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The Daily Mail is the United Kingdom’s second biggest-selling daily newspaper.
Jonathan Mcevoy put his name on a completely wrong story yesterday. 😦
I don’t follow that newspaper, much preferring The Guardian. And I’ll link as little as possible to the Daily Fail in future.
Russia will not receive a blanket ban from Rio 2016 following the country’s doping scandal, an Olympic source has told the BBC.
Instead, the International Olympic Committee will leave it up to individual sport’s governing bodies to decide if Russian competitors are clean and should be allowed to take part.
Russia is corrupt. Systematic doping was approved all the way up to – I assume – the defacto dictator Putin. But I’m still happy Artistic, Rhythmic and Trampoline will get to compete in Rio.
The Russian girls are en route to Brazil now.
Amanda Turner – IOC Declines to Ban Russia from Rio
via Gymternet Clan
The IOC should test all athletes at the Olympic Games. Announce the results.
End of story.
This breaking news is absurd. You should not FOREVER keep going back to retest old samples. 😦
The IOC said that the 30 athletes from the Games came from four sports and eight National Olympic Committees (NOC). …
A third and fourth wave of re-tests will take place throughout and after the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, with the samples being re-analysed using the latest scientific methods.
The athletes, NOCs and International Federations concerned by the positive drug tests are being informed, the IOC said, with proceedings against the athletes able to commence after B-samples are tested. …
related:
• GymCastic #206: The Russian Situation
• Should the Russian gymnasts be allowed to compete in Rio? RRG’s view
• Skating Lesson – An Invitation to Cheat: Following Up With Christine Brennan
• Skating Lesson – Russia on Thin Ice: A Conversation With Christine Brennan
by site editor Rick McCharles
This book was written for the general public. They like it.
But as a coach I still enjoyed it. To revisit the history of the Code was a good catch-up in advance of Rio.
Dvora provides balanced perspective on the pros and cons of eliminating the iconic perfect 10. She interviews many of the important players on the world scene including Hardy Fink, the primary architect of the current Code. Hardy’s not happy with how his original proposal was changed over the years. But feels eventually it will work as intended.
New to me was the revelation that Bela Karolyi did not discover Nadia on the playground. Another part of the great Karolyi myth.
By the end of Perfect 10 I redoubled my conviction that giving up the perfect 10 was a HUGE mistake. We’ve never been much good in marketing the sport. A great salesman like Steve Jobs would conclude that the perfect 10 was our greatest and most valuable asset.
The NCAA women’s program got it right. It’s more important to fund gymnasts through University and keep coaches employed than to exactly rank the very best of the best perfectly.
That said, FIG will never go back to the perfect 10.
But I’d love to see them add something like a “Ranking Score” on top of the current system.
Each quadrennial, on each apparatus, a 10 would be set in advance.
For example on WAG Floor it might be 17.0. If Simone scored 16.5 her Ranking Score would be 16.5 / 17.0 = 9.70.
YES it might be possible to exceed the perfect 10 under this scheme. Fans would love to see a 10.100. 🙂
I bought the audio version. The audio book reader – Elise Arsenault – is poor. Not professional enough to check the correct pronunciation of names in a nonfiction work. She calls Marta Karolyi “Martha“, for example. 😦
related reviews:
• Slate – A Perfect 16.223
• Meghan O’Rourke – Why Extreme Gymnastics Will Dominate the Rio Olympics
• FloGymnastics – Q&A with Dvora Meyers
Leading Russian gymnast since 2007, Ksenia Afanasyeva has retired from gymnastics for medical reasons, reports Alexei Fililov from R Sport.
Valentina Rodionenko explained that Ksenia has a serious kidney illness. She is in hospital and will take not just days but weeks to recover. …
… Ksenia Afanasyeva competed at the 2008 Summer Olympics and the 2012 Summer Olympics. She is the 2011 World Floor champion, the 2013 and 2015 European Floor champion, and the 2013 Universiade Vault and Floor champion. …
Evgeniya Shelgunova, 18, will replace Afanasyeva as the traveling alternate for a team that includes Aliya Mustafina, Angelina Melnikova, Seda Tutkhalyan, Daria Spiridonova, and Maria Paseka. Natalia Kapitonova and Lilia Akhaimova are the non-traveling alternates. …
Of course we must wait until Sunday to find out if the IOC will allow Russian gymnasts to compete in Rio. 😦
Whilst FIG fully supports the IOC’s policy of “Zero Tolerance in Doping”, it strongly feels that not all Russian athletes of all sports should be banned and found guilty for actions in other sports and federations.
Artistic Gymnastics, Rhythmic Gymnastics and Trampoline athletes cannot be judged based on other sports. …
FIG raises serious concerns about possible blanket ban on Russian athletes
Rewriting Russian Gymnastics has been closely following this story – No Russia for Rio? – WADA/McLaren report set to recommend blanket ban
The good news?
For the record, the Olympic boycotts of 1980 and 1984 were also terribly unfair to completely innocent athletes.
I’ve been there once. A fantastic facility. This is terrible news.
Aussie gymnasts are devastated by the surprise announcement.
Gymnastics Australia posted Allana Slater’s response.
Here’s GA’s response.
Australian Gymnastics Blog open letter:
The Hon. Mia Davies MLA BMM
Minister for Sport and Recreation
Western Australia
GA President Jacqui Briggs-Weatherill:
“I would have expected that the chair of the Western Australian Institute of Sport [Peter Abery] would have at least had the courtesy to ring me and discuss this with me at a very minimum…I don’t even fully understand the reasons this decision has been made.
“We expected some cuts to the program because funding is tight across sport. We had no idea they were looking to close the program.”
The gym closure – set for December 31 – will equate to a saving of about $700,000 annually for the WAIS, which is funded by the Western Australian government and leave Melbourne’s elite training centre as the lone facility of its kind in Australia for female artistic gymnasts. …
Balance Beam Situation thinks so:
The announcement that Ponor was selected instead was so poorly done that I’m not sure the Federation was particularly organized on the decision.
related – Amanda Turner – For Iordache, and Romania, A Painful Olympic Outcome
Click through for a detailed history of the situation.
Everyone agrees that Larisa should have had automatic qualification to the Olympics for her AA medal at 2015 Worlds. If that had happened Romania could have sent both gymnasts. 😦
Here’s what FIG judges award a 15,600. 😦
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
When are FIG WTC going to fix the vault rules?
Second vault very impressive, however. She’s in good shape for Rio.
(via Gymternet)
The USOC has revoked Olympics and U.S. Olympic trials credentials for sports media startup FloSports for publishing video footage of several Olympics trials events. NBCUniversal owns exclusive rights to Olympics and team-selection events …
FloSports CEO & co-Founder Martin Floreani disputes the charge and criticized the USOC. …
FloSports (including FloGymnastics) is a for profit company often criticized for pushing the limits of what’s legal and what’s ethical.
FloGymnastics has certainly improved over the years. But many are reluctant to link to FloGymnastics as they almost never link back.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 