It’s a giant swing 1/2 turn that sets up the dismount . It doesn’t really serve any purpose other than to turn the gymnast in the right direction for the dismount , hence the “orphan” .
Ideally, to do it with authenticity, you want to be short of handstand and possibly scared of it. Despite being a generally excellent bar worker and it being one of the easiest skills in the routine.
Agreed; which is why I’ll scream from the rooftops that an open-ended COP demands individual skill values not handicapped by archaic letter groups. VT values have finally seemed to stabilize in a logical fashion, and there’s no reason a release, for ex, couldn’t be assigned a value by adding these to a base #:
Subjective/manual decisions will always be required, but it’s more objective and moves the sport away from instances like: Tkatchev, Ray = D; Pike Tkatchev, Church = E; Tweddle = F; Nabieva = H; Nabieva 1/2 = H?
WTC is always so random - is a toe-on entry worth raising a skill’s value or not? But, I don’t mind a late turn + Ezhova counting for CR. The spirit of the CR should, IMO, be to show a variety of directions via grip changes and that’d be accomplished.
That so few athletes complete an actual Barani that passes vertical vs.a sideways / straddle-back 1/2 is another story.