Most Frustrating Gymnast To Watch?

[onodian]

It’s a good thing we got to take Andrade off of this list, btw.

But yeah, hard agree on Saraiva

 

[Doug1233]

Has anyone said Grishina yet?

 

[tsarinajen]

I personally wouldn’t call Grishina the most frustrating though by the Olympics, everyone around her failed her. Yes, Aliya was “slower” to come back from the ACL injury, so one could argue they were hoping to get the second spot in the AA, but some of her skill choices just didn’t make sense. There was no reason to crank a double double at the Olympics. She gained what a tenth in difficulty?

I know that Grishina was always going to make that team, but Dementyeva probably would have been a better fit. Paseka was still doing bars then, right?

 

[onodian]

Grishina’s pacing was top notch wtf Russian craziness. I’m glad they might have learned the lesson with her and at least held back listunova a bit with the sudden crazy fx upgrades that had “meltdown” written all over them

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

I think Grishina goes beyond frustrating and approaches devastating.

Also I’m possibly more upset that she just faded away in 2013 than I am about London. At 2013 Euros, she looked really good and I allowed myself to think, maybe this is going to be a Sacramone style second quad glow up. She’s still Russian, obviously, so that would no doubt have involved a zero on vault in major global competition and probably falling on an A rated element in the Olympic beam final, or similar. But to just fade away? That was upsetting.

 

[Puffin]

Back in the day Natalia Shaposhnikova used to really frustrate me - she was the most beautiful gymnast - but her bhs-lo on bb was just ugly … and they never fixed it

 

[Puffin]

Wasn’t Grishina the gymnast who had the crazy gym-mom? I seem to remember Grishina’s mom insisted on living at Round Lake with her and managing her affairs. Then the mom transferred all of Grishina’s money into her own accounts, used it to buy properties in her own name and locked Grishina out of the property that she had paid for. I think there was a court case?

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

I believe so.

 

[rlayt]

Her whole family! It must have been terrible for her.

https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/105449303.html?

 

[makam]

If the inability to fix their form makes them disappointing, the list will be long. But tops of my list is Chuso. Love her drive and longevity but damn, her form is all over the place even 30 years later. If she had perfected one vault instead of trying all of them…

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

I accept that some of the more difficult ones have had scrappy form, but Chusovitina has done some beautiful piked baranis and Tsuk/Kas vaults in her time.

Her vaults in Indy, for example, had great execution.

 

[makam]

Before my time. 2008 onward is my point of reference. But, yes, those were nice with tight form.

 

[RedBirdie]

I was lucky enough to be in Indy and see the Soviets compete as Soviets one last time. What a time.

No one will ever mistake Chussy as a great artist, but her tumbling was DIVINE back then. (And absolutely mind-blowingly difficult for 1991)

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Ah, ok. Well I think it’s fair to say her best execution days were behind her by 08. It was more about the dynamics and power by the late 00s.

She really was beautiful on vault and when tumbling in the early 90s in particular though. That video Robin posted is still brilliant 32 years on. She was unlucky not to get the VT/FX double in Indy, but I suppose the early 90s judges had to penalise people who did something other than an FTY.

 

[david]

Chuso was also pretty good on bars in the early 90s. The dismount combo was stunning.

 

[Hatsumomo]

Necromancing this thread to add that Skye Blakely + beam = very frustrating

 

[Big_rock_show]

I remember having high hopes for Nehezda Ivanova and Shantessa Pama back in the day. And Shayla Worley.

 

[onodian]

It’s a good thing we got to take Andrade off of this list, btw.

But yeah, hard agree on Saraiva

Oooh guess we can scratch off saraiva too, even if bb still feels a little ugh

 

[Puffin]

I remember having high hopes for Nehezda Ivanova and Shantessa Pama back in the day. And Shayla Worley.

I wouldn’t call Ivanova frustrating - the end of her career was just sad - she was a beautiful gymnast who suffered from a terrible bone disease that damaged her hips

 

[blake]

Not a gymnast per se, but honorable mention to Stanford’s WAG team. So many talented freshman that never live up to the hype or even compete more than q handful of times.