2022 World Gymnastics Championships Team Qualifications (Saturday 10/29 SD 1&2- Sunday 10/30 SD 3-10)

[Doug1233]

Rebeca got her Memmel credited…?!

 

[YurchenkoLoop]

thanks so much!!

The Gadirovas going back to back to close the competition is epic

 

[J175]

I made a post after Euros about the relatively small number of first and second year seniors making an impact this year. It’s the same now at Worlds as well.

Ana Barbosu (Romania) is the only 2006-born gymnast in any final (AA). There are two second year seniors in the AA final, Laura Casabuena (Spain) and Maisa Kuusikko (Finland). All three of them are from less competitive teams and will be in the fourth group in the final. Skye Blakely and Luo Rui are the only second year seniors in event finals.

It will be interesting to see if this trend continues into next year and beyond.

 

[RichardL]

I’ve been interested in this as well. We used to always see new stars emerge at each Worlds leading up to the Olympics, but I feel like it’s just been this same crop of gymnasts for ages now. Then of course there are gymnasts like Akhaimova last quad and Jones this quad who hit their stride later in their senior careers, but they’d been trying out for major teams for ages as well.

 

[Denn]

It’s not, de facto, two less elements. Exercises are still really long.

 

[Denn]

I agree with @GymBeauty that the code is reason #1 for the low E-scores. So many things are deducted heavily now. The 0.3 deduction is extremely common — and that’s the difference between an A and a D element. Yet many errors that are deducted 0.3 aren’t so bad that they should drop the element of a D down to the equivalent of a clean A.

But I also agree with @Yarotska that non-strategic coaching is reason #2. At this point, any coach putting more than 7 elements + a dismount + a lot of dancing (much in releve) in a beam exercise is asking for trouble unless the gymnast can reliably do the additional elements unquestionably perfectly. Yet how many routines with 8 elements have we seen? And how much dance? There’s this stubbornness going on.

But reason #3 (which feeds reason #2) is the judging practice itself. Judges have, over time, lost the inability to look at an element and think “that was fine. no deduction” even when there is no error or when the error is so slight that it should let go. We’ve seen it from the judges and “judges” in this forum even: there’s almost a compulsion to think “Something was imperfect” and take 0.1. How many times have breakdowns provided here cited gymnasts for lacking 180° split? Yet much (most?) of time, if you pause the videos, the 180° is right there in front of your eyes. (Similarly deductions for pirouettes on high bar are absolutely insane. Being 8° off handstand should not be a 0.1 deduction, yet the eye sees it and says “Mistake” and 0.1 off.)

But I think reason #4 is gymnast/coach pride. I have worked with many gymnasts and coaches who literally say “But I want to show that I can do this” or “Come on, Dennis, my guys need to have stuff in their routines. They can’t show up and do routines watered down that much. We’ll get laughed at.”

And honestly, I sympathize.

The rules should be reasonable: it should be worth it to a gymnast to do an imperfect element that is good overall. But it’s not. And it contradicts the intuition of coaches and athletes and has created a bizarre intuition among the judges.

 

[GymBeauty]

The 0.3 deduction is extremely common — and that’s the difference between an A and a D element. Yet many errors that are deducted 0.3 aren’t so bad that they should drop the element of a D down to the equivalent of a clean A.

100%. Like doing a front tuck with the hips landing slightly below the knees. It’s going to get .3 for that landing, .1 for flexed feet, and perhaps .1 for pausing beforehand to do it. You end up losing points for even doing the element, congrats. We are supposed to believe a decently landed difficult acro skill is less worthwhile than a cat leap, less worthwhile than doing nothing at all? It’s totally nonsensical.

I don’t agree with ultra simple routine compositions doing much to help the issue. To begin with, those routines are inherently going to be far less exciting and not the kind of gymnastics we want to see. Aside from that, it doesn’t solve the problem of absurd element evaluations. The gymnasts are still going to be constantly worrying about doing them to an arbitrary robotic standard, and that’s going to take away from their body language. The current “artistry evaluation” itself causes gymnasts to actually be less artistic than they potentially could be. When you are focusing on making sure you’re satisfying a bunch of red tape bullet-points, the movement is not going to be coming from the heart or from the gymnast’s natural rhythm as much. It’s going to be applied, superficial.

 

[FrolovasDoubleLayout]

147 exercises presented at balance beam during qualifications and TWO had the audacity to achieve an E-score of 8,000 or higher (8,200 and 8,000) - and one of those two did not even make the final - absolute #$%& rubbish!

 

[Yarotska]

So why aren’t they teaching gymnasts to land their front tucks higher? There have been plenty of gymnasts to do a front tuck that would get no deduction for hip level.

The other stuff sounds like negative reinforcement to me. In my opinion, of course the gymnasts you coach are not going to perform to their best and get higher scores if you’re worried about all the deductions that are gonna rack up in the routine YOU designed for the gymnast.

They should be constructing better routines with improved technique to prevent deductions if it stresses them out so much and in turn the gymnasts they coach.

 

[J175]

If you want a routine with only 8 elements, (well, even this is probably 9 elements with a round off for the dismount)

LOSO mount (E)
BHS (B) + LOSO (C)
Switch leap (C) + switch 1/2 (D) +0.1
Double wolf turn (D)
Front aerial (D)
D- dismount +0.2

Would be 5.2 D, which is not bad if you can hit it well - Shilese Jones is first reserve for the beam final with a 5.2D. And adding a second LOSO to the acro series ups the D score to 5.5.

But it does mean taking risks with the mount and dance series, and the common belief seems to be that gymnasts are better off going for simpler elements there and making up the difficulty with more elements and connection bonuses.

 

[Denn]

I wouldn’t do this routine. Layout mount and switch half are asking for deductions. LOL

BHS mount (D) let’s say 0.1 balance check
BHS (B) + LOSO (C) + LOSO + 0.2 many gymnasts can do this perfectly.
Double wolf turn (D) many gymnasts can do this with just 0.1 off
Front aerial (D) + split (B) + straddle (B) + 0.2. let’s say 0.1 per skill and 0.1 for rhythm
double tuck dismount (D) +0.2 let’s say 0.1 for leg separation, 0.1 for feet, and 0.1 for step
All dance expectations except 1
Let’s even say one of these turned into a 0.3 deduction.

5.1 D-score + 8.8 E-score. You do fewer skills, you get fewer deductions and have more time for artistry

I bet many gymnasts could, with practice, get this to 8.8. And it’s still laden with deductions.

Yet that would have been a 13.9 and won prelims.

 

[J175]

I agree about the mount, though I think there are some who can do it well, but am I missing something or is that routine only 4.9 D? With the bunching that happens with E scores you’d struggle to get near 8.8, so it’d be a brave move for any top gymnast to attempt such low difficulty. And I think a lot of people would still consider connecting the aerial to the dance series risky - there are a lot of otherwise superfluous elements in routines because people are doing elements they don’t want to count and aren’t getting any CV from to make sure of the composition requirements.

 

[Denn]

Sorry, I fixed it.

It’d be brave, but it would work. We just haven’t seen a good gymnast attempt it! They all try to do more!

 

[Doug1233]

BHS mount (D) let’s say 0.1 balance check
BHS (B) + LOSO (C) + LOSO + 0.2 many gymnasts can do this perfectly.
Double wolf turn (D) many gymnasts can do this with just 0.1 off
Front aerial (D) + split (B) + straddle (B) + 0.2. let’s say 0.1 per skill and 0.1 for rhythm
double tuck dismount (D) +0.2 let’s say 0.1 for leg separation, 0.1 for feet, and 0.1 for step
All dance expectations except 1
Let’s even say one of these turned into a 0.3 deduction.

This is the most Code Whoring Routine of the Quad so far lol

 

[Denn]

But is it? With some nice dance, it could be a VERY respectable exercise.

Also, thank you!

 

[Denn]

BTW, I’ll add that doing a routine that short also can dramatically change the psychology of both training and performing. It allows you to FOCUS and also feel more confident. So that increases the E-score, too — fewer nerves, fewer variables, and fewer deductions.

 

[GymBeauty]

^ Some people are already doing routines quite similar to that, and it hasn’t helped. The Bhs + LOSO + LOSO often gets deducted to worthlessness and is relatively risky on top of it. That extra LOSO frequently gets .1 form and .1 for minor arm swing at the end, as compared to just doing Bhs + LOSO. The Front Aerial + Split + Straddle is frequently .1 form on all of those skills, plus .1 rhythm between each skill, and not being given any connection bonus in many cases.

So why aren’t they teaching gymnasts to land their front tucks higher? There have been plenty of gymnasts to do a front tuck that would get no deduction for hip level.

You’re not reading what has been written.

A landing that isn’t fully upright can happen to anyone; it can also be planned and not even look bad (look at the way Gina Gogean did her front tuck). The system wanting to deduct .3 for it, plus other deductions on top, is a total abuse of math and not an objective evaluation. In no world is that element worse than a freaking cat leap or doing literally nothing. There are countless examples of this and it shouldn’t be happening.

the gymnasts you coach are not going to perform to their best and get higher scores if you’re worried about all the deductions that are gonna rack up in the routine YOU designed for the gymnast.

They should be constructing better routines with improved technique to prevent deductions if it stresses them out so much and in turn the gymnasts they coach.

It’s not about the coach, nor doing a pathetically watered down routine. Have you ever done any performing art yourself? Try singing a song while being told half the notes and lyrics are banned, and that you will be massively penalized for not hitting every remaining note with one specific kind of timing. The gymnasts are not able to approach the routine from an organic place, as a result of the excessive constraints being placed upon them and knowing the crazy deductions that can happen.

Gymnastics and ice skating have mirrored each other with their transitions into increasingly hard-coded scoring systems over the past couple decades, and in both cases the artistry has suffered.

BTW, I’ll add that doing a routine that short also can dramatically change the psychology of both training and performing. It allows you to FOCUS and also feel more confident.

Going into competition with a super low D-score can also be a psychological negative though. Either way, that’s not the kind of gymnastics we want to be seeing. That routine is uninteresting and far easier than anything we saw in the 2001-2016 codes.

 

[Denn]

^ Some people are already doing routines quite similar to that, and it hasn’t helped. The Bhs + LOSO + LOSO often gets deducted to worthlessness and is relatively risky on top of it. That extra LOSO frequently gets .1 form and .1 for minor arm swing at the end, as compared to just doing Bhs + LOSO. The Front Aerial + Split + Straddle is frequently .1 form on all of those skills, plus .1 rhythm between each skill, and not being given any connection bonus in many cases.

You’re not reading what has been written. I already accounted for those deductions in the 8.8, and that series is one of the more reliable series for getting credit.

Also, I challenge you to name three good beam workers doing 8-element or 9-element routines.

 

[Denn]

Going into competition with a super low D-score can also be a psychological negative though.

5.1 is not super low. And you just made that conclusion up.

Either way, that’s not the kind of gymnastics we want to be seeing. That routine is uninteresting and far easier than anything we saw in the 2001-2016 codes.

Yeah, no kidding. We’re not talking about what we want to see. We’re talking about what kind of routine could actually be a reliably high score under these rules. Yes, it’s absurd that that routine could win prelims as worlds. That’s the whole point!

 

[Yarotska]

It’s not about the coach, nor doing a pathetically watered down routine

The coaches make the routines, so it is about them. And yes it’s also not about a “pathetically watered down routine” considering Liu Tinting got some of the highest scores last quad with one of the hardest routines. She simply executed her best skills the way the code required and it worked out. I don’t think she was concerned about scoring in the low 8’s. She wanted to win.

I don’t understand what isn’t clicking. I never said do watered down routines. I said do your best difficulty that is clean and make it consistent and confident. If the difficulty is not clean and not confident, I absolutely consider those coaching issues. And there are coaches in elite and NCAA that are confused about scoring all the time. They are also not doing the athletes justice but not knowing what to look out for and improve.