@IntlGymnast:
… suffered a torn meniscus and will need surgery, coach Valentina Rodionenko says
Let’s hope there’s no ligament damage.
Many are blaming Aliya’s loose form and ‘bad technique‘ for the injury.
I don’t buy that, in this case.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
The vault is not all that poorly executed.
Instead, blame the Code that values the extra half twist at so much higher a start value than double twist. And the Execution judges who differentiate only 0.2 – 0.3 between a good Amanar, and a poor one.
Because this injury happened to the World’s best, FIG (Nellie Kim and Bruno Grandi) will have to answer to the general public why the new code (2006) results in such serious accidents.
In reality, her injury is very similar to what happened to Kyle Shewfelt in 2003, old Code, on the same Vault. It’s easy to do if you are still twisting while landing with that kind of impact force.
(via The All Around Gymnastics News on Facebook)
17 comments ↓
I disagree, the code is not the problem. Imagine if the Amanar was valued a lot closer to the double — there would be so many comments and criticism about how unfair it is because the Amanar is so much more difficult than the double.
It’s an injury. All athletes get injured and it sucks to see it happen to someone who has dominated the international scene for a while now. But one or two injuries doesn’t mean that we need an overhaul of the code or that things need to change. Would you be saying the same thing if a different athlete had gotten injured doing an Amanar or is it just because it is Mustafina?
I agree that judges need to differentiate more between routines. Clean form and proper technique need to be valued more than they are. But this is just an unfortunate injury and no one should really be “blamed” for an unfortunate accident. Neither the code nor the judges caused this to take place.
People are often too quick to react when things go wrong. Injuries happen and athletes recover. It’s sports.
Really hard to see the landing at least for me. The video seems to skip from the end of the first twist to her hop on landing. But from what I could see it looked like she landed first on the leg she injured and then the second leg hit. But it is really hard to see what is happening in this video.
Argh, I should have watched to the end with the replay. I see what happened now.
“The vault is not all that poorly executed.”
From the severe elbow bend, to the legs apart, to the knees bent, I would say YES, it was that poorly executed. And something clearly went wrong on the block, she wasn’t as high or centered as she typically is. Whatever it is had to have played a factor in the landing and injury. At worlds, she had time to open up and spot, whereas here, she twisted into the ground.
Why do we have have to blame something? It could be because of the code, it could be because of form……or it could have simply been because gymnastics is a dangerous sport and sometimes injuries happen. I don’t see why FIG would have to answer. It was the athlete and coaches choice to do the vault and 9 times out of 10 she lands it safely. Things happen.
Is she wearing red nail polish?.?.?
I’ll post the “response” from FIG.
If it was any other gymnast, there would be no response. But since it’s the World Champion, the general media will be interested.
Gymnastics is too dangerous. wrestling is better for men and track for women. Way cheaper facilities-wise also.
The code does not cause injury. Mistakes by athletes cause injury. It is the responsibility of the athlete and the coaches to decide what is appropriate for them to perform based on their abilities, not Nelli Kim and Bruno Grandi.
If you watch carefully you will notice that the injury is caused by the fact that she did not uncrossed her feet before landing. Maybe her coaches should fix her crossed legged twisting technique before pushing the difficulty.
No one to blame but the greedy coaches.
I disagree with others who have posted before me. How can the code not be to blame? It is the code that rewards athletes for performing poorly executed Amanars above those who perform clean DTY vaults. Athletes at Mustafina’s level are forced to perform those skills which reward them with higher degrees of difficulty. Mustafina has been performing that Amanar for the past year or so and it has been poorly done ever since she first did it in competition. The judges seem to turn a blind eye to the form issues and award her for her difficulty scores instead.
I do think the present code is to blame.
While I don’t think that Mustafina is the the WAG answer to gymnastics excellence, I do appreciate her performance quality, especially on FX. I think she is an enormous talent with much potential for improvement. Forcing young talent to perform difficult skills poorly while not rewarding athletes who perform lesser skills to perfection is the current outcome of this code. I think we are on the wrong track…and kids like Mustafina are the ones paying the price.
Glad someone else sees what I saw.
And it is not up to the code or Grandi to make form and execution more important – the judges have that in their hands.
Nonetheless, I blame the coaches for not attending to her poor form before allowing her to throw this vault. And of course at this level, there is a responsibility the gymnast has to clean up her form – because I highly doubt the coaches don’t see it and don’t correct her on it. With this code, seems like the coaches have to make the decision to get the difficulty up because they know that is where the edge is. It is a fine line between making the best decision for your gymnast’s success in competition and for what might potentially be a career-ending/postponing injury down the line. In other words, I can see how as an elite coach I would feel I’m damned if I do, etc. …
“If you watch carefully you will notice that the injury is caused by the fact that she did not uncrossed her feet before landing. ”
Her feet actually were uncrossed and were fairly far apart by the time she landing. She landed the twist short and her knee jerked inward, though. Yikes.
hahaha…No athlete is forced to do anything. Coaches know the limits of their athletes and if they think they are ready then so be it. Every time a gymnast goes out there they roll the dice and take their chances. Look at Jessica Gil in 2009.
It is typical how some are turning towards “Let’s all hate on the F.I.G.” instead of a freak chance accident that hurt a gymnast. There have been gymnasts who have been paralyzed from vaulting. No one attacked the F.I.G. to do something with the judging and difficulty tables. But when it happens to a fan favorite things are all different.
This is all about putting a gymnast on a pedestal and how poor little Ailya is a “victim” when she is totally to blame for her performance. She didn’t even need the difficulty and could have done the DTY she warmed up. I think she and her coaches have more explaining to do than anyone else.
I do agree with ONE of your points.
A smarter coach would have gone safe in the AA competition, for the easy victory, with just the DTY. And saved the Amanar for Vault Final where she would need it to win.
The code is to blame because it is the one that values sloppy vaults to score well.
Mustafina would be doing a different vault if execution mattered.
[...] compete 3 apparatus (not Floor) at the Voronin Memorial, her first competition back since being injured on Vault in April at European [...]
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