by site editor Rick McCharles
When the International Gymnastics Federation moved from the perfect 10 to an open ended Code of Points in 2006, I feared it would be a complete disaster.
I was wrong.
But everyone agrees that the new system could be far better. Here’s my assessment of how it’s working as of February 2011. … As compared with the regulations used at the 2004 Olympics in Athens. (10.0 maximum)
I’m liking Rings, Parallel Bars and especially Pommel Horse even better than I did under the last perfect 10 system. (In fact, the only way I can see to improve Pommels would be to eliminate the Scissors, requiring instead some counting value part with the legs straddled. … i.e. Scissors, straddle to handstand, Flair Flare.)
Women’s Vault, Bars and Men’s Vault are about equally good as in 2004. I would rate Bars as even better … except that today gymnasts tend to overuse the families of skills they do best. (El-grip, pirouettes, etc.)
The choppy Beam routines we see today are worse than the more elegant routines of the past, but I’m less critical than most pundits.
My least favourite apparatus for women in 2004 was Floor. It’s worse today. Choreography has been nearly completely abandoned. Many of the most valuable leaps and jumps are ugly.
Men’s Floor is a disaster in 2011. Amazing tumbling. The rest is crap.
Compare Shewfelt in 2004 (VIDEO) vs Jake Dalton 2011 (VIDEO) to see what the rules changes have done. (I pick on Jake only because his is the hot routine of the moment. And because there’s so obviously no effort spared for connections.)
Worst of all is Horizontal Bar. In 2004 we had Hamm and Nemov (VIDEO). Wonderful routines. Today we have mostly reckless Kovacs variations and Rybalkos. … I did only go as low as 4 / 10 because we’re starting to see some improvement on pipe. Finally.
Will the rules (and gymnastics) be improved in the future?
Certainly. But how soon?
I don’t know anyone with much confidence in our current Technical committees under Adrian Stoica and Nellie Kim.
If YOU know how to fix the code, leave a comment. I’ll try to forward whatever feedback we get to the committees.
It’s statistically unlikely you agree with my assessment. I may do follow up posts on the most controversial events if we get good feedback.
20 comments ↓
The interesting thing about your analysis for the Men is the events you score the lowest are the ones were gymnasts can get bonus from connection of skills. Both FX and HB routines appear to be constructed with an emphasis on bonus. Perhaps the answer is to remove the bonus for combinations and see what happens?
Not so sure I agree about rings, all the top routines have the same basic format – 7 strength type elements (from Grp III and IV)followed by a swing to handstand (Grp II) followed by a swing through handstand (Grp I), followed a dismount. (Grp V) Routines beyond that basic formula are rare, and great swinging elements like Li Ning, Jonasson, O’Neill or a Guczoghy, almost never feature any more.
I would make the mens code eight skills, like the girls. Coming from a guy who tries to be artistic on floor, it’s really hard to cram ten different skills on floor. And, if you want to have a high D-Score, all you can do is continue tumbling throughout the routine. I would also devalue some non-acro skills (like Japanese press and pommel work). They are possibly the most overused elements on floor right now.
Eight skills would help. But I wouldn’t want them all coming from tumbling. … dilemma …
Coach Rick, I would have agreed with you about high bar if you wrote this 3-4 years ago. Granted kovacks/variations are still used quite often but rybalkos were devauled and are much less frequent than 3-4 years ago. I think FIG recognized this and had the right idea in trying to emphasize and encourage more creative combinations through the bonus system. But it definitely needs tweaking as we start to see the same combinations over and over again. The most obvious thing that needs to be done is to devalue a yamawaki to a C…it’s by far the easiest D release and it’s often performed poorly and clearly piked (a B skill) and still given credit. I’m not a huge fan of the tkatchev halfs to mixed grip but I don’t want to see it devalued because it is providing more diversity to high bar sets. Plus Adam Kyr(some polish name)yschev tkatchev half to elgrip is extremely unique and difficult. I guess what I’m saying is except for some value tweaking I wouldn’t change the current rules. Maybe make on-bar-flight elements .1 bonus instead of .2 because high bar start values are starting to become inflated compared the other events.
I think the opposite on floor. I would bring back the .2 connection bonus for C+E and D+D combos because I’m really tired of seeing same D+C combinations. Also I would devalue an arabian double pike and put it in the same box as a tuck.
And Justin, they’re overused because theres on a few skills of C or higher in that element group….slim pickins and it’s necessary to fill that element group and also rest.
HeatherSlayer, if you eleminate bonus you’re just going to end up with 8pass floor routines and marathon high bar sets consisting of giant, giant, skill, giant, giant, skill….please don’t kill the gymnasts.
I don’t see the issue for FX and HB related to the number of elements counted. I feel the issue is how much the athlete performs is being counted/evaluated and what is not.
FX:
I don’t know what will happen if you remove bonus. People said that PB was going to be endless double saltos and it is not.
If one counts the 10 skills chronologically performed, not the top 10 by value to benefit to the gymnast, I wonder if we would see gymnasts change their approach to the event?
One can limit the number of passes on FX to only 4 with a pass being a minimum of two acro elements in a row (with the inclusion of cartwheel and handspring variations as part of the two elements even though they are from group 1.) This limitation has been introduced on women’s FX (I think) and could be a common requirement between the two branches of the sport.
Also how about a change in the requirement so that 2 skills per element group must be performed. Most fulfill this for groups 2-4 but not group 1.
HB:
Many gymnasts perform large numbers of giants on HB and this can be discontinued if you make them count all the skills they perform toward their 10 elements that get evaluated (as above for FX.) Some will be able to perform three or four releases in a row whereas others would not. A way to separate the men from the boys?
Also, allow the gymnast to get from hang to a handstand position on the apparatus and then start the counting of elements. I don’t see much variety in this “mount” area and not really anything that needs development. Maybe for juniors and younger but not at the World level.
Of course some things may not be fixable and we may just have to accept them.
WAG FX was terrible in the 2001-2005 code, that’s the last thing we should be comparing today’s code to. That’s where all these filler leaps and jumps started creeping their way out of the woodwork.
I definitely agree that the number of skills for MAG needs to be reduced to 8. Routines are just too long. For floor they need to go back to the combo rules from 2008. there used to be some good combos on floor.
Also, they need to increase the range of elements to choose from. For some stupid reason FIG decides to eliminate some skills from the code. Eg the side cast hop 3/4 that Bondarenko used to do on PB.
Dalton’s routine is WAY better then shewfeldts. i’ve competed against dalton many times and have seen him do those 3 skill combo passes… flawlessly. Daltons routine is packed with difficulty and way more fun to watch. nothing special about shewfeldts routine. adding a whip or front layout to a pass does not make the pass harder or more ‘artistic’. Difficult gymnastics is much better then artistic gymnastics!
PB WAS endless double saltos until an extra rule was added in 2009 prohibiting tucked and piked versions of the same skill.
A 4-pass rule would absolutely devastate MAG – we would almost NEVER see double flipping skills again. Eight skills would become nearly compulsory: back 1.5, 2.5, front full, front double full, front 1-3/4, whip, and thomas tucked, and probably front layout. And that’s true even if you got rid of combination bonus. Why risk one of the many deductions on a split press hs when you can do a front layout or whip into a D for bonus?
I think that 8 skills would do the trick on FX — especially if the non-acro were broken into two groups.
I like the idea of splitting non acro into two different groups, and requiring one from each.
And sean. I’ve competed against Dalton as well, and I have to say as much as it’s impressive due to it’s difficulty, it’s not as impressive as Shewfelts. Shewfelt has a mixture of difficult acrobatic skills and dance style skills. And it’s unique as well. Dalton has an original first pass and that’s about it.
I know why people use pommel skills on floor, but I think there should be at least more options for non acro. Actual dance skills should make an appearance. Adding a switch leap as a ‘B’ or a full turn in scale as a ‘B’ would be an interesting twist.
Ah- I forgot about that rule for PBs came in later. I thought for some reason it came in at the same time in 2006. Silly me.
I don’t know what we will see if there was a cap on the number of passes and a loss of connection bonus. Every time the new COP comes out gymnasts and coaches always look for weakness and exploit it to their individual benefit. Some may do things we don’t anticipate.
I don’t think the MTC will allow dance skills of significant value in the code. Weren’t a bunch of them taken out of the code awhile back? I recall jumps with turns being in the code in the 1990s and they are not present now.
High bar-Change deductions for turns to El-grip as it is nearly impossible for a gymnast to finish less than 30 degrees from handstand in these elements.
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