MAG China really does have problems

Coach Sommer of GymnasticBodies.com (author of Building the Gymnastic Body) clarifies confusion on two recent posts:

Huang Yubin is not exaggerating. This is a very serious problem for China.

For some time now, the Chinese program has focused on the development of event and multi-event specialists. Now with the change in the Olympic Team format from 6 to 5 athletes, the effective possible roles for specialists have been drastically reduced while the importance of strong all arounders as the majority of your competitive team on the floor cannot be overstated. Especially in a 3 up 3 count format. This is a tremendous disadvantage in the team competition as strong Chinese All Arounders are relatively scarce.

The Japanese however are not affected in the least by this Olympic Team format change. While the rest of the world emphasized the development of specialists, the Japanese continued to select their Teams (National, World and Olympic) solely by their all around ranking at the various qualification meets.

Yours in Fitness,
Coach Sommer

No wonder Rings Olympic Champion Chen Yibing is back training the all-around.

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