Gymcastic. Thoughts?

[ruby]

I think it’s important to remember that Simone
is well into adulthood now, that she is a superstar and was most likely very vocal about her training. When we talk about her not being managed as well as she could have been after Rio, it should not be just about the Landis but also about her. Who knows what she insisted to do because at the end of the day it was her and only her decision to make…

 

[MaryClare]

Does learning to double back off beam mess with your ability to do a twisting dismount? No. Does learning to double back on floor cause twisties? No. Are there many male gymnasts training both yurchenko double back and twisting yurchenko vaults at the same time. Yes.

 

[tempest]

Are there many male gymnasts training both yurchenko double back and twisting yurchenko vaults at the same time. Yes.

there are? I love when guys do double saltos backwards on VT. Any examples?

 

[MaryClare]

Dalaloyan is the one who immediately springs to mind

 

[tempest]

Dalaloyan is the one who immediately springs to mind

He’s done a yurchenko double back vault? I did not know that… do you know when he competed it to try to find the vid on YT?

 

[Sasha]

I think it’s important to remember that Simone
is well into adulthood now, that she is a superstar and was most likely very vocal about her training. When we talk about her not being managed as well as she could have been after Rio, it should not be just about the Landis but also about her.

My professional life is very different from Simone’s, but if I suffered some sort of very public breakdown (for lack of a better word) and people were commenting about how I’d been mismanaged, I’d be f*cking LIVID. “Managed” to me suggests a certain level of passivity, like a child, or a product or an asset to be optimised, rather than an adult with agency over their own career. I get what people are saying, and there may even be some effort to distance Simone from the decisions people are questioning so as not to “blame” her for the situation (not that blame is required). But the choice of word just sets my teeth on edge.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Oh is that all you meant? I thought you must have something much more specific than that for the caps and the certainty. I mean, nobody thinks it’s impossible to successfully compete both twisting and double back elements.

 

[RedBirdie]

My professional life is very different from Simone’s, but if I suffered some sort of very public breakdown (for lack of a better word) and people were commenting about how I’d been mismanaged, I’d be f*cking LIVID. “Managed” to me suggests a certain level of passivity, like a child, or a product or an asset to be optimised, rather than an adult with agency over their own career. I get what people are saying, and there may even be some effort to distance Simone from the decisions people are questioning so as not to “blame” her for the situation (not that blame is required). But the choice of word just sets my teeth on edge.

I mean, Simone pays people to manage her gymnastics, her public commitments, her sponsorships, etc., no? Would it be better if I were to say she was not coached as well as she could have been? That her advisors appear to have failed her?

 

[rue_des_plantes]

Her technique was slipping. She was cheating takeoffs, her BHS wasn’t as stretched as before, she wasn’t getting the same height on her passes. She was rushing more overall. All the impact and all the numbers will have your body screaming at you, even more when you’re punching sideways on tired/injured legs. All that and then the pressure and expectation of being given the gold medals before the competition has started is a recipe for disaster, which is what he said. It’s too much. And eventually the body will say enough is enough and just shut off. There were so many things that were different this time around than last time. There wasn’t one thing that lead to it, I think it was like 20 things at the same time. Has there ever been this amount of expectation on a gymnast at their second Olympics? If there was, they surely weren’t doing what Simone was doing.

It was alarming to see in person at Trials. The BHS weren’t as long, she kept grasping her back after certain passes, and the switch leaps she was warming up on floor were so awful, I couldn’t believe it was her.

Not weighing in on “what caused the twisties?” or if it’s connected to the quality of her work because that is a multifactorial question that probably requires an interdisciplinary team to solve, if even possible. But I agree her work looked worse this year. You can see the spreadsheet becoming skittish with Simone at times during selection, and much moreso with Chiles.

 

[JaJa]

Not weighing in on “what caused the twisties?” or if it’s connected to the quality of her work because that is a multifactorial question that probably requires an interdisciplinary team to solve, if even possible.

Exactly

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

I doubt anyone imagines we’re going to solve it! But it’s very interesting to read your perspective on the skills earlier this year @rue_des_plantes . I haven’t seen the spreadsheet.

 

[Sasha]

I mean, Simone pays people to manage her gymnastics, her public commitments, her sponsorships, etc., no?

I know and I’ve been turning the question over in my head for just this reason. It’s true that people have managers, but generally if things go awry in a more traditional work situation we wouldn’t describe the person as being mismanaged. We might say that they were set up to fail, hung out to dry, used and burnt out, etc.

Would it be better if I were to say she was not coached as well as she could have been? That her advisors appear to have failed her?

I think so? Maybe it’s splitting hairs to some, but I think it bothers me because has been (/still is) this tendency to treat athletes like products rather than people. See Nike’s treatment of runners Mary Cain and Alyson Felix for recent examples. And there also seems to be a tendency more specifically in gymnastics to treat the athletes like idiots/children well beyond the age where being treated like a child is warranted.

By the way my comment was not specifically targeting you; I’ve seen similar wording from multiple people both here and elsewhere on the gymternet.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

It’s true that people have managers, but generally if things go awry in a more traditional work situation we wouldn’t describe the person as being mismanaged. We might say that they were set up to fail, hung out to dry, used and burnt out, etc.

I might well say a person in a professional setting was being mismanaged, and I’d use it in other sporting contexts too. One often hears of (almost always male) footballers being mismanaged, for example. But you’re right to raise the issues of terminology and how we think about this.

As we see more WAGs continuing into their 20s and 30s and, hopefully, having greater autonomy and doing the sport the way they want to, I think these concepts will become more important. We aren’t very used to thinking about them.

I’m reminded of Lisa Spini talking about needing to ensure Mykayla stayed interested as a reason why they focused on difficulty more than execution. Also Amanda Reddin said something about Beth Tweddle needing the stimulation of learning new skills to keep her wanting to carry on even quite late in her career, not that she’s an ideal coaching example. I can see how coaching twentysomething women with money, other goals and options could affect the way they need motivating.

 

[choclatechip45]

I’m a big baseball fan and when a pitcher gets injured the blame is usually on the coaching staff for mismanaging the pitcher. Most of those pitchers are older than Simone is. I don’t think it’s condescending at all to say Simone was mismanaged. The Landi’s are being paid to manage Simone’s gymnastics.

 

[Sasha]

Okay, maybe I’m alone in my reaction to the choice of words. That’s okay. Vive la difference and all. (That’s not meant to be as bitter as it sounds, I’m just in a rough place and it’s coming out as sarcasm.)

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

It might be used differently in different English speaking societies maybe? Hope you are ok anyway.

 

[JaJa]

Words just have different meaning/significance to different people I think. And some words act as triggers to us. Sorry you are in a rough place now. These are just bad times for most of us I think. Hang in there.

 

[Sasha]

In retrospect it’s probably because my last job treated their staff like objects, if not liabilities.

Thanks for the kind words. “Post” pandemic is turning out to be more challenging than all the lockdowns over the winter. It’ll pass though.

 

[rlayt]

Hang in there. Better times have to be ahead.

 

[Denn]

Not sure how relevant this is to the main conversation, but to address an earlier disagreement:

@MaryClare @tempest I personally don’t remember Dalaloyan ever doing Yurchenko double saltos, but I would not be at all surprised if he had played around with them.

Eddie Penev did Yurchenko 2.5s many times, some Yurchenko triples, and definitely Yurchenkos with 2 flips. There was video of him training a Yurchenko double tuck with a full twist, but I can’t find it anywhere now.

Melissanidis could twist his Yurchenkos. I know he did a 1.5 twist even in his later years, and I am pretty sure he did a double around 94 or 95 or 96.

The best example, though, is David Sender, who could do both a Yurchenko double pike and a 2.5.