Are the men's judges coming after Heath Thorpe?

[Denn]

Every one of those rules HAS had a reason, usually shared publicly or just sort of generally understood. We may disagree, but at least we knew the reason.

 

[KristyJ]

Having done all of the tuck, cat, and straight doubles, and wolf fulls plus, I can say that the former are all vastly easier than a wolf jump of more rotations, and that a tuck double is only marginally harder than a straight double. I can’t picture rotating a wolf jump double. Maybe a hop double.

 

[KristyJ]

How does the men’s technical committee evaluate the shoulder angles in giants? All I can figure is that there is something with wanting less of a shoulder angle at times as he travels over the bar? Otherwise I am at least a half point away from where they were. But I’ve also never judged men’s gymnastics.

 

[Denn]

Which giants did you want to deduct and for what part of the swing?

 

[GymBeauty]

EDITED - nvm, still can’t find anything in the MAG code to explain it.

I wonder exactly how they are applying this deduction - “Entry angle deviation from handstand in Endos, Stalders, Weilers and Adler.”

 

[KristyJ]

His shoulder angle as he travels over the bar is sometimes not in line with his body. Do I “want” to deduct for this? Not per se. Do I wonder if judges might? That is the question.

 

[Denn]

So you mean his giants have a closed shoulder angle at the top and you want to know if that’s a deduction. Not explicitly, but I can imagine someone judges taking one.

 

[Denn]

I wonder exactly how they are applying this deduction - “Entry angle deviation from handstand in Endos, Stalders, Weilers and Adler.”

Ah. You have to start all those skills from handstand, not earlier (though Adlers have one exception). Some guys start earlier, though, so they lose 0.1, 0.3, or 0.5. Heath Thorpe certainly would not get that deduction.

 

[GymBeauty]

It seems Heath would get a big deduction on his Endo in that case, because he starts it from a swing out of a release instead of from handstand. That seems crazy to me, but it’s why I was wondering. There doesn’t seem to be an exception for doing those skills out of releases.

 

[KristyJ]

That’s what I wondered. If they took for that, it would explain the score. It was what I could find when staring at the routine that hit the “maybe” category. Otherwise even being picky I wasn’t getting there.

 

[Denn]

No, that is an allowed variation of an Endo.

 

[KristyJ]

I meant the shoulder angle, but you may have been replying to GymB

 

[navyblue]

We might not like it, but it isn’t a conspiracy against men expressing themselves (not sure how sexuality is in any way relevant to that)

If you sincerely don’t understand, I’d be happy to explain. There are specific, concrete ways that – in an American context, I can’t speak for Russia – homophobia is weaponized against male gymnasts (and dancers, and figure skaters) due to cultural connotations that link expressivity, emphatic emotions, costuming, and other forms of performative affect to femininity. Is this linkage rational? No. But homophobia is in its definition irrational.

As a former American gymnast, I can tell you that male gymnasts were acutely aware of the homophobia levvied against male gymnasts, and many of them responded with a reactionary amplification of that homophobia themselves to prove their manliness and dis-identification from anything female or gay. Obviously, times have changed and the taboo against LGBT-related things has diminished significantly in America at least, but I was kind of amused to see how little has changed in this video that my friend sent me on Instagram the other day, commenting that she was surprised that male gymnasts would be so inflexible compared to women. And, she’s right to be surprised, because they really aren’t that inflexible. This video immediately brought me back to my gym in the 1990s, where the only acceptable way for a man to approach a WAG apparatus, for curiosity or fun, was by making a campy, comic display of exaggeration at how hard or strange it was to be on the balance beam for instance. (The number of times people would mock smash their balls on the beam, when the reality is that a pommel is far more dangerous to a scrotum than the beam ever was… :roll_eyes: ). Obviously, I can’t prove this was at play in this video, but I also cannot be convinced that a Stanford senior elite gymnast cannot perform a better split jump on beam if he actually tried.

And look, I’m not saying that making this kind of playful display is an act of homophobia in its own right, but the subtext is clear for those of us who’ve been in this exact environment is clear – it’s a performance that emphasizes on how foreign and unnatural a “women’s” beam skill is. Men are from mars, women from venus y’all. The most popular tone of comment on this video reinforces that fact to outsiders who don’t understand what’s going on – “wow, i had no idea that men and women’s gymnastics were sooooooo different!!!”. I was asked numerous times growing up how men can do splits without smashing their balls, to which I would sometimes archly respond, “we can’t”. Which is obviously a lie.

This is a type of conservative thinking that is related to, though not identical to homophobia, in ways that are too extensive for me to go into here, though I’m happy to provide more information if you are still confused. I am not claiming it proves what you call a “conspiracy”, and it certainly doesn’t prove Denn’s original question, but I thought it might be simple to explain the connections between gender norms and homophobia.

 

[MaryClare]

Whilst I appreciate the time you have taken to compose this lengthy, and frankly patronising response, I am not sure what point you are trying to make? That it’s homophobia that a male gymnast has to make a joke of it if he wants to try out the beam?! That it’s homophobic to think that women are more flexible than men?!

My 2 main points are that this isn’t about homophobic bullying/stereotypes that men who do artistic sports often experience from society. This is in relation to the governing body of the sport and the decisions it takes. My 2nd point is that the FIG is an international organisation and the stereotype that artistic sports are feminine actually don’t exist in all countries and cultures and are primarily confined to the Anglo sphere.

If you scrutinise the MTC through the lens of American sexual and gender politics, you are going to make incorrect assumptions.

 

[Doug1233]

though I’m happy to provide more information if you are still confused

This isn’t the way to get people on board with your opinion, just FYI.

ETA: MaryClare never said she was “confused”. And it is patronizing to imply that anyone who disagrees with you, is.

 

[cats]

I think this decision was disappointing, but I can see that the MTC might have glanced over at how complicated the dance element evaluations are in WAG and decided that was too much complexity to ask their judges to take on. I’d love to see a bunch of powerhouse dudes do eight foot high tour jetes, but maybe it’s just too hard to evaluate.

 

[MaryClare]

Of course. Most of us have been fans for a long time, and will have differing opinions regarding the direction of the sport. What is being alleged though is that the MTC rejected an element due to the sexuality of the gymnast who submitted it

 

[Denn]

@cats, I think that’s a reasonable question to raise. That said, they already have butterfly elements as well as deductions for lack of split, bent legs, landings, etc. So the complexity isn’t the evaluation. I will I say that they have repeatedly (historically) tried to pare down the list of elements in the Code, so that could be called “avoiding complexity”.

 

[navyblue]

That it’s homophobia that a male gymnast has to make a joke of it if he wants to try out the beam?! That it’s homophobic to think that women are more flexible than men?!

Yeah I meant sincerely that I would try to explain if you are confused, so I’ll continue in good faith for the moment… (Perhaps I patronized you, but just curious, as I’ve witnessed your interactions with people on this forum – you consider yourself innocent of this crime? Perhaps we can agree both withstand a touch of patronizing, like liberal deployment of punctuation like “!?!”, and continue this debate as the strong-willed and thick-skinned humans we both are ).

As I mentioned in my prior post: conservative ideas about gender are “related to, though not identical” to homophobia. I even stated that it’s not homophobic to, for instance, ham it up in exaggerating the purported differences in WAG and MAG – but I maintain that the animating force behind it is the same – for an (American) man to approach woman’s beam in earnest would be a bit more of a risky endeavor with regard to his masculinity (and by proxy, sexuality).

What is being alleged though is that the MTC rejected an element due to the sexuality of the gymnast who submitted it

You are mischaracterizing Denn’s idea in order to invalidate it. The idea (in this thread, but it’s circulating a few different corners of the gymternet) is rather that the MTC is actively disinterested in promoting ‘grace’ or ‘artistry’ or skills that tend to promote those ideals, at least in part due to ideas about gender roles and those gender roles’ connotations to sexuality, and homosexuality.

If you scrutinise the MTC through the lens of American sexual and gender politics, you are going to make incorrect assumptions.

I think this is a great point, truly. I am sensitive to this and admittedly, insensitive to it in ways that arrogant Americans tend to be, projecting their cultural norms onto the world. I can’t undo that blind spot. Even still, I am unlikely to be convinced, despite that the MTC is comprised of a heterogeneous international body, that they are insulated in a vacuum from the cultural ideas I’ve outlined above. Might I propose a bit of the same consideration when reflecting on views, say the homophobia in MAG – that you might not have direct, firsthand insight into?

Reflecting on the original question posed by this thread, I actually disagree. I am hard-pressed to believe MTC is acting retributively toward Heath, especially on the basis of that single HB score as supporting datum. But I think a more extensive discussion of the unknowable decision-making process that the MTC is engaged in is worthy of our speculation – or at least, no less worthy than our rampant speculation about other unknowables, like whether Simone Biles is too busy planning a wedding to work on her vaulting.

 

[Denn]

You are mischaracterizing Denn’s idea in order to invalidate it. The idea (in this thread, but it’s circulating a few different corners of the gymternet) is rather that the MTC is actively disinterested in promoting ‘grace’ or ‘artistry’ or skills that tend to promote those ideals, at least in part due to ideas about gender roles and those gender roles’ connotations to sexuality, and homosexuality.

This is a GREAT summary. Especially the “mischaracterizing Denn’s idea” part. And I can’t help but wonder why that has happened again after I explicitly pointed out the mistake.