Gymnastics News #23: Defying Gravity

[Theatregirl1122]

Give Nemour the gold. That middle combination of passes was fantastic

She was brilliant. I can’t imagine she’s going to be beaten. Qui is really the only one with a shot.

 

[viennese]

The homer-ism from the US commentators for Shilese on bars is killing me. Shi's handstands were loose and some of them almost went over, and her body was floppy during the catches. So please put a lid on it, Sam and John, about how she was underscored.

Jones makes everything look beautiful yet this did look like a cautious outing, not aggressive.
I agree about the commentators. We love Shilese Jones too but she probably land on the right score.

 

[Theatregirl1122]

She was brilliant. I can’t imagine she’s going to be beaten. Qui is really the only one with a shot.

And Qui does it!

 

[ilovesalchows]

I love Qiu! I hope she gets a harder vault.

 

[VGThuy]

that there are still these silly hairbows in gymnastics like with Wong is so astonshing to me. It looks so incredibly childish

I personally love it for Wong, and I can’t imagine Shannon Miller without her huge bows. When she was older and competed without them as she was trying to make the 2000 Olympic team, it was like Samson after Delilah cut his hair.

 

[Theatregirl1122]

I like hair bows.

 

[Icetalavista]

But what's his dismount going to be? Gym fans be curious

He fell off the podium

 

[barbk]

He fell off the podium

Literally or figuratively?

 

[VGThuy]

I’m finally able to catch up with the team finals on Peacock, and in the past ten-or-so years, the Dutch have made it their mission statement to choreograph their FX with a dance and artistry-forward point-of-view where the elements are composed around the dance while every other team is the other way around.

 

[Aceon6]

elements are composed around the dance while every other team is the other way around

That worked when the D scores were comparable except those from the top two American entries. Not so much any more with Brazil, France and other countries upping their difficulty. Going forward, they’ll need a higher base to keep that advantage.

 

[VGThuy]

That worked when the D scores were comparable except those from the top two American entries. Not so much any more with Brazil, France and other countries upping their difficulty. Going forward, they’ll need a higher base to keep that advantage.

I get that. I wasn’t thinking about competitiveness as much as I was talking about philosophy and their entire approach to creating floor exercises. It’s such a notable difference even compared to some of the better dancers on the other teams and kind of a stark contrast to what gymnastics has been since the Soviet era ended.

 

[Coco]

I don't think I ever saw this many mistake

Have you watched a lot of women's gymnastics ?

Scoring in gymnastics is really weird. By that I mean that a reasonable start value on floor is 5.0. The gymnasts do four tumbling runs and several dance runs. So that means that each tumbling run is worth, like, 1.0 and all the dance together is worth 1.0. Hard to fathom this compared to skating.

For a rough comparison, at 2023 Worlds, Haien Lee got 17.5% of her TES from spins, ~14% from steps/choreo seq and the remaining ~68% from jumps. The breakdown was really similar for Kaori. The bottom 2 skaters in the free skate had jumps that were were a slightly greater % of their total score, but the basic framework is the same.

Women's gymnastics routines are much less structured, so you will see a greater range of composition, with some routines getting significantly more points from dance elements than others.

Simone has one of the highest SV on FX. From her normal routine, she gets 1.7 / 6.5 from dance, so ~25%.

However, Simone gets more value from acro than any gymnast in history. A more typical FX would be Leanne Wong's 5.6 SV from Classics. She earned 32% of her total SV from dance elements and dance CR.

But as @VGThuy pointed out, some gymnasts can get a much larger percentage from dance skills. Nina Derwael of Belgium had 48% of her D score from dance in Tokyo.

This would be like a skater doing 4 triples, nothing harder than the 3l, but extra step sequences and spins to earn a TES in the top 10. Blech. Skating prevented this for a reason!

I generally dislike dance skills for difficulty value as it leads to gymnasts doing dance skills purely for points, not for choreographic impact or any other normal reasons one might dance. And in extreme cases, like Derwael's FX, it leads to routines that don't resemble what most of us think gymnastics should look like.

The valuation of elements encourages this. For example, a switch leap with a full twist is worth the same as a double back flip which is also worth the same as a double wolf turn. Are these 3 skills equally difficult? Hmmmm....

Skating's scoring system seems better for many reasons. But in fairness, that system just has to grade one event - free skating and 3 types of elements. The gymnastics scoring system has to work on 4 events and endless types of elements.

Personally, I would love to see some kind of structure imposed on FX similar to skating. In a Free Skate, skaters can only do 3 combo jumping passes out of 7 passes total, and the max # of jumps in any combo is 3. No one falls apart stating how this is a subversion of the open ended code of points and holding back the really good jumpers.

For FX, the bulk of the points should come from tumbling. I'd like to see five Acro elements required, with only 1 turn for value, 1 leap/jump for value and 1 optional dance skill.

That said, I think they need to apply the "root skill" limitation that is used on UB to acro skills on FX. Perhaps no more than 2 skills for value that have the same takeoff and same landing direction? For example, Simone does one forward takeoff-forward landing salto and four backwards takeoff double saltos, 3 of which land backwards. Once you have counted two backwards takeoff saltos that land backwards, do we need to see a 3rd variation of this? If the root skill limitation is applied, she would have to do either a 2nd backward takeoff - forward landing salto or a forward takeoff salto with either forward or backward landing.

 

[HeatherC]

that there are still these silly hairbows in gymnastics like with Wong is so astonshing to me. It looks so incredibly childish

Leanne Wong actually started her own company for those bows because they became so popular within the gymnastics community and apparently still runs most of it herself. More power to her for figuring out how to share what started as a fun hobby of hers with all these other people. (Website: https://www.leannewongbowtique.com/new-home-page-lw-bows-22-23)

So happy for Khoi to win that PH medal! He was so great today and was probably thrilled to do a better routine today than he did in the team finals. I was also happy for Rhys to win the gold and earn his spot for the Olympics. I actually thought the top three were all really great but I felt bad for Max Whitlock and his rough outing this morning.

There were quite a few big mistakes during the event finals today but overall I enjoyed watching the competitions. The vault final result is going to fuel Simone right up until the Olympics and I think the UB result will do the same for Shilese (along with the FX result fueling Fred). I actually liked Nemour's UB routine better than Qui's so I would have flip flopped that result (Nemour missing one of her connections is probably what cost her the gold) but what a great accomplishment for Kaylia to win the first ever world medal by someone from Africa!

 

[airgelaal]

Last day.

 

[Theatregirl1122]

This feels like a very silly conversation that the American commentators are having. It seemed pretty clear to me that Jake Jarman was going to go into the lead.

 

[airgelaal]

Another medal for Ukraine

 

[Theatregirl1122]

Another medal for Ukraine

Over on the US feed we’re hearing about how amazing it is that Ukraine grabbed the very last team spot.

 

[just tuned in]

Execution scores have been steadily rising throughout the vault competition, and I don't agree with some of these.

 

[Theatregirl1122]

Khoi Young takes home his second world medal!

 

[Theatregirl1122]

I’ve not been a huge fan of the US Leos at this event. In general, I think leos are going in a direction I don’t love. Today’s are really pretty, although completely not US themed.

 

[just tuned in]

Are the commentators paid per time they say the names of the US team? It is crazy annoying how many times they say Simone.

 

[her grace]

I’ve not been a huge fan of the US Leos at this event. In general, I think leos are going in a direction I don’t love. Today’s are really pretty, although completely not US themed.

I liked Romania’s in the all-around. More athletic-looking and less covered in bling.

 

[honey]

I’ve not been a huge fan of the US Leos at this event. In general, I think leos are going in a direction I don’t love. Today’s are really pretty, although completely not US themed.

This leo is really beautiful! In the last few years I’ve found the USA leos to be getting very fussy and over designed. This purple one is quite simple and really lovely.

 

[her grace]

Small wobble on it, but I loved Wevers’ “combo” spin.

 

[Theatregirl1122]

Ooof. Fall for Shi on the dismount on beam. I don't think she was going to go into the top 3 before that, but that fall must be frustrating.

 

[honey]

I’m somewhat amused by the way Simone is wearing her medal stand jacket. The front is folded over just so to cover up the Nike symbol. I noticed before the AA medals that Cecile was fixing the jacket very carefully on her. It was less so covered up for the vault medals, but we’re back to it being almost fully covered again now. Feels very Michael Jordan covering the Reebok symbol with the flag in 92.

I’m sure it’s within the contracts that she is allowed to wear Nike for national team clothing, but she clearly ain’t giving them the advertising if she can help it

 

[Theatregirl1122]

I guess "china submits an extra athlete" happens in every sport.

So could the US have used Kayla DiCello in team finals if they had wanted?

 

[Aceon6]

I guess "china submits an extra athlete" happens in every sport.

So could the US have used Kayla DiCello in team finals if they had wanted?

Yup. A face palm “why didn’t we think of that” from team USA. Unless Kayla was also dinged up or had really poor warm ups, of course.

 

[danafan]

I guess "china submits an extra athlete" happens in every sport.

So could the US have used Kayla DiCello in team finals if they had wanted?

Yes they could have. And then theoretically Roberson could have competed in the vault final had she been deemed recovered. This has never happened before as I recall. It is allowed according to the rules though.

 

[Theatregirl1122]

Yup. A face palm “why didn’t we think of that” from team USA. Unless Kayla was also dinged up or had really poor warm ups, of course.

That being said, based on Trials, Kayla was ahead of Leanne on floor. Based on Nationals, she was behind. So it may have also been a question of if they felt using Kayla would help the overall score.

For some reason, I thought once you did prelims, your team was set. Is that true at the Olympics?