Gymnastics Nostalgia: Underrated, underdiscussed, or you left us too soon gymnasts

[RedBirdie]

wow, that's a lot more people with two vaults than I expected.

 

[Matilda23]

I don't think anyone mentioned Ekaterina Lobazniuk. Apart from her 2min set up for her beam Arabian, she had many wonderful qualities. But that knee injury just ended it all for her.

I don’t mind long pauses before big skills. If it means a gymnast can perform a difficult skill safely, it’s good.
Lobazniuk was delightful and I thought she would be the 2001 World AA champ. Was difficult for her in 99-00 with Khorkina, Produnova and Zamolodchikova strong in AA too.

 

[RichardL]

I don’t mind long pauses before big skills. If it means a gymnast can perform a difficult skill safely, it’s good.
Lobazniuk was delightful and I thought she would be the 2001 World AA champ. Was difficult for her in 99-00 with Khorkina, Produnova and Zamolodchikova strong in AA too.

That was definitely a great battle for the all-around between those four! What a strong core team, no wonder Arkayev thought he had gold in the bag and chose to flex with the other two spots.

 

[naimushina]

I thought Meng Fei was quite underrated; she had a Mo Salto and bars as well as a gorgeous floor routine

Also, Kim Un Jong (and many other North Korean gymnasts) had amazing bars and I love her pirouettes. I wish the FIG would reduce the emphasis on hitting handstands because I feel like it limits creativity.

 

[MaryClare]

That was definitely a great battle for the all-around between those four! What a strong core team, no wonder Arkayev thought he had gold in the bag and chose to flex with the other two spots.

Originally the last 2 spots were Elena Dolgopolova and Anna Chepeleva, with Anastasia Kolesnikova the alternate. Unfortunately, Dolgopolova picked up an injury at the pre Olympic training camp in Vladivostok.

Dolgopolova was a justiable choice, her 2000 UB routine was 2nd only to Khorkina. However, there was a clear financial motivation here. Dolgopolova and Chepeleva were club mates, training in Volzhsky with Tamara Khokhlova. In 1999, Khokhlova had emigrated to Germany and Dolgopolova and Chepeleva began training full time at round lake with Arkaev as their personal coach (he already had Produnova by this point).

After the Olympics, the personal coaches of every gymnast receives a financial reward if they win medals. So Arkaev would have received half of the coaches prize pot if the team won a medal as 3 of the gymnasts were his. Plus money for any individual medals his own gymnasts won. And as the head coach of the team, an additional payment for that too.

 

[irichluck21]

Yeah starting in 1997, event titles were given out on night 1 of competition.
The exception was 1999, when event finals were brought back after doing only one night of AA.

Maloney was national vault champion in 2000 and she didn't do a vault from another vault family.

I forgot what year it was when the national champion was determined by both nights of competition. 2006?