Elisabeth Seitz – Bars Final

10 comments ↓

#1 PolyisTCOandbanned on 10.26.10 at 5:06 am

I don’t like the heavy spotting of athletes doing competition routines. PRefer the style like Brooks has where he is alone on the podium. The Romanians seemed to have the judges spotting the dismounts (the release of them). It seems like to much coaching and distracting for the audience.

#2 wendy on 10.26.10 at 9:21 am

PolyisTCOandbanned,
Im not a big fan of it either, but take into account of how much the gymnastics has changed (way more high flying and dangerous) but the matting has not. Yes, we teach our kids how to fall, but landing that def like that had to HURT! Also what if she was even more off and was going down head 1st? Someone should have broken her fall on a skill like that. If the coach was going to stand there, she should have done something! That coach looks like she had never spotted that skill in her life (arms that close in to her body??)! Poor athlete! I think the guys can use an 8 inch under the high bar-am I correct?

#3 shergymrag on 10.26.10 at 10:52 am

Coaches don’t spot everything because catching an athlete who is flying through the air isn’t exactly safe for the athlete or the coach. A belly flop is one of the safest falls you an athlete can have. It makes no sense to bother trying to spot that.

#4 Jim from Seattle on 10.26.10 at 11:01 am

wow….
a topic with HUGE implications…..
1. the COP has always permitted (and for many decades if you check the films/tapes/dvds/you tubes one can see coaches at the apparatus “lending support”….has always been part of gymnastics
2. Wendy:
the matting has very much changed….prior to 1995, there were no supplemental “landing/cushioning” mats for any event….you missed on Unevens or High Bar, you ate basic matting…same with vault….
same as USAG allowing “safety cushions” for releases in its domestic meets….
philosophical issue: do you want to develop higher difficulty by protecting athetes from consequences of misses or have sport evolve on same apparatus more g-r-a-d-u-a-l-l-y?
don’t have answer…..but to stimulate discussion, Dieter Hoffman, the great GDR coach who now works for Janssen-Fritchen, has suggested a balance beam with a wide-end so that gymnasts could throw harder dismounts….thoughts anyone?

#5 coach Rick on 10.26.10 at 11:39 am

She fell perfectly on these two misses. Good job, Elisabeth.

I did see a male gymnast break an arm once when a coach tried to catch Def. He was not the personal coach of the athlete.

#6 PolyisTCOandbanned on 10.26.10 at 12:02 pm

Yeah…I’ve seen coaches back in the day make saves of athletes (like crazy rips from rings, you know how they go awry when that happens). But they’re not so present in the routines and certainly not spotting pretty basic releases like Tkachev, Geinger, etc. I just don’t like it really. I mean danger-wise, FX probably has the most injuries, would you like the coach out there spotting each tumbling pass?

#7 Ashley K. on 10.26.10 at 5:34 pm

As a coach, I hate “stand in” for a skill. I either spot or I don’t. If the athlete is not able to complete the skill the majority of the time on their own they should not be going without a spot or a developmental aid. A person’s reaction time is simply not quick enough to adequately spot at the last minute if a trick is messed up. you just end up getting in the way or partially breaking the fall. Teach your athletes how to safely get out of a trick when it goes bad and either spot or don’t. Doing things half-way or last minute in gymnastics generally ends badly.

#8 MissEducated on 10.27.10 at 5:05 pm

Great catch in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T3illaPVa4

Smaller athlete at that point I know…

#9 MissEducated on 10.31.10 at 7:11 am

Also quite a good catch at 3:01 in this video too:

#10 Alex on 11.01.10 at 11:17 am

@MissEducated- well that IS Valeri Liukin. He never lets a kid hit the floor when he’s standing there.

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