Dvora Meyers is a good writer. She sums up the case against Marta Karolyi in these two posts:
Unorthodox Gymnastics – The leadership of Martha Karolyi
Slate – Last Leotard Standing
Béla and Márta Károlyi coached dozens of Olympic and World Championships medalists, adding to the list this week. Their methods have produced results.
She’s retiring from the role of U.S. National Team Coordinator after London, so there’s not much more time for critics to sound off.
The complaints in Dvora’s articles aren’t new. The position is that Americans under her watch have:
• been over-trained
• peaked too early
• suffered too high an injury rate
Is that true?
I think it was true in Marta’s first years in the job. She required, in those days, up to 10 routines on Bars and Beam the day before a competition, in some cases that I saw with my own eyes.
That was idiotic.
But from what I’ve seen, especially in Rotterdam and Tokyo, the demands are much more reasonable today. Good gymnasts can do more routines — the American girls were more capable of routines than any other nation. And they did more.
Dvora’s Slate article concludes:
… Martha Karolyi shouldn’t shoulder all the blame for the injuries suffered by Alicia Sacramone and others. Sacramone’s Achilles, for instance, has been a problem throughout her career. Karolyi, though, clearly could’ve done more to accommodate each of her athletes and taken more precautions in the run-up to the world championships.
The United States’ latest gold medal shouldn’t obscure the fact that female gymnasts keep breaking down, and not simply because gymnastics is a risky sport. With less than a year to go until the London games, we’ll find out if the United States finally learns to train smartest instead of hardest.
In Tokyo I don’t think Marta has been “too hard” on the team. And she’s certainly not responsible for injuries to Aliya Mustafina (RUS), Jessica Savona (CAN) or Sandra Izbasa (ROM).
Most nations have one or more of their top gymnasts missing in Tokyo due to injury. Fact is, this is a very risky sport. Elite female gymnasts are too injured to train 100% about 1/3 of the time.
Personally, I feel it’s the FIG rules that are too demanding. If you want to demonize someone, I’d suggest you target WT Chair Nellie Kim over Marta Karolyi.
I don’t see FIG WTC doing anything to make gymnastics “safer” for elite gymnasts. That will be brutally obvious later today when we watch a girl compete Handspring double front on Vault in Finals. That’s the “trend” today — do more difficulty if you want to win.
related – Gymnastike – interview with Marta following Jordyn Wieber’s win (VIDEO).
Gymnastics Coaching.com 