Question: does gymnasts incur deduction if they land with low chest when doing back salto on balance beam?

[Iminhanoi]

Question: does gymnasts incur deduction if they land with low chest when doing back salto on balance beam?

It’s extremely hard to land with up chest when doing back salto on on balance beam. Because on balance beam, they can’t rely on leg power.

Cheng Fei, Deng Linlin, Shawn Johnson, Sui Lu, Gabby Douglas: they all landed with low chest when doing back salto on beam.

 

[Hatsumomo]

A low chest upon landing is always a deduction. Whether that deduction is consistently taken is a separate discussion. Shawn was a consistent perpetrator of landing with a low chest most of which was due to her not having a proper set for her salto skills. Unfortunately, I can't go back and look at the discussions at the time of Shawn's scoring whether she was given the deductions.

 

[Concorde]

The body posture deductions for chest position are as follows:

- Head above hip height -> No deduction

- Head at hip height -> 0.1

- Head below hip height -> 0.3

Because routines are judged in real time, still frame images are not necessarily an accurate reflection of how deductions will be assessed. For example, fans often say that Johnson's execution scores would be killed by deductions for chest position on her landings. However, this is actually not the case. STS (judge training software) contains an evaluation of portions of Johnson's balance beam routine from the 2008 Olympics. She received no deductions for landing posture on the back tuck, and only 0.1 in landing posture on her tucked full. If you watch each element in slow motion or freeze frame the point at which her feet land on the beam, you can see she does meet / comes very close to meeting the criteria for harsher deductions on both skills. However, because Johnson stands upright very quickly upon landing, her actual landing posture is well disguised and she is able to avoid more severe penalties on these elements.

 

[Iminhanoi]

A low chest upon landing is always a deduction. Whether that deduction is consistently taken is a separate discussion. Shawn was a consistent perpetrator of landing with a low chest most of which was due to her not having a proper set for her salto skills. Unfortunately, I can't go back and look at the discussions at the time of Shawn's scoring whether she was given the deductions.

The body posture deductions for chest position are as follows:

- Head above hip height -> No deduction

- Head at hip height -> 0.1

- Head below hip height -> 0.3

Because routines are judged in real time, still frame images are not necessarily an accurate reflection of how deductions will be assessed. For example, fans often say that Johnson's execution scores would be killed by deductions for chest position on her landings. However, this is actually not the case. STS (judge training software) contains an evaluation of portions of Johnson's balance beam routine from the 2008 Olympics. She received no deductions for landing posture on the back tuck, and only 0.1 in landing posture on her tucked full. If you watch each element in slow motion or freeze frame the point at which her feet land on the beam, you can see she does meet / comes very close to meeting the criteria for harsher deductions on both skills. However, because Johnson stands upright very quickly upon landing, her actual landing posture is well disguised and she is able to avoid more severe penalties on these elements.

When Shawn Johnson doing her full twisting back tuck salto in Olympic 2008, her face even lower than her knees.

 

[Hatsumomo]

As @Concorde said, Shawn would rise quickly to mask how low her chest was. Same as her doing the quick crossed-leg thing when landing her Amanar to hide her underrotation. The trickery worked in her favor if she never received the low landing deductions and her Amanar was never downgraded.