Random thought thread

[tempest]

Add gymnastic things that you keep thinking about… I’ll start… I have tons but these are the only ones coming to mind at the moment

1. Deferr won TWO Olympic vault titles yet never even made a World final on Vault!
2. If new life were in play, the VT results of Seoul would be reversed!
   
   

 

[RAFIKI]

1. Gogean’s 97 beam is infamous but the low beam section is more interesting than 95% of those done in routines ever since.
2. Tweddle was two dismount landings away from being double Olympic champion on bars. I think about this one most weeks.

 

[MaryClare]

Re Tweddle, that seems a bit of a long shot. What did she lose on the landings?

 

[RAFIKI]

She was only 0.101 away from gold in 2008. Tbf she probably lost more on the late toe-full just beforehand; but she had a step and a low chest on the landing so there’s easily a tenth there. In 2012 she had multiple steps backward and was 0.218 away from gold. Code people would know better than me what she would have lost under those rules.

 

[RAFIKI]

Deferr won TWO Olympic vault titles yet never even made a World final on Vault!

That’s a wild fact

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Obviously she’d have won 2012 with a better landing, but I never think of 2008 that way because the root of the problem looked to be the late pirouette. You’re right though.

Saying that, I don’t know if Beth would’ve carried on had she won in Beijing. And that was some quad she had.

 

[irichluck21]

Saying that, I don’t know if Beth would’ve carried on had she won in Beijing. And that was some quad she had.

If it was any other quad I would have agreed.

But Worlds in 2009 was in London and 2012 Olympics also in London. Having two “home meets” that quad would have likely motivated her to continue through London.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Beth said at the time she hadn’t made the decision to carry on iirc. She was properly held together with string in 08 too, we were on tenterhooks as to whether she was actually going to make it to Beijing. Then in the interview after she came 4th she said I’ll have to keep going now, or words to that effect.

I thought as soon as the score came up though, she’s not going anywhere. Think we might’ve come to the same conclusion on here actually.

eta- 2010 Euros too, and that silver was absolutely colossal for GB.

 

[Hatsumomo]

The fact that Yang Bo has no World or Olympic beam medals. She would perform beautifully in low-stakes competitions, but Worlds and the Olympics just seemed to mess with her head.

 

[KathySantoni]

I always wonder why Gogean retired in 98 instead of holding on until Sydney. She looked great at the World cup final and wonder what she would have done had she stuck around.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

She’d been retiring for quite some time by that point. Maybe she’d finally had enough.

 

[irichluck21]

I always wonder why Gogean retired in 98 instead of holding on until Sydney. She looked great at the World cup final and wonder what she would have done had she stuck around.

Gogean no longer wanted to compete bars and felt pressure to do so for the team competition.
She told Belu she would compete in Lausanne and retire.

Technically, Gogean retired after 1997 Worlds, as this was her official retirement statement in ABC interview during the ABC coverage of Worlds.

She decided to compete in 1998 at the World Cup final since she had accumulated points to compete in three finals and there was prize money for placing in the top 3.
She didn’t have to do all around at this meet and she had given up training bars the year before, also there was no team competition.

 

[MaryClare]

She must hate Ponor so much

 

[onodian]

Isn’t it enough she unleashed the gogean on us on that meet, forcing us to incessantly downgrade ever since?

 

[onodian]

I do think beth comes out on top if she had a cleaner dismount sequence in Beijing. I’d frankly would have welcome her as a champion, that whole final was iffy, what with 1 and 2 qualifying with a fall and 3 looking underscored, honestly.

 

[blake]

I’ve been watching Beijing again and it’s such a shame that code was so ridiculous because there was a lot of potentially great gymnasts. Beam in particular was painful to watch. Despite routines overbrimming with skills, I found it really hard to pay attention. And the pauses were so bad. Montreal would have a field day with those E scores.

Bars judging at that games seemed pretty lenient. I did some amateur judging of the team final and I found myself lower than the panel average often, sometimes lower than the lowest judge even. I felt like I had close to 2+ in deductions for a lot of routines that received scores in the mid to high 8s. Lots of single judges going 9+ for routines that I thought had at least a point in clear deductions. Judging in real time is a struggle for me and I’m not well versed enough to confidently judge ie when to take a 1 vs 3, so I’d love to hear some thoughts on this.

 

[makam]

I think Brazil (or France, or Canada, or any country, really) should try to recruit Trinity Thomas. I could watch her gymnastics all day and she would be an asset to just about any team on the planet with her clean, consistent gymnastics.

 

[Hatsumomo]

Well, we don’t want the Belarus thing happening again, so while she’d be a great fit for Brazil, probably not a great idea.

 

[irichluck21]

I think Brazil (or France, or Canada, or any country, really) should try to recruit Trinity Thomas. I could watch her gymnastics all day and she would be an asset to just about any team on the planet with her clean, consistent gymnastics.

This is no longer possible.

After the Belamericans in 2015 and the recruiting done by Azerbaijan around the same time, the FIG cracked down on nationality switching.

In order to compete for a given country you have to be a citizen of the country or have family ties to that country with a route to citizenship. Or you have to have residence in the country for one full year with legal proof of residency (so Kwan and Dickson would be ineligible never having set foot in Belarus).

Also, there needs to be a full two years since you last competed for your previous country (this does not apply to Thomas since her last international assignment was in 2018 I believe).

Trinity Thomas would be unable to meet any of this criteria, as her parents are US citizens (no dual citizenship) and have permanent residence in the US. She could potentially move to another country to get one full year of legal residency, but Paris Olympics are July 2024. So she would need to establish residency shortly after NCAA and spring semester have concluded. This of course would only apply for any countries that qualify a full team. It is too late for Thomas to change nationalities in time for Worlds this fall, which is the qualifier for individuals, since she would not get in a full year of legal residency.

The difference is that Sydney Barros (PUR) and Aleah Finnegan (PHI) were able to switch nationalities because 1. they had not competed internationally for the US for two years (both last in 2019) so they could switch. 2 they both have a parent from that country, Finnegan’s mother is from Philippines and I think Barros mother is from Puerto Rico.
Danusia Francis was able to switch to Jamaica because her father was born in Jamaica and he held dual citizenship.

With these rules, if I were a gymnast competing I could switch from US to Canada because my mother was born there and has Canadian citizenship. She moved to the US when she was 6 and has US citizenship so she has a dual citizenship.
However, my cousin does not since both his parents were born in the US and unlike my mother, his mother was not born/lived in Canada.

 

[MaryClare]

This really isn’t how dual citizenship works. It’s far more complicated than that. Countries set their own citizenship criteria, and can make exceptions for anyone, ie elite athletes.

The FIG can set its own criteria for the changing of countries. However, this would not apply for a gymnast who has never been FIG registered. For example, someone who has never made their country’s national team is unlikely to have ever received a FIG licence.

In theory, any country could bestow citizenship on a ex L10, NCAA gymnast with no family links, never lived there, register her for FIG licence and she could compete internationally for them tomorrow.

Every case of nationality switch has always been examined on an individual basis by the FIG, but I’m guessing they’ve tightened things up to avoid the situation that exists in figure skating.