2004 Athens Prelims

[Concorde]

Just to be clear, Humphrey’s routine was out of a 10.0 on paper (0.9 from tumbling and 0.3 from dance elements). Unfortunately, her dance elements were often beyond the 1/4 turn allowance that existed under that COP for receiving credit.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Yes, that’s about the only one I don’t remember seeing anyone fail to get credit for. It probably did happen at some point in the quad, but definitely less than the Gogeans, Popas etc. I mean, I can do a cat 1.5 to cat 1.5 at 01-04 crediting standard now. Anyone who’s had two fewer kids than me and/or eaten less over Christmas should be able to add the extra 180 degrees, even without being an elite athlete.

It was bizarre how poorly chosen some of the skills were in Athens, long after people should’ve had time to work the code out. You expect this of the likes of GAGE, but it went well beyond that.

 

[Doug1233]

You’re right. But someone with those 4 tumbles should never have been starting out with less than a 10.0 SV. That tumbling would be competitive in a FX EF today.

The fact she only had 3 tenths worth of dance, and struggled to get it, shows the complete lack of work put into making sure they got credit.

How can a gymnast, with the legs to do a whip double arabian, fail to get a Cat 2/1 (0:32) or a Tuck 2/1 (0:35) around?

I presume this got a 9.8? I think the triple turn just about got credit (under those rules). But the Cat 2/1 and Tuck 2/1 were clearly more than a quarter short.

The period between 1:03 and 1:25 literally accrued no bonus. But looked absolutely exhausting.

ETA: Love this leo btw.

 

[irichluck21]

I often wonder what the outcome of the meet would have been if the US won TQ.

They were just .588 shy with at least .4 alone coming off Bhardwaj and Hatch vaults. That brings the deficit down to .188. Patterson went 9.500 with her mistakes on FX and was more than capable of making up that .188 given her 9.662 in TF and 9.712 in AA.

I feel like USA was demoralized after qualifications since they had lost that round to Romania. Had they been in first after TQ maybe they would have been more confident. Although TF was a mess with Patterson’s errors on VT/UB, Kupets’ injury, and McCool being benched. I think Marta also made a mistake not allowing McCool to do UB in finals over Patterson and should have gone up on FX instead of Kupets based on ability to get a huge score with a hit routine. But perhaps her wrists were just to damaged at that point.

 

[irichluck21]

I presume this got a 9.8? I think the triple turn just about got credit (under those rules). But the Cat 2/1 and Tuck 2/1 were clearly more than a quarter short.

Yes. 9.800 SV. I believe everyone had a 9.8 SV in prelims with the exception of Bhardwaj who was credited with a 10.0 but then only got 9.8 in TF and 9.7 in EF.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

The US did seem like they’d lost that one before they started, although obviously we don’t know how much of that might’ve related to whatever was going on behind the scenes with McCool.

I think they struggled from starting on vault though. It must have been very demoralising to have a team designed around two vault specialists still finish behind Romania on the event, and that was always the likeliest outcome with Carly’s elbow being so dodgy.

 

[irichluck21]

I don’t think they expected Rosu to be so strong on VT either or that Romanian bars would be scored leniently compared to the other teams.

 

[YurchenkoLoop]

I mean, I can do a cat 1.5 to cat 1.5 at 01-04 crediting standard now. Anyone who’s had two fewer kids than me and/or eaten less over Christmas should be able to add the extra 180 degrees, even without being an elite athlete.

Tuck jump 2/1s are my specialty

 

[Doug1233]

I wonder if she had tacked on a Cat 3/2 to the end of the short Cat 2/1 might have persuaded the judges to credit it.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Rosu’s Amanar evidently came as a surprise, but she did have the DTT/Kas full at Euros. It should have been understood by the US programme that Romania would have that plus two DTYs in TFs and that once Alicia was out, the best case scenario was them being unable to match Romania’s cumulative difficulty score on the event. Re bars, the judging wasn’t very tight in Athens generally on the event, but obviously Romania who were always going to show two very sloppy routines in TFs disproportionately benefitted from that.

I’ve always thought the US were lucky China failed so very hard in Athens. Their team composition was actually pretty smart. The Chinese coaches had worked out what 6-3-3 was supposed to look like, just as the Romanians had. Obviously the execution went very wrong, but the theory was right. When I look at that team, I can identify the thought process and how it was supposed to work. Not so with the US. You can bet the hole in your arse neither Belu nor the Chinese coaches would’ve done something as daft as let the procedure remove Alicia from the selection pool, for example. I don’t think it would’ve been realistic to expect that Chinese lineup to hit well enough for gold, too many inconsistent athletes, but they could’ve counted a fall or so and still finished 2nd.

 

[Doug1233]

But Alicia had huge hitting issues in 2004.

Miss:



Hit:



Miss:



Hit:



(god I miss Barry)

Marta didn’t wanna take a routine that could have gotten a 9.7 or an 8.6. She hated inconsistency.

I can’t find her videos from Nationals - but again, Day 1 8.875, Day 2 9.6.

Plus, Courtney McCool was getting some super high floor scores. She got a 9.725 at 2004 American Cup. 9.575 and 9.6 at Nationals. Based on those numbers, Alicia was superfluous.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

While that’s true, Alicia had two events. She could also have been taken to do vault and nothing else. One doesn’t have to believe she would’ve been on the team to think it was remiss of Marta not to tell her to withdraw and petition to Trials instead. The procedure didn’t limit the number of petitioners Marta could accept, so why wouldn’t you take a gymnast who was routinely top 3 on your weak event, even without the upgrade?

 

[Doug1233]

even without the upgrade

What upgrade?

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

The rudi. I can’t actually remember if she competed it in summer 04 but she did train it. I mean the DTY alone was worth getting her to petition, especially with Annia coming off injury.

 

[onodian]

I mean, I can do a cat 1.5 to cat 1.5 at 01-04 crediting standard now.

we should turn this into some sort of challenge thread

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

I’m not giving Doug the opportunity to get his downgrade pen out again.

 

[onodian]

Haterz gonna downgrade

 

[Doug1233]

Haha I’m pretty sure I could do a full to a 1.5. I don’t think my ankles would like me to try a double lol

 

[MaryClare]

Assumption Day in Greece is just another public holiday. Religious observances is low, fewer than 20% attend church regularly- the religious holiday is not why locals didn’t attend. Locals barely attended anything. For most olympics, but especially those in Europe, the majority of spectators are from other countries. Although the economic situation in Greece didn’t help.
As I recall, the main issue which lead to fewer international visitors to the Athens Olympics is that they didn’t make provision for enough tourist accommodation. Either it was impossible to book or prohibitively expensive. They also did not, as London did and Paris is doing, recommend other towns and cities under 2 hours away by train which might be a more economical place to base yourself.

Athens simply wasn’t big enough. It didn’t have the capacity to house the number of tourists and it didn’t have the volume of domestic spectators

Paris 11 million
Tokyo 13 million
Rio 6 million
London 9 million
Beijing 20 million
Sydney 5 million

Athens? 600,000

A secondary issue was the lack of a proper online booking provision, which by 2004 people expected for major events. Instead it was left to individual olympic committees to decide how to sell and allocate their ticket quota.

 

[irichluck21]

Assumption Day in Greece is just another public holiday. Religious observances is low, fewer than 20% attend church regularly- the religious holiday is not why locals didn’t attend.

That is not what the news reports said at the time. Specifically that day, August 15, it was mentioned that low spectators that day were due to the religious holiday. It was mentioned on the Olympic broadcast by Bob Costas and also by Al Trautwig IIRC.

Locals barely attended anything.

Also incorrect. The opening and closing ceremonies were sold out. Also any competitions were Greek athletes competed in were also sold out or close to capacity. They just didn’t attend events where the Greeks weren’t competing, hence why gymnastics was sparsely attended. The audience was jam packed for Still Rings finals:

Olympic attendance provides an empty feeling

The near-capacity crowd at the Olympic water polo venue Monday lustily cheered “Hellas! Hellas!” after each goal by the Greek women. They whistled every time their Kazakh opponents took…

www.chicagotribune.com

Days after a sellout crowd at Olympic Stadium witnessed the Opening Ceremony, the Greeks are showing that they eagerly root, root, root for the home team. But Athenians have not made much noise for events that offer little or no intensely local interest.

Still, organizers insist they will not mark down tickets or give them away, in fairness to those who have paid face value.

Sports largely foreign to Greece, such as badminton, are proving a particularly tough sell. That has created images that are embarrassing the hosts when viewed by global TV audiences.

Bob Costas, the NBC Olympic host, pointed out during a broadcast that ticket sales had picked up in the last two or three weeks.

As I recall, the main issue which lead to fewer international visitors to the Athens Olympics is that they didn’t make provision for enough tourist accommodation.

I suspect this could be correct in addition to people not traveling after 9/11, as it was also reported that many people didn’t feel Greece had strong enough security and feared another terrorist attack would happen, especially since the Atlanta bombing and also Australia had top notch security. Also, there had recently just been bombings in Turkey and Spain. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-aug-17-sp-attend17-story.html

Organizers have expected some empty seats for years.

They knew security concerns had dimmed attendance prospects for these Games – the first since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Bombings in Madrid and Istanbul, Turkey, also contributed to an unease among some who might have considered traveling to Greece. One travel packager had predicted that the U.S. turnout would be 20% less than in Sydney.