Valeri Liukin is one of the very best coaches in the world. Yet after the injury on Vault (Double Twisting Yurchenko) to Rebecca Bross on National TV, criticism rains down.
If she had pulled out a typical Bross miracle, we’d say he was a savvy God of coaching. She’s tough as nails. Everybody knows it.
Gymnastics Examiner:
… Liukin’s decision to let Bross vault a double-twisting Yurchenko — and rest assured, had he told her to vault a full twist, or a Yurchenko layout, or to scratch completely, she would have complied — was the wrong one, as events have shown. It has cost Bross the opportunity to compete at this fall’s World Championships, and given her yet another hurdle to overcome before next year’s long, drawn-out Olympic team selection process. …
Examiner – Rebecca Bross at the 2011 U.S. Championships: A reflection after an injury
Coaching gymnastics, at all levels, requires decisions on whether or not to compete a difficult skill. (Level 8 Tsukaharas in many competitions can be terrifying.)
Liukin made the decision. Right or wrong.
But why?
Rebecca’s goal is to win the Olympics. In order to do that he has a timeline over the next 12 months. Success at the World Championships is part of that plan. But to make Team USA, Marta wants the team fit NOW, fine tuning up to Tokyo.
Certainly if VISA Championships were not for a month yet, Rebecca wouldn’t have been doing that vault on to hard surface. Her ankle is not fully recovered.
Liukin won the 2008 Olympic AA with Yurchenko 1 1/2 twist. But obviously he felt that Rebecca had to show DTY or risk being left off the Worlds Team.
USA is not going to win Tokyo with clean execution. They must do more difficulty than Russia & China.
Couch Gymnast:
… Can I just say for the umpteenth million times, I do not like this code?
In her review of the shambles that was the first night of the Visa Nationals, Blythe at The Gymnastics Examiner ever-so-aptly described it as an “embarrassing display of non-mastery of difficulty.” And in many ways she wasn’t far wrong. The general improvement in many of the women’s performances on Day 2 proved that for some the ‘hot mess’ that was the first competition could be put down to nerves. Still, there is something in what Blythe says. …
We have all said it before, there is too much focus on difficulty in this code. Sometimes we are saying it because of the persistent and probably salient truth that all this difficulty sacrifices execution. It is also sacrificing both the quality of the sport and the gymnasts themselves. …
I agree. This code rewards high start value. The coaches know it. And they coach for difficulty.
Kelly Manjak told me the same thing. If Canada wants to qualify as a team to the London games, they need DTY. He’s had two gymnasts injured on DTY.
Blythe Lawrence disagrees:
… As it was foolish of Aliya Mustafina’s coaches to let her attempt an Amanar in a European Championship she would have won by a wide mile without it in April, it was ridiculous of Bross’ coaches to let her vault the Yurchenko double when she could not have won even if she had done it perfectly. …
Yet the 2012 Code is not all bad. Vault is not much more dangerous than in the 2008 Code. Here’s my “Report Card”. (Red is bad.)
FIG needs to kill the score of any gymnast who does dangerous looking gymnastics. That’s the only way to stop them from taking grave risks in order to win.
After any injury we need reflect on what could have been done to prevent it. In this case, injury preventable, I’d say the coach and the code share the blame.
When we look back at this Code of Points 10yrs from now, most will agree it was a failed experiment.
Perhaps the American Team selection system contributes, too. Valeri felt that Rebecca could not be injured right now (like Bridget Sloan) or Marta might feel that her best days were behind her.
One more thing. If she had been landing on the FIG Double Mini-tramp landing surface, rather than the FIG 20cm Vault mat, the chance of injury would be less. It’s a much more forgiving surface. Wider and longer.
related:
• Examiner – Women’s night one: Why we should not despair
• Aunt Joyce – Nationals: A Reflection
37 comments ↓
The sad thing is for the team score, her DTY was pretty irrelevant. But now we lose her on FX and UB where she helped.
I’m sorry, Valeri is a great coach, but there was no reason why Bross should have competed the DTY. After everyone was saying how hard she was struggling in training on vault and the scary landing on night 1, there was no reason for her to even compete vault, much less perform a DTY. Even a healthy Bross wouldn’t compete vault in team finals (not with Wieber, Sacramone, Raisman, and Maroney potentially on the team) so I can not wrap my head around the decision for her to compete the skill. Rebecca had nothing “to prove” here.
I also don’t understand why Martha is calling the skills in a particular gymnast’s routine. She’s the “coordinator” and certainly knows the gymnasts and their routines, but shouldn’t it be the decision of the coach and gymnast as to what to compete? On night 1 she also told SJ to take out the leap (on beam) that she was having issues with. If she was influential in Bross throwing the DTY then shame on her. Rebecca has proved she can handle the pressure and can compete “beat up.” It was obvious on both nights of competition that she was legitimately hurt.
This injury could also potentially mess with the mindset of the other gymnasts on the national team. Aly for one looked visibly shaken (and competed with errors) after Bross’s vault.
Ashlyn thats very interesting.. everyone has started pointing fingers at Valeri and blaming him for Becca’s injury, but no one as mentioned the idea that it may have been Marta who was forcing the vault…
I don’t see why the fault is all on the coach, gymnasts are not mindless and should take at least half of the responsibility for their injuries. I’m sure that Rebecca would never say anything that would implicate her coach in her injury in any way.
“FIG needs to kill the score of any gymnast who does dangerous looking gymnastics.”
I’m sorry Rick, but this is just one of those opinions / judging calls that holds this sport back for so long.
Just like in real life, if you want to make it in anything – you got to be willing to take risks.
@TrampGuy you’re missing the point. It’s not that gymnasts shouldn’t try hard tricks in the gym, but when it comes time for competition, skills should be ready and clean. Obviously risks need to be taken, but I agree that a higher deduction for “dangerous” execution mistakes (locked legs on landing, chucking , uneven twist) could be a necessary deterrent if the skill isn’t ready.
I’ve often considered the possibility that gymnasts could choose to incur a small deduction in start value if they wanted to throw a big skill onto a slightly softer surface. Then they could show that the skill is close to ready, it wouldn’t be all safe and repetitive for the audience and their might be less injury.
I agree on needing the wider mat for landings of vault. take the deductions for the line things thats fine. but give a gymnast who steps/hops to the side something to land on safely.
The code can be fine tuned. Not so much the Karolyis – just get rid of them and this stupid position.
I don’t agree that this code was to blame for the injury to Bross. Although it does reward difficulty, it only does so with adequate execution. Look at some of the lower levels. People who do poor execution get killed with deductions and end up with terrible scores.
Even the best get injured, this is what happened yesterday. Accept it and move on.
In an interview (written up to Couch Gymnast) Shawn said: “I was kind of all over the place this week with nerves and stuff and at the last second Marta took out my switch side half”.
If she’s taking things out of routines she may be demanding that they stay in.
On Gymnastics Examiner a quote from Marta about Bross says: “Yeah, I don’t think it would be a case to water down her vault. She has competed this vault for four or five years now. It’s not like it’s something she doesn’t know how to do. ”
I wouldn’t be surprised if the direction came from above. And to TrampGuy; these gymnasts may not be ‘mindless’ but when they get to a National Championships all they would want to do is win. The coach has a duty of care to look out for their best interests, not let them blindly march on and compete something that is dangerous. The gymnast is under the care of the coach
But if bross had been competing that vault for a while, and had been training it and had the intention to go ahead with it, and martha and everyone else was ok with it, then why would you at the last second change the vault?
Regardless of difficulty of the vault in podium training, that could have been nerves. For every one bad vault, she could have done 10 good. To suggest its valeri’s fault is a bit much. No one has a crystal ball. And the injury still could have happened on a lesser valued vault…..
I would like to say that my article was not a direct response just to the Bross injury. I know injury happens a lot. My other, equally big concern is what this current code does to the quality of competition- I hate that as much.
most of the time, injuries in this sport are just chance… BUT she already had taken several ROUGH landings in the earlier events and looked like she couldn’t hold herself up much longer the whole week. I obviously don’t know her as well as Valeri, but it seemed to me she was not in good enough physical condition to do four full events
Come on people she hit the vault in night one. Valeri had no reason to believe it wouldnt be there in night two.
It was a bad call. She was struggling to complete it and also seemed mentally discouraged (not sure if general tiredness or frustration at the difficulties). They took a chance and got screwed.
While I may be just a gymnast’s mom, I was at Visas during warmups and competition on both nights 1 and 2. Bross was struggling on every event, and on vault in particular. Valeri’s role as a coach is overriding – both of Marta and of Rebecca. He should have pulled her or downgraded that vault. No question. For many of us in the stands, our initial reaction to her injury was ANGER at Valeri.
While the US won’t win in Toyko with clean execution. There was no reason for Bross to do that vault at this time. Bross was never someone who was going to make the team for vault. She was important to the team on bars, beam and also floor. Plenty of other girls who needed to prove more to Marta did watered down routines. You think Memmel can’t do a DTY.
And who cares if Bross hit it day one. Bross was looking bad all week in practice on that vault and shaky. Maybe they should consider that luck. Seriously if Maroney can get away with not doing vault at classics. And she’s a specialist, I fail to see how Bross can’t get away with it.
And I will say this do you see Alexandrov demanding that Komova do Amanars right now? He’s smart enough to realize he’d rather have Komova doing bars and beam in Toyko and then healthy for the Olympics. Than to have Komova throw too much difficult get injured and not be able to use her on anything.
Yep. I got that.
If you had asked me if a Bross at 70% could land DTY if she had to … I’d have said YES.
It takes a televised injury to a very high profile gymnast to even bring the issue of the code increasing the number of serious injuries to light. Recall, Brigid, all the girls leaving on stretcher during one rotation at Worlds last year? … That hardly generated a blip of discussion.
So, I think the one tiny benefit of a high profile injury is to ask why a smart coach and a talented gymnast is taking risks. The answer, obviously, is the code.
The answer may be the code but it wasn’t necessary at this competition. Look it would be one thing if the DTY was going well in practice than I’d say go for it. But Becca was reportedly struggling with it. Why risk it? Why not take the extra two months to work on it and show it at Camp/worlds? Its not like a DTY was even going to give bross the win (or frankly even a podium finish).
Plenty of athletes when not ready have shown only a few events. I mean chellsie only vaulted an FTY. Memmel can do and has done a DTY, it wasn’t necessary for her to do one right now.
I hear you Rick. That is immediately what I thought of when all this broke out- the rotation with Venezuela in it during podium training. That was shocking. The injuries are an issue. But I also think, given the shambles that was Day 1, the code is ruining the chances of seeing ‘quality’ gymnastics competitions. Yes, we always had injuries, but we used to have really quality meets where people who fell didn’t win medals and routines were remembered for the originality of skills, not the sheer difficulty of them.
I agree that it is a bit ridiculous to have a gymnast who falls off an apparatus still have a chance for a podium finish.
Rebecca wants to win the Olympics in the AA. So she would need to vault prelims.
The problem that I have with everybody blaming Valeri for her injury, is there have been other instances when a gymnast was obviously injured and their coach still had them continue. Take Jordyn Wieber at last years nationals. Her ankle was clearly hurt and she got on that beam anyway. There was no way she should have and her coach should have seen that. Why weren’t people blame John Geddert when that happened? It seems like the same situation to me.
She couldn’t compete any events three weeks ago and then did AA at this one. Just not wise. Too many issues (body size, ankles, tiredness, poor performance) arguing against going for it. I am the first to be a hardass and say blame the gymnast, not the coach, and to see que serat, serat. But this was a bad decision by Val. Several people had explicitly said they were worried about this exact outcome.
We need to give credit where credit is due and blame where it is due. Val has a fancy house and threw a triple back on floor and is a great bars spotter. But he messed up here. And that is coming from someone who is NOT a softy snowflake.
I would never be so pretentious as to question the decisions of a coach of Valeri’s caliber. The decisions he makes I’m sure are not made lightly and I’m sure are not made without serious consideration of his athlete’s best interests. It’s a very thin and fragile line and sometimes you slip off it. That unfortunately also is the nature of our sport.
The bigger issue here is the repetitive damage that our sport inflicts on our athletes and the wanton disregard by our governing body to do anything about it. If a clean 1.5 TY would beat a sloppy DTY, or a clean DTY would beat a sloppy Amanar we would not have kids pushing for the extra tenths that they so desperately need to to be on top. The code pretends that that is what it’s primary purpose is, rewarding clean gymnastics, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Nastias super clean 1.5 got virtually the same deductions as the chinese crash. WTF? Why have any rules when we don’t apply them properly?
Ever since I can remember the talk has been about applying the code fairly to the performances. And yet time and time again, no matter what code we look at, the pathetic judging which has been responsible for all of our past and present problems has been overlooked, and athlete’s requirements constantly changed instead to somehow fix the problem. I’m so tired of hearing from FIG time and time again how they are doing this and that to make the competition more fair for the athletes by constantly changing and tweaking requirements and difficulty and then letting the judging go completely wild. In my opinion, had the judging been completely fair all along there was no problem with any of the 10.0 codes, and there would be far less issues with the current one. In a perfect gymnastics world we would only see the people that are actually capable of doing excellent Amanars performing them, and everybody else sticking to the vaults that they can do cleanly. If the actual score separation was only tenths apart because of proper execution deduction application, or if a DTY could actually EVER beat a sloppy Amanar (and that goes for any other apparatus of course) we would not see the circus acrobatics that are so common nowadays. And perhaps our athletes would last a lot longer and be a lot healthier.
“In my opinion, had the judging been completely fair all along there was no problem with any of the 10.0 codes, and there would be far less issues with the current one. ”
I completely agree.
“Take Jordyn Wieber at last years nationals. Her ankle was clearly hurt and she got on that beam anyway. There was no way she should have and her coach should have seen that. Why weren’t people blame John Geddert when that happened? It seems like the same situation to me.”
People did blame Geddert. They also blamed him for her scary Amanar at 2009 Am Cup. I remember lots of bellyaching about it on the boards. The difference is Jordyn didn’t get a major injury from those instances.
The difference is that one coach is clearly more concerned about his athlete’s well-being than the other. After the gentle urging of her ‘dad’, Jordyn withdrew from last year’s competition before Day 1 had concluded — before the risk of serious injury became a reality.
A more apt comparison could be made with a coach who was content to just stand around and watch as his prodigy, Vanessa Atler, nearly crippled herself time and again at the 2000 Olympic Trials. Mr. Liukin and this rascal have something in common: they are congruent.
[...] An injury on TV to one of the top gymnasts in the world sparks discussion on how it might have been prevented. [...]
“Vanessa Atler, nearly crippled herself time and again at the 2000 Olympic Trials.” Vanessa had some falls at trials but they certainly weren’t the near crippling type.
“The difference is that one coach is clearly more concerned about his athlete’s well-being than the other. After the gentle urging of her ‘dad’, Jordyn withdrew from last year’s competition before Day 1 had concluded — before the risk of serious injury became a reality.”
The question was why didn’t people blame Geddert? My point was, they did! Geddert definitely made the safer, smarter move for his athlete at 2010 nationals but frankly I’m sure it had as much to do with Geddert feeling that she probably couldn’t win after beam as it had to do with her health. This is a guy who openly admits to keeping girls in level 10 if he doesn’t think they can DOMINATE as elites. He feels that it’s not worth it to be an “also-ran” as an elite when the gymnast can win as a level 10. His goal is to win. Jordyn is a tool for that purpose.
I agree that the judges don’t seem to really judge execution to what the code says. And we should make them publish the actual points taken off (no more general impressionism or score cheating).
That said, vault is pretty tricky in that it is a single event. So taking off tenths, the way one would on a routine is tricky and in some cases, I don’t think the deviations are really noticeable flaws. Perhaps if we made them vault two vaults?
My whole response was not directed towards you, sher, but to alexa — the person you quoted. I guess I should have begun with ‘@alexa’ or something.
I was saying that parenting is what made all the difference. And this seems to be a point we both can agree on:
“Geddert definitely made the safer, smarter move for his athlete at 2010 nationals…”
It’s not unusual to see parents on the podium. Andy Memmel and Mihai Brestyan were doting dads at last week’s VISA Championships. Both urged their daughters to dumb down the difficulty for safety reasons.
What IS unusual is to watch a champion pay the price for her coach’s lack of empathy.
Got it. Thanks Casual. … Blog comments aren’t threaded, so they are very poor for conversations.
Sorry about that.
What is this ‘daddy’ complex? I don’t think lowering difficulty for safety reasons is something only a ‘daddy’ would do. It’s just one of many smart coaching strategies. A coach doesn’t have to be a ‘doting dad’ to take advantage of smart strategy.
For the record, Mihai is the same coach who didn’t want to get Alicia’s ankle examined going into Beijing. A. Memmel is, of course, C. Memmel’s actual father and that didn’t stop him from letting her dismount onto a broken ankle in Beijing or do bars at worlds with a jacked up shoulder in 2007. These dudes are not exactly the most super safety conscious folks. Not saying that makes them bad folks. Just saying lets not paint them as something they’re not.
“And we should make them publish the actual points taken off (no more general impressionism or score cheating).”
TCO, that would be great.
@coach Rick, shergymrag
I re-read what I had written and I am the one who is sorry. Without a quote or name to connect the dots, what I was saying made absolutely no sense. I should have made things a lot clearer.
So here is a summary (hopefully) with clarity.
Rebecca was hurt by a betrayal of trust; that an injury occurred on vault and not some another apparatus is merely coincidental.
Sher, you know way more about gymnastics than I do, so I’ll make one statement. If it is wrong then don’t bother reading any further because everything hinges on this one statement:
Without trust, you’re not likely to go very far in gymnastics.
Gymnastics does not work without it. At the beginning you learn to trust your coach, and by the time you have reached the highest levels you are accustomed to — and comfortable with — entrusting this person with your life. The hazards of the journey seem to demand it.
Now at the very least your coach should have more than a passing interest in the relationship that is being forged. I use familial terms, like father and daughter, to make it clear what the overarching priority should be: the athlete’s well-being.
There is more to life than gymnastics. Indeed, life is filled with nouns that are more worthy of our time, talents and attention. A young athlete will not have this perspective.
But a parent will.
Even if Mr. Liukin were out of the country when Rebecca was injured, WOGA’s head honcho would be partially responsible. Someone gave her the OK to return to full workouts after her ankle injury; someone allowed her to train for the 2011 VISA Championships and enter the Xcel Energy Center in a state of health that even the audience ranked as ‘poor’.
That he was there in the arena watching his sickly daughter fail, waiting patiently for calamity to besiege her, and did nothing about it makes him TOTALLY responsible for what has happened. He trained an athlete to trust him completely, he nurtured a champion who would rather die trying than quit, he helped raise a daughter who at that time desperately needed her father’s help. He should have been the one to rescue her.
On that stage Mr. Liukin had the privilege of being surrounded by parents who would have been more proactive in their daughter’s lives. John Geddert was one of them.
*sigh* What is so frightening about this whole ordeal is that: (1) Rebecca is suffering because of it; (2) his behavior has not changed in over a decade (Vanessa Atler was fortunate enough to escape injury); (3) nothing prevents him from continuing down this same path, wreaking havoc in the lives of future WOGA-ites.
Even Al Fong has evolved. But Valeri Liukin?
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