tumbling, tramp, diving, acrobatics, circus, cheer, dance, martial arts, X sports … and more
They won six gold medals at the 2012 London Games and seven in Beijing, so a golden sweep of the eight Olympic diving events (men’s and women’s individual three-meter springboard and 10-meter platform, synchronized three-meter springboard and 10-meter platform) in Rio isn’t out of the question for the Chinese. …
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related – Rosie MacLennan named Canada’s Olympic flag-bearer
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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
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Lauren Hopkins:
This team not only has the ability to qualify to finals, but they actually have the potential to challenge for the bronze medal.
If you do the math, their averages this season currently place them around fourth behind the United States, China, and Russia. But with Germany looking stronger than ever right now, that bronze medal is well within their reach, especially if they are able to take advantage of mistakes from another program. Great Britain made it happen to win bronze over Russia last year, but Germany is definitely one of the favorites to sneak in next month. …
The team competition in Rio will be far more competitive than in London, I think. With 12-up, 12-count there could be surprises. 🙂
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. 😦
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