The 26th Trampoline Gymnastics World Championships are set for St Petersburg (RUS), November 11 – 14, 2009. This competition falls just prior to the 18th World Age Group Competitions for the 11 – 18 year category, which will be subject to difficulty limitations. A first of its kind, the FIG and its Technical Committee engineered the competition to safeguard gymnast safety in high-level sport and to give even more precedence to execution over trendier risk taking. The Code of Points provides for this by making execution considerably more advantageous than difficulty.
The decision was guided by the political mindset championed by the Federation and its President, Prof. Bruno Grandi, who recently declared: “Gymnastics in any form is most importantly a means of body expression through which athlete and coach alike must give preference to execution, artistic expression, over reckless and dangerous risk taking.†The President’s message was clear, and the judges and experts present in St Petersburg will make it their priority to respect this order.
Isn’t this the same Prof. Bruno Grandi who championed the open-ended code after 2004, leaving girls on Floor and Beam no time for any kind of artistry?
… In 2004-2005 the FIG and its president Grandi developed a new scoring system, in which an open ended scoring will be used, so that the marks are theoretically limitless. The majority of the FIG did vote in favour of the new Code. This was a controversial move: many fans and athletes alike campaigned against it, speaking out in opposition …
Sounds like Bruno is in favour of encouraging artistry in Junior competition. But letting Seniors throw the code.
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Who will succeed Bruno Grandi?
Men’s Technical Chair Adrian Stoica is travelling the world, glad-handing everyone he can. Positioning himself for a run at the top job.
I don’t think Stoica would be an improvement over Grandi.
We need start an Anyone-But-Stoica campaign now.
7 comments ↓
I found facebook group named “Bruno Grandi Is The Worst Thing To Happen To Gymnastics Since Gina Gogean”
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Haha, I’m a member of that group. Though, as I clarified on the wall, for whatever reason (and I think I’m alone on this), I have a soft spot for Gina Gogean.
I just hope that Irina Viner doesn’t succeed Grandi. The FIG probably would do something like that.
I am in favor of higher difficulty. “Artistry” is a code word for going back to non-gymnastical dance and to allowing score collusion instead of objective scoring.
Being surrounded by FIG judges and coaches in the trampoline world, I don’t think much of what Bruno has done in WAG (to it’s ill demise) will translate across to trampoline.
Our sport has always highly favoured strong execution, with that weight 3 x the potential difficulty score. It seems that, unlike WAG, all the senior elites have a similar level of skill, as they require different 12 scoring skills across their repetoire – hence ever senior can do half outs t/p, rudi outs t/p, double back t/p/s, half halves t/p, half rudis t/p, full ins and full outs t/p/s, full fulls, full doubles, miller plus, triffus t/p, full halves t/p/s, full rudis etc. Then all the randi skills.
What then makes the difference is travel, height, and style. It doesn’t take a lot to receieve a 0.2 deduction per skill. Even poor judging, with each skill being out by 0.1, could result in a 1.0 final differentiation.
Also, having heard word from the International Judging briefing in Brataslav, judges are being increasingly particular about phasing of somersault and the associated form required during multiple twisting doubles.
Just read the thing about World Age Games DD limit – I’m sure even for 11/12s, it will be around 11/12.00s – still enough for 8-9 doubles. 17 + DD should be very interesting, you’d think they’d want as many people as possible doing 14/15s.
It does clash somewhat with the way the DMT COP has been going recently… although they do seem to be revamping that again currently.
At the previous revision they really pushed for difficulty rather than execution and gymnasts were pushing for difficult skills, even if they weren’t consistent. This led to one international (Europeans I think) where the three women who medalled were the only three to successfully complete two skills in each of their finals passes. One of them competed bss (p)/rudi I think. This was all because they doubled the difficulty of double somersaults, and tripled the difficulty of triples, as well as adding more difficulty points for additional twists. This meant that a competitor competing a bss (t)/rudi pass perfectly with no deductions would still be beaten by a competitor competing a bss (t)/half out pass with 0.5 (max) deductions for each skill.
Whilst the latest revisions haven’t seen another change here, they have now added much greater landing deductions making it vitally important to execute the skills well, or at least execute the take-off and landing phases well, to be in with a good chance.
We shall see how this pans out over the coming season…
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