Category: judging

Oliveira – Arabian pike 1/2 out

It’s always problematic to call a full twisting double back a NEW skill, if the timing of the twist changes.

That said, I expect this will go into the Code named for Lorrane Oliveira.

Click PLAY or watch it on Twitter.

Yurchenko on Simone

I was lucky enough to see Natalia Yurchenko compete in person. She instantly became one of my favourite gymnasts.

Natalia was the first woman to compete her eponymous vault, at 1982 Moscow News.

The element was controversial at first, Yurchenko explained. Another parallel to Biles’ daring innovations.

“There were a lot of debates to allow it or not to allow it,” Yurchenko recalls. “I performed it in America, and the American judges, some of them, were really against it because it seemed way too dangerous …

A boycott of the 1984 Games in Los Angeles meant Yurchenko never got the chance to compete her element at the Olympics.

Natalia Yurchenko on Simone Biles’ feat: “I was dreaming about seeing it”

FIG value of Yurchenko double pike

Exactly nobody ever claimed the Women’s Code was logical.

They can’t even find consistent spellings of named skills.

6.6 is the provisional value.

Spencer:

… It’s low for me.

I’ve mentally had this at 6.8 since we heard about it, and I still agree with me. But honestly it’s not as low as I thought they were going to go, and not as egregious a case of undervaluing as the beam dismount from 2019.

The problem with Simone’s double double beam dismount in 2019 being given an H value is that it did not adhere to any kind of recognizable precedent or logic established by previous values of other beam dismounts.

On beam, a double tuck dismount is a D.

Adding a full twist to that bumps it up three tenths to a G.

And then adding another full twist bumps it up…1 tenth? To an H?

Any logical progression falls apart pretty quickly, and the FIG’s post hoc explanation of the value as an effort to preserve the safety of gymnasts was fully laughable coming from an organization that, for example, doesn’t allow a touch warmup for event finals …

Balance Beam Situation

Beam hip circles, flairs & rolls

In the next Code, hip circles, flairs and rolls could replace the turn required in the past.

Click PLAY or watch it on Twitter.

Haleigh Bryant – Vault

Spencer watches more NCAA routines than anyone on earth — and he’d only award maybe three 10.0 scores this season.

Haleigh‘s vault is one.

Click PLAY or watch some of it on Twitter. The rest is out-of-frame.