Comments on: 10 Things I Miss About Gymnastics

By: Joe

Joe — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:39:33 +0000

I like open-ended scoring, but there really needs to be some changes. First, only the top six skills should count towards the D score.

Also, I don’t like the “OMG! I don’t understand the scoring at all!” thing. Casual viewers just need to know that more difficult routines will get higher D scores. The big problem is that casual viewers could be confused by the gap between scores on different apparatus.

Also, I think I found inspiration for my first blog post in a while.

By: TPT

TPT — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 06:26:01 +0000

How do compulsories make competition more fatiguing than a round of optional routines? If anything it is more restful to compete your basics. Compulsories are beautiful – always looking for that one gymnast per team that can really pull them off. Who had the best bar, beam, floor routine that night – the best vault? It’s much more cut and dried in compulsories.

The average person does NOT want to try to figure out the new system. They want to tune into a gymnastics event and know how everyone is doing just by seeing a score. I am not saying it is right, I am just saying that the new system alienates potential new fans and it rewards chucking and cramming rather than showing true mastery.

The 10.0 system worked just fine if judges KNEW HOW TO JUDGE and took off the correct deductions for EVERYONE, including the “favorite” countries.

By: Monica

Monica — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 04:07:58 +0000

Gawd, I don’t miss Compulsories at all !!

By: coach M

coach M — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 20:11:06 +0000

I’m a fan of the open ended system, but I do feel like routines have so much crammed into them that they aren’t as much fun to watch sometimes.

Her #1 and #9 above are pet peeves of mine as well. I think it’s really beautiful to watch an elite, olympic caliber athlete executing A & B level skills with amplitude and perfect execution that goes beyond what the normal athlete can do. It’s nice to see a gymnast show mastery of the gamut of gymnastics skills — not just the elite level skills.

There’s always a trade off though. Competitions tend to be long and tedious when compulsories are included. Overall, I think its the right decision to not include them as part of the competition, but I miss seeing those fundamental elements being performed by everyone and the opportunity for direct comparison of apples to apples criteria for all of the athletes.

By: Just Another Opinion

Just Another Opinion — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:52:45 +0000

*Sher, that last post shouldn’t have been addressed specifically to you. I started with a reply to you, then deleted it, and must not have highlighted that entire paragraph. My apologies.

By: Just Another Opinion

Just Another Opinion — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:49:07 +0000

Sher, the mere point value is effectively meaningless at the elite level. Given most athletes scored, in the 10-0 system, between 9.8 and 10, they weren’t really even operating on a 10-0 system comparable to the JO system (where girls will score sixes, eights, nines, etc.) but rather a point-2 system. They could have lopped off all the 9s and scored the girls between a .000 (for any girl who fell or otherwise was simply not in contention) and .2, for the first place girl with a perfect routine. The numbers only mean anything because they meant something at some point in history when you first learned about the sport. Imagine if a touch-down in football were suddenly changed to 30 points instead of 6, and every other score increased by a factor of 5 as well. Would football fans be upset? Maybe initially, because it’d be meaningless when compared to historical scores, but new fans coming up wouldn’t care, and as long as the better team scored more than the other team, the win would be right regardless of the number next to the name. Scoring is scoring, they could give you shapes instead of numbers, it doesn’t matter. First place gets rewarded a triangle, second place gets the color orange, as long as we know what the scores mean in relation to each other at an individual meet (i.e., triangles beat orange, orange beats the letter Q, Q beats Love-15), it could change every single time and it shouldn’t make a difference. The girl could finish her routine, salute the judge, and wait for her “score.” The judge writes something down, hands it to the flasher, and if the flasher holds up a flaming bag of poop, nobody should care so long as they know what a flaming bag of poop means, and if it means “you’re in the lead,” then that gymnast is going to be happy, regardless of it being a flaming bag of poop.

Now, you can say “the people don’t know what the scores mean,” and that may have been true initially. But come on, this has been 4-5 years now. It’s really not that hard to figure out, and anybody who hasn’t figured it out either can’t do math or just isn’t trying very hard.

The issue therefore, can’t or shouldn’t be with what numerical value they attribute to the girl in first place, but rather HOW they evaluate the routine, what they judge, what they look for, etc. For that, you can criticize all day long, and while I might be inclined to disagree, I can concede that the opinions of what is important in a WAG floor routine are going to be as varied as the girls performing them. So in that regard, all this sport can ever do is adjust, tweak, modify, and just like the gymnasts themselves, try to be better the next time.

By: Dana

Dana — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:29:56 +0000

Gilbert is writing this!

By: coach Rick

coach Rick — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:18:03 +0000

I’m agree.

By: shergymrag

shergymrag — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:24:43 +0000

The athletes continuously pushed forward in the 10.0 system too. You don’t need open ended scoring to accomplish that.

By: Dana

Dana — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:09:21 +0000

Did Gilbert write the title of this? “gymnastic” sans S?
Sorry Rick, had to comment on it!