Dwight Normile on International Gymnast gives a brief preview of possible changes to the Artistic Gymnastics regulations for 2009-2012:
The proposed changes for the men’s Code focus mainly on the juniors, for which eight skills will count toward the A-score. Also, the A-score will be halved for juniors, thus further de-emphasizing difficulty. Other safety measures for juniors include the prohibition of diving elements that end in a roll-out on floor, and saltos to upper arms or bent arms on parallel bars.
A “G” category, worth 0.7, will be added to the difficulty table, and skills listed there include a Ri Jong Song (triple-twisting double back) and Liukin (triple back) on floor, and a Cassina (layout Kolman) and Shahan (Kovacs with 1.5 twists) on high bar.
On rings, swing-to-strength combinations will count as two separate elements if the swing reverses direction (e.g., front uprise to Maltese).
All good, from the little we have heard so far. I’ve been advocating 8 skills rather than 10 for difficulty myself. I should say that I was later convinced by former Canadian Women’s National Coach Claude Pelletier that 6 skills on Floor for women, would be even better than eight. Artistry would become much more important.
No doubt the addition of Junior FIG Rules would be in anticipation of the Youth Olympic Games – Singapore, 2010. FIG does not normally distribute Junior regs.
If you have no idea what this post is talking about, check out an overview of the current judging rules:
… The difficulty value is determined by totaling values for the 10 most difficult skills, which includes the dismount. …
(via Gymblog)
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By the way, IG, when are you going to update your website to provide permalinks to stories? It’s a pain to recommend them to readers the way you have the site set up now.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 