2023 Winter Cup

[MaryClare]

I don’t believe they were ever told to- plenty of them never did. They certainly weren’t told to wear unstitched bows on the front of their hair

@arabiandoublefront Shawn may have popularised ribbons, but since 2008, the majority of US gymnasts at worlds and Olympics haven’t born ribbons

 

[MaryClare]

Skye was wearing unstitched bows on the front of her hair. They came undone during the routine, obscured her vision and she fell off. She’d have won otherwise

 

[KristyJ]

Rather, they were told by Marta to use ribbons or at least a scrunchie after I think it was Simone didn’t have something in her hair at one meet. This fact was noted in a broadcast back in the 2015/2016 era, I don’t recall which one. Note that after that Simone basically always had a ribbon.

 

[Love_Joy]

Sophie Buechler: Is it fair to blame the coaches?

Her going elite:

Given what we’ve seen over the years the environment has changed. You have people who are so worried that they’re going to be labeled as a criminal for discriminating that they will not do anything and drop the bar low enough that selection is almost prevented.

Her posture et al.

Coaches are allowed, according to safe support, to make suggestions or to stop something if there’s going to be personal safety, but aren’t most of these decisions about how training proceeds supposed to be based on how the athlete wants them to go and not the coaches?

I keep harping back to how Tom Forrester used to say that the gymnasts are given feedback, implying that they could not be instructed to change under his orders and needed to have an epiphany. That he can’t walk right up and to say 'this skill has to go because you are losing more than you gain." They get feedback not directives.

If that mentality is true then how can these lower level coaches approach gymnasts and tell them this is all wrong we have to start over. I thought they have to just say we have to work on more things. But perhaps the gymnast is not capable of changing? Suppose the gymnast is just not responding to what they’re saying? I think back again to Aly Raisman on uneven bars where she wouldn’t point her feet and the coaches just said " look we’re just going to live with it." I wonder if this is a situation that the coaches are just hoping that the gymnasts will have the Epiphany and start changing. Or it’s something they feel they will grow out of into something different as they get older.

So is it really possible to hold coaches accountable when there are other things we don’t know how they interact with the gymnasts and what they’re able to do and what they’re not able to do?

Does anyone who has experience with gymnastics under Safe Sports in the USA know?

 

[Caledi]

No. This is not accurate at all. Safe Sport does not stop coaches from coaching, including telling a gymnast to fix her posture or point her toes. Most gymnasts (especially at that age) do not make most decisions on their training. Why would they pay a coach if they did?

Tom Forster, in addition to being bad at his job, was not a coach at that time. From my understanding, he gave suggestions but left things up to the coaches. That had nothing to do with Safe Sport; it just seems to be how he wanted to do his job.

 

[xxParkerxx]

Why in the world is anyone wearing unstitched bows to compete?

 

[makam]

Yeah, he could make suggestions like “holy crap Al, take those rings out of Kara’s beam” but if Al and Kara wanted to keep them in, well, the chips had to fall where they fell.

Martha might have had more control since no one was really questioning her whims at the time and transparency was unimportant. I think she is the reason that all of team usa started doing only yurchenko vaults, right? She also told people to stop training certain things and they listened because they knew pissing her of would end the gymnasts chances (unless they were named Simone Biles). Forster didn’t have that level of power/control.

The safe sport stuff is that the coaches aren’t allowed to verbally abuse the gymnasts or physically abuse them. Mental abuse, well, that’s harder to pin down but they aren’t supposed to do that either. Grabbing a kid who is about to crash into the vault is different than grabbing a kid who messed up a turn on beam for the fifth time or screaming at them or whatever. When they are kids, the coach has control over training but the smart coaches work with the gymnasts when they become adults. If the last few years have taught anything it is that a healthy gymnast is a better one and having agency over their training keeps the gymnasts happier and invested in the sport.

 

[Doug1233]

Why in the world is anyone wearing unstitched bows to compete?

Did they not watch Skye at 22 BB EF?!

 

[rlayt]

It didn’t have to happen. Just a dumb thing.

 

[Denn]

I didn’t watch and a friend said it was a really disappointing meet. But were there any highlights people recommend I watch? Was there any key takeaways?

 

[navyblue]

It felt like there was some potential there but nobody made the statement that “I’m the next big thing, see you in Paris.” Which is fine, that doesn’t usually happen, but I didn’t see anyone that really felt like they could displace Jordan, Suni, or Jade. Zeiss feels like she could be the Grace of the team – solid, decent score, nothing spectacular.

It’s 2023 and I don’t see even a hint of anyone from this new period breaking into the ranks of Suni, Jade, Jordan, Leanne, Konnor, Skye (even Simone with minimal effort TBH) – albeit, with the notable caveat that technically Skye & Konnor would have counted in any other normal quad as ‘new’.

I don’t understand why we see worse Yurchenko fulls in elite than in college.

Interesting point, but I think the two main reasons are 1) if you’re an elite doing a yurchenko full, you’re basically not a strong vaulter by definition (else you’d have moved onto something harder, whereas many of the NCAA gymnasts doing fulls are indeed capable of more; 2) gymnasts who gain a bit of height and weight and muscle in college are actually at an advantage compared to younger and often tinier elites.

I’ve been thinking about this more often in relation to Yurchenko 1.5s, I mean, I would argue this vault has been perfected by dozens of different NCAA gymnasts in a way that it never was in elite gymnastics, and that’s sorta remarkable. And I do wonder about what some of those E scores could be (9.6, 9.7, dare I imagine a 9.8??)

 

[navyblue]

Seeing lots of NCAA 10.0 potential in this one!

Did they not watch Skye at 22 BB EF?!

That’s what all this ribbon talk is about.

 

[Passion]

NCAA if you have a good 1.5ty then you can spend the rest of your career just perfecting that, no need to do anything else.

Elite if you have a good 1.5ty, when are you upgrading to DTY? If you get a solid DTY, when do you start throwing Amanars into a pit? If you get good at any skill in elite, there’s always something harder you could be working on to do next.

It’s the gymnastics version of the Peter principle of management. Always promoting to the next level of skill that you’re not as competent at.

 

[KristyJ]

The meet was rough, but I still found it interesting and enjoyable to watch. I know I am in the minority on that, but seeing who the other gymnasts are in the field that we don’t hear about is very interesting. I could see where they were putting in work to learn new skills and am curious to see how that works out in the longer run later this season.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

There needs to be a trigger warning on that. I’m nowhere near over it.

 

[RedBirdie]

And if you have a great Y1.5 in NCAA, you can spend a lot of time perfecting that instead of struggling through bars every single day! Even Jade Carey, who is by almost any definition a vault and floor specialist as an elite, spends an incredible amount of time on her bars and beam because to not be an all arounder in a 5-3-3 world is a considerable disadvantage.

But in NCAA, if my bars suck and I haven’t a snowballs chance in hell of ever making a bars line up, there’s no reason to keep training bars. That time is better spent on vault (or floor or whatever).

 

[xxParkerxx]

Oh. My. God. Why in the world were those not sewn into her head? Even I sew ribbons into my head for meets…and I’m only xcel gold.

 

[Ginger]

Tatum Drusch at 2023 Winter Cup. Happened around 0:58 mark.

 

[Hatsumomo]

Post-Winter Cup Memmel’s Memo must include banning unstitched and unsecured bows and ribbons.

 

[RedBirdie]

full video



Death to the ribbon trend!