Back in May I predicted Shawn Johnson would win the Olympics.
Nastia had no chance … I thought.
Why?
Because of her bad form.
… I hate to pick on Nastia, who I LOVE because of her artistry and amplitude, but she more than anyone else will be in the media spotlight leading up to the Olympics. Over and over and over again even the non-gymnastics savvy are going to see those crossed feet. …
But I was wrong.
Nastia did win the Olympics and deserved the win, despite her double front on floor, her terrible Bar dismount, and frequently crossed legs during twisting.
There’s a video montage called Nastia Liukin deserved the wins? Maybe NOT. (I’m not embedding it because I don’t like the editing. It’s too much of a hack job.)
Don’t forget, Nastia Liukin has GOOD FORM too. She’s one of the best gymnasts in history. The composition on Bars is the most varied ever. Her Geinger the best ever. Her beam routine (up until the dismount) is one of the best in history. Her Olympic vault was perhaps the best Yurchenko 3/2 I have ever seen.
All hail the Olympic Champion.
Thanks TCO. Even though you disagree.
==== UPDATE
Rawles in a comment says it much more succinctly than I:
While I understand that Nastia is always going to take more flack due to her prominence, people’s perpetual gross overexaggeration of the form issues she has is just tiresome. And not only that, but they seem to expect the deductions for those form issues to be proportional to how much people harp on them.Nastia Liukin does not have bad form. As a holistic evaluation, that is false. What she does have is about three persistent form breaks throughout the entirety of her program. And no matter how many silly YouTube videos or misinformed couch judge comments people make, it won’t stop the cowboyed double fronts from only being a single .3 deduction for the routines in question or the crossed ankles from only being a .1 deduction. People’s inability to grasp the fact that she can swallow these deductions because she does everything else so well baffles me. It’s not a particularly complicated concept. …
24 comments ↓
While I understand that Nastia is always going to take more flack due to her prominence, people’s perpetual gross overexaggeration of the form issues she has is just tiresome. And not only that, but they seem to expect the deductions for those form issues to be proportional to how much people harp on them.
Nastia Liukin does not have bad form. As a holistic evaluation, that is false. What she does have is about three persistent form breaks throughout the entirety of her program. And no matter how many silly YouTube videos or misinformed couch judge comments people make, it won’t stop the cowboyed double fronts from only being a single .3 deduction for the routines in question or the crossed ankles from only being a .1 deduction. People’s inability to grasp the fact that she can swallow these deductions because she does everything else so well baffles me. It’s not a particularly complicated concept.
Furthermore if the rest of the gymnastics world was held to the same standard the internet holds Nastia Liukin to, a lot of people would be in a bunch of trouble. The fact that people hone in with a laser focus on every single one of the few form problems she does have means that they are essentially demanding nothing less than absolute perfection from her.
TKO?
Ahahahahahahah!
Not to mention her bent knees on Bars from her forward giants. She bends her knees.
I don’t think she deserved to win and I think she should be deducted. Yes her beam form is ok but the consistent twisting her legs annoys the crap out of me.
However, Shawn isn’t perfect either. I love Shawn and I think she’s the better gymnast but she does have some flexibility issues.
Just to remember, no gymnast is exactly perfect. All gymnasts have points that their weak on.
Thank of this. I’ve never liked Nastia and her form issues have bugged me since the begging.
I also want to mention that had Nastia been a figure skater, crossing her legs would be favored… Crossing legs like that creates a faster rotation.
“her composition on Bars is the most varied ever. Her Geinger the best ever. Her beam routine (up until the dismount) is one of the best in history.”
Yes she’s a great beam and bars specialist and manages to hold basic form on a ridiculously simple vault. The problem is her the form breaks on her floor are constantly overlooked. Her painfully underpowered, cowboyed, cross-legged, bounced-landing FX routine should not be the highest in execution scoring of the quad. Her win at the Olympics was purely political. She has two weak events and is not a great all around gymnast.
She was the all-around champ, and she deserved it. She is talented, and was well coached. She has obvious flaws, but her routines were choreographed in ways that played to her strengths and the current gymnastics code of points. Every gymnast has the same opportunity. She capitalized on it, and she stuck her routines when she needed to do it. Politics did not keep her on the beam. Talent, strength, confidence and hard work did.
I agree with Coach M.
If not Nastia, then you must argue that Shawn should have won the AA.
Shawn has deductions too. But different ones than Nastia.
If Nastia had not stuck her vault so faultlessly when it counted, I might be convinced that Shawn had a better meet. But Nastia was underscored on that apparatus by at least 0.3 in my opinion.
I agree with Coach M and Rawle, but only to a point. While I would disagree with trek that Liukin only manages to hold “basic form” on a “simple vault” (plenty of people are doing Yurchenko 3/2 at that level, and I haven’t seen ANYONE do it as well as she did it at the Olympics in a long time), I agree with the other things trek has to say. While of course Liukin has tremendous form in many cases (e.g. in leaps, etc.), her form problems on tumbling are NOT limited to “three specific form breaks,” as Rawle contests. Her floor routine is habitually filled with crossed legs, bounced landings, and all the rest. I love her floor music, and I love her dance, but the tumbling looks SO out of place, it’s practically a composition deduction! While I enjoy Liukin on bars, for most of beam, and even sometimes on vault, her floor really gets to me. I say this as someone for whom the tumbling element is the most important part of gymnastics. Period. I think this is a point of difference that is highly predictive of one’s choice of Johnson or Liukin in this perpetual and rather weary debate. I think this post is fair: Liukin has bad form AND good form. Good form on dance, bad form on tumbling in many (not just a handful of) cases. I like high-flying, compact, precise tumbling. I don’t get that from Liukin. This does not prevent me from admiring her grace and style, nor does it mean that I think she didn’t deserve to win in Beijing.
Finally, Rawle, while I understand your frustration (and while your comments may be aimed at particularly people, I don’t know), I do not think that I hold Liukin to a different standard than that to which I hold other gymnasts. It just happens to be the case that by MY standard, certain gymnasts come out as preferred. This should not be an indictment of my understanding of gymnastics or anything else. It’s a personal preference. Though I promised myself I wouldn’t mention Johnson here, since I already have: many people fault Johnson for flexibility and dance issues. I can certainly see where they are coming from. I don’t think that it is a case of looking too hard to find problems. I think they are readily apparent, and I admit that. Now, weighing the problems with Liukin and the problems with Johnson against my personal preferences, Johnson comes out on top — for me. Others are obviously likely to come to a different conclusion, which seems perfectly fair in a world that — at least to some extent — will always remain subjective.
If Shawn had stuck her Amanar and had a cleaner bar set and Nastia had won by a tenth based on that floor routine the contest would have been very controversial. Yes Shawn didn’t have her best meet, but based on every statement that came out of the FIG last year and a press release just minutes after Nastia’s win (and a surprisingly high score on the last apparatus) exclaiming “Artistry has returned to the sport” I’m not sure you can really claim that politics played no role in what happened that night. Is someone honestly going to tell me the a Euro-centric governing body like the FIG, that wouldn’t shut up about the need for more artistry over the past year, didn’t favor a multi-national “throwback” gymnast with a deep Russian heritage in the sport over the all-American powerhouse? Nastia’s agent was even pitching her to sponsors while she was getting beat by Shawn based on the fact that the “Olympic judges would prefer Nastia”. It’s naive to think that there isn’t more going on in this sport than judges simply trying to apply a fair standard.
she is a code whore who not only milks the a score section but also milks the b score section. she manages to reduce deduction according to the table to the minimum, which, to a degree is very successful and well deserves the medal she has. however, i find the code too lenient on cross-legs and cowboys. that double front liukin does deserves a 0.5 deduction.
what i’m really bothered is that people always say (without thinking) liukin has the best 1.5Y…no, i don’t think she does. ponor’s 07 was close and she scored a 15.00. in my opinion a Y1.5 should not get pass 15.00, just like judges reward composition on bars. (look back to the perfect ten scoring, an easy vault gets way lower scores than a difficult one, more than the sv difference. this applies to other apparatus as well, when fairly judged.) also, liukin’s beam lacks originality, has low difficulty and the A panel judge from U.S. never deducts for her slow connection. this routine should never score the same as shawn johnson.
so in conclusion. wonderful, respectable code milker, and deserves her win with this cop. but the idea of her leading 0.6 is atrocious to me. she wasn’t that much better.
“Nastia’s agent was even pitching her to sponsors while she was getting beat by Shawn based on the fact that the “Olympic judges would prefer Nastiaâ€. ”
And how else was he supposed to sell her. It’s his job to find something – anything – to get people to buy the product.
And I agree with Jess. Y3/2 is not a simple vault.
Hands down, Nastia was the best the night of the AA. While everyone is arguing Liukin’s “bad form”, and judges favoring her, Johnson should not have been given credit for her Amanar. She clearly received a gift there. To me, it was questionable if Johnson should have even medaled in the AA.
I think from some of the comments it shows that the gymnastics world, just like the figure skating world, still has to figure out a better system because the ones they have not aren’t working to give all athletes a fair shake at scoring.
I watched the AA final about five times. Each time, it was very clear that Nastia had the night of her life. However I knew – and I think a lot of smart fans knew – that she HAD to have the meet of her life to win. Her tendency to go out of bounds and have bouncy landings on floor was KEY. Had she thrown a floor routine that we were used to seeing, she’d not deserve it. Also, had she not stuck her beam dismount and vault that would have made a difference.
How can you all ignore Shawn’s incomplete Amanar, her lack of active flexibility in leaps and jumps, her awful form and lack of amplitude in her standing full on beam, and her little knee deductions on bars?
Of course there is no perfect gymnast – I loved seeing the US go 1-2 in the AA but a part of me wonders if Shawn really deserved silver due to her “chucking” style of gymnastics.
Either way the results are unchangeable. Just like Shushonova’s win in 88 and Gutsu’s in 92, there will always be a debate as to whom was the better gymnast – it just seems to me that in Nastia’s case, she had the best AA meet I’ve ever seen her have and Shawn did not.
Her 3/2TY wasn’t the best IMO. I liked Moceanu’s second vault from 1996AA better.
Extension. Nastia has it; Shawn, not so much.
“(look back to the perfect ten scoring, an easy vault gets way lower scores than a difficult one, more than the sv difference. this applies to other apparatus as well, when fairly judged.) ”
It’s not fair judging to low-ball an athlete. There is nothing in the rules that says easy routines shouldn’t get high B-scores or need to be judged more harshly on the B-score so judges that do that now or back then are cheating.
1. I agree with Sher. The judges need to judge to the letter of the law. If the A score is not fair, so be it. But that is not a question for the judges. This doesn’t stop us as fans making comments on gymnasticallity or how the code is off for what it should be to reward the proper gymnast. But the judge should not take that into her own hands.
2. Very cool of you to have a topic like this, Rick. I thought I would get banned for trolling, instead I get a post out of it. Especially when you partially agree/disagree.
3. I respect Rawles greatly as a gym writer. Could to have her opine, here, even if we are opposed.
4. Nastia has 3-4 characteristic flaws: crossed legs on twisting, cowboying on fx double front and UB dismount, leg separation AND bent knees (the froggy legs) on many bails/giants (and the separation is not to clear the bar). I agree with Rawles that judges should take off as they are supposed to, not more. While Nastia is extreme on the cowboying and leg-twisting (she does not even seem to be trying not to, instead takes the b score deduction and just goes to max deviation) that’s the way the scoreing works. We can complain about the ugliness and lack of care for gym that it shows (“code whoring”) but judges should go off what they see. I just worry that especially on UB, Nastia is not really getting gigged for all she should…as here she has froggy legs, messed up dismount PLUS often has handstand and Pak issues. Given that the flaws are SOOOO clear, I don’t think people are over magnifying her flaws. If anything, it’s the opposite, with people taking her “looks” and ignoring her clear flaws.
5. Shawn arguably has two clear flaws: poor splits and questionable Amanar. As a “rules follower”, I think the judges should judge it however is fair. I heard a LOT of clamor on WWGym on how Shawn was only getting the Amanar credited because of national prejudice and she WOULD not get it overseas. The WWGymers WERE WRONG (they need to come over here and confess their wrongness). Now, I’m sure they think she should not have got it…but that’s a different issue. And we went all over this and I showed lots of pictures of different gymnasts and spent hours freeze framing videos, looking at twisting into the ground, etc. It got to the point where even on easy FX double fronts, I started to see places where you could argue the twist was short (I start to wonder if it is even possible for someone to arrest the twist clearly prior to landing).
Seguing: as a gym fan (leaving score-whoring alone) the thing that gets me about Shawn is she is TRYING to hit the split. Trying to do the Amanar. On the triple full and rudi (which sometimes she pulls off and sometimes doesn’t) she TRIES to hit them and DID in the Olys. Nastia on the other hand, is TRAJICALLY underpowered and completely blows off the somi and twist form. And btw, I have gotten a lot of grief about critizicing Nastia’s FX and the “lack of double back from an elite gymnast”…with people touting her twists and double front…but those things are BUTT ugly and the flaws induced are done to allow her to complete the move.
And Shawn as Rawles has noted is “kid’s pretty clean”. She points her toes and nails her form. Nastia just is tall and thin and arches her back and has an attitude.
good not could and double full not double front. I am becoming dyslexic.
TCO, front double full and double front are not easy skills. And you get a lot of flack for criticizing “lack of double back from an elite gymnast†because she doesn’t need one. She needs a double salto and she’s got one. Sure it’s ugly. So are Shawn’s splits. If splits and double saltos weren’t required neither one would put these troublesome skills in their routines.
You mention two of Shawn’s flaws. She has others. Like the sometimes triple full and front 1 1/2. The low landings on some of her saltos which should be deducted .3 each. Shawn may have still won beam at the Olympics if the judges hadn’t been sloppy but she certainly wouldn’t have gotten 16.225. Her routine is simply not worth that according to the B score rules at the time.
“Nastia just is tall and thin and arches her back and has an attitude. ”
wow, what an impressive assessment of Nastia, must’ve taken you all day to come up with that
and really, Nastia’s twisting is MILES better than someone like Catalina Ponor, who won an Olympic gold medal (which she actually deserved), a Euro gold medal (which she actually deserved), and a world silver medal (which I’m not too sure she deserved). She crosses her legs and bends one knee substantially. Same with Nistor, when compared to those 2, Nastia’s twisting is not all that bad, at least her legs are straight for the most part, we don’t hear all this complaining about Anna Pavlova, who by many people’s standards is perfect and is always robbed (in many cases, she was, but most of the time she wasn’t).
Nastia’s twisting is CLEARLY off. She takes her deduction, lives with it, and is not even trying not to get it. And the frigging cowboy is almost a wide split in the air.
I wonder if you’re right that she is not really trying to fix the tucking flaws? It seems to me that kids that move into elite have so many levels that they are trying to skip that they may be missing something by not really working on fundamental gymnastics long enough. Maybe because Nastia moved so quickly into performing twisting & flipping skills and perfecting handstands and giants and varioius pirouettes on bars, she never really developed the muscle control that’s necessary to perform a beautiful tuck? Maybe her father should have her perform hundreds of forward rolls per week with impeccably tight tuck form? Maybe she should be doing simple front tucks over and over? I’ve watched her double front on floor several times and it looks like she cowboys the first flip but then pulls it in tighter for the second flip, so technically she is capable of pulling off at least one flip with a good tuck. Her power did seem markedly improved at the olympics as well. When I watched her doing front HS front lay timers, she looked like she was getting a lot of amplitude. Maybe with increased muscle control from tucking drills, she would be able to fix this problem on floor and her bars dismount? Or maybe someone should just take those elements out and have her execute something that she can come close to perfecting, because I agree with many folks on here that she’s way off on a few of these double tucking type skills now. Anyway, would be interesting to see if that would help.
[...] This gymnast clearly will never win anything. [...]
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