published and not the author's fault, but distracting nonetheless.

 

[danafan]

I read Chalked Up and there were MANY factual errors in it regarding Sey's gymnastics career, results achieved, and skills competed at different competitions. It may seem like a minor thing, and yes I am very nit picky when it comes to gymnastics details (I freely admit that) - but for example the 1985 world team trials which she references in her book - that was the first competition I ever recorded on VHS and I have watched it probably hundreds of times. I still have it on DVD. I found it hard to take the rest of the book seriously based on how inaccurately she described the details of that particular competition.

 

[Erin]

Yeah, she also contradicted herself at times in the book, which bothered me. One small example was she said that all of the 1984 Olympic team retired after the Olympics, which I already knew was not factually true (Mary Lou competed at the 1985 American Cup and would have competed in 1986 if USAG had let her) and then she later mentions Pam Bilek, Marie Roethlisberger, and Michelle Dussere in competitions.

I do believe the general themes in the book, only because they are the same stories that have been told in other places. But I take a lot of the specifics with a grain of salt.

 

[bardtoob]

(Mary Lou competed at the 1985 American Cup and would have competed in 1986 if USAG had let her) ...

Can you elaborate on this?

 

[Erin]

Can you elaborate on this?

There was a fluff piece on the broadcast around the 32 minute mark:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PLJBt-Bl-D7nb8aNnKpgPmdlvypVH0aAA2&v=k6xLzkYrwoM

Basically, Mike Jacki from USAG says it was "Mary Lou's decision" because she took some time off the previous year and didn't compete at 1985 Nationals and whatever other national team programs they had that year (that part isn't clear, as it's not like the camp system existed then), but it seems obvious from Mary Lou's interview that she wanted to compete and was hurt and upset at not being invited.

 

[Spareoom]

I think there was probably a lot of pressure on MLR to maintain her image as the undefeated American sweetheart...I can imagine her agents advising her not to continue competing because losing to *anyone* would have decreased her marketability.

 

[ilovepaydays]

Meanwhile - Shawn Johnson East's husband Andrew East has been cut by the Oakland Raiders.

I've wondered if I'm the only one who has been by the videos Shawn posts on her YouTube channel. I can't figure out why the videos seem random - are they trying for a reality show?

 

[her grace]

The more I think about it, the more I'm impressed with Kerri Strug's parents. They encouraged her to not even take a semester off from college to tour after her famous vault in Atlanta. She went ahead with "real life" and didn't/hasn't lived a "but I just want to be a celebrity forever" lifestyle.

 

[dramagrrl]

I read Chalked Up around when it first came out and my overall impression was that Jennifer Sey just seemed very bitter about her whole gymnastics experience even this many years later. She also seemed to not be quite over her body image issues, as her final chapter had some definite warning-sign type comments about her frustration with her post-pregnancy body (and anger about having breast feeding issues due to a breast reduction in college after she had quit gymnastics and described her weight as "ballooning" when she gained 40 lbs - which would have made her about 140, nowhere near obese - and having her chest "cut down to a reasonable size"). Even in what would be considered the best years of her career, she didn't seem to have any joy in her gymnastics. From a very young age, she writes about feeling constantly inferior to rivals at her various gyms, being pressured by her mother, being mistreated by coaches and competing while injured for years on end. I'm sure many, if not all the things she wrote about the "dark side of gymnastics" are true, but the general bleakness of her situation seems to definitely have been compounded by her perfectionist (yet doormat-ish and unable to stand up for herself) personality type, her mother's pressure, and the fact that she didn't seem to want to be an elite competitor for any positive or self-benefitting reasons.

 

[Yehudi]

I think Jennifer Sey acknowledged a lot of her negative experiences were due to her own personality, which the above person described perfectly, and add to that her coaches being the Strausses, I can see why she didn't particularly enjoy her elite career.

 

[Fridge_Break]

I saw on twitter that the FIG is getting set to elect a new president. It can't get worse then Grandi, right? (Please?)

Anyone with any info on who is running/expected to be elected?

 

[Gazpacho]

The more I think about it, the more I'm impressed with Kerri Strug's parents. They encouraged her to not even take a semester off from college to tour after her famous vault in Atlanta. She went ahead with "real life" and didn't/hasn't lived a "but I just want to be a celebrity forever" lifestyle.

Kerri Strug's father was a heart surgeon, so their situation was very different from families that stuggled financially to pay for gymnastics and needed to capitalize on that short opportunity to make some money by touring.

 

[ballettmaus]

The more I think about it, the more I'm impressed with Kerri Strug's parents. They encouraged her to not even take a semester off from college to tour after her famous vault in Atlanta. She went ahead with "real life" and didn't/hasn't lived a "but I just want to be a celebrity forever" lifestyle.

I have a different point of view - I think let them take some time off if they want to. They deserve it, they deserve some time off and they deserve to let themselves be celebrated. You don't have to become a celebrity forever just because you tour after an Olympic Gold medal and allow yourself to bask in the limelight that you worked hard for and is well-deserved. And to me, it sounds more like Kerri Strug's parents took away a unique and once-in-a-lifetime opportunity from their daughter because of an attitude I, as an artist, have encountered many times - one needs to get a "real" job in life and intelligence and smartness and achievements are defined by college degrees. (Which they are not). But that's just my opinion.

 

[skatesindreams]

Whatever the decision, it should have been Kerri's to make.

 

[VGThuy]

I remember reading a rumor that Kerri snitched on Mohini to Ms. Val when Kerri was working with the UCLA team. That's probably one person who wished Kerri took some time off. Actually, Kerri may have already graduated by that time. I don't have the timelines.

 

[millyskate]

I saw on twitter that the FIG is getting set to elect a new president. It can't get worse then Grandi, right? (Please?)

Anyone with any info on who is running/expected to be elected?

http://www.aipsmedia.com/2016/10/17/19715/fig-gymnastics-presidency-bruno-grandi-olympic-games I don't know either candidate though

 

[Dobre]

Kerri was too injured to tour in 1996. She did sign up for a less-intense tour that year than the John Hancock one. (The schedule was posted on her website and I attended one of the tour stops). But ultimately, Kerri was not able to participate. Betty Okino was there.

 

[her grace]

I think I wasn't completely clear in my earlier post, which started this tangent about Kerri and touring. I'm not anti-touring. I brought up Strug's initial decision to not take a semester off (she did sign up to tour on weekends while attending school) as something that helped her prepare for real life. It's fine to take a break and bask in celebration. It's fine to go earn money while you can get it. My main point of bringing her up was comparing her to Shawn Johnson--who did all the celebrity things, but never seemed to move on to school or to a job even 8 years after her Olympic success. At this point, Johnson is publicly lying in her speeches, embellishing her accomplishments. Preparing for a future beyond being a celebrity is something that I find commendable.

 

[FSfan107]

Is Shawn still going to school? I recall she moved to Nashville to go to Vanderbilt. Is she still taking classes there? I never hear her talk about it.

 

[hirshey girl]

http://www.indystar.com/story/news/...claims-usa-gymnastics-ignored-abuse/92823764/
Another lawsuit naming USAG and the Karolyis, claiming that the atmosphere that the Karolyis created allowed for the abuse by the team doctor to happen.