REWIND : Week One 23/09 : 1998 Goodwill Games

[Sasha]

Damn, balance beam is eating people ALIVE here.

I had totally forgotten about Meng Fei, she was wonderful. Ling Jie too - her bhs-Onodi-front aerial is my favourite beam combo of all time, even though hitting it is like catching lightning in a bottle.

 

[RichardL]

My memory is that she was injured in 1996 and otherwise would have certainly been on the team.

I'm sad that the footage didn't catch Ling Jie's Rulfova mount, which she goes on to miss in the EF.

 

[Matilda23]

Meng Fei had broken her hand in 96 iirc

 

[RAFIKI]

I enjoyed rewatching that and have two pages of notes! I’ll have to condense them before approaching the keyboard.

 

[CameliasFingerpaint]

Is 1997 officially when Romanian bars went to shit? What happened?

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Is 1997 officially when Romanian bars went to shit? What happened?

Pretty much. It was a weak event in Atlanta but they weren't terrible. Marinescu, Amanar and Milo were all fine.

I always thought it was interesting that their bars collapse coincided with the end of compulsories. Amanar really encapsulates that. Her compulsory in Atlanta was lovely, and her optional was serviceable enough. Then tanked in the space of 12 months.

 

[irichluck21]

Romania won compulsory bars in Atlanta.

 

[Matilda23]

Adrian Goreac left Romania in 1990 maybe they had something to do with the bars decline.

 

[MaryClare]

Romania won compulsory bars in Atlanta.

Most Romanian gymnasts don’t particularly struggle with bars fundamentals, so that doesn’t surprise me. Plus their training method of high reps lends well to compulsories in general.

If you watch Ponor on bars, you’ll see what I mean. Where as Sabrina Voinea has issues on bars that are more commonly seen from US gymnasts who struggle with bars

 

[CameliasFingerpaint]

Most Romanian gymnasts don’t particularly struggle with bars fundamentals, so that doesn’t surprise me. Plus their training method of high reps lends well to compulsories in general.

If you watch Ponor on bars, you’ll see what I mean. Where as Sabrina Voinea has issues on bars that are more commonly seen from US gymnasts who struggle with bars

I always thought Ponor’s bars were shockingly unpainful to watch.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Ponor's swing and transitions always struck me as pretty good, considering some of her other issues.

 

[RAFIKI]

Arena

• Ah flowers on the podium, I wonder when this trend started?
• I only ever find the old vault weird when it's a comp I didn't see live at the time. The horse really stands out at any comp that I've gone back and filled in via YT.
• Reusing sounds irks me, that rotation end noise is so linked to Atlanta in my mind and it was weird hearing it again here.
• Didn't seem to be an insanely home-biased crowd.
• Odd to see the gold medalist being presented first rather than bronze, but then I did see a lot of medal ceremonies at the Olympics.
• I'd forgotten the huge cheque thing existed!

Commentary/coverage

• I guess three years post-LGIPB we'd progressed to not showing weight on the screen alongside height, but a commentator later mentioning it
  
• I enjoyed "muscles in her hair" about Produnova.
• I enjoyed hearing so much about how warm ups and training went.
• It was surprising to hear so few skills being named throughout the competition.
• "Desperate 9th spot" was a little over-dramatic!
• Ouch on the "Romania not known for artistic or inspired gymnastics" burn.
• Such a tone of surprise on the "really an impressive young gymnast" comment after McLaughlin's cool beam mount sequence.
• The anecdote about Produnova crying for hours at Titanic leading to the "beam is her iceberg" comment was.....something.
• I watched the longer version and was impressed with the number of gymnasts/routines shown. Unusual for a comp like this to not show all of the American routines but follow Polozkova round.
• Precursor to Patterson's version with the "that's too bad" after Khorkina fell on FX.
• I watched the long version and scanned through some of the short version to see what was different (it has Moceanu's UB). There's a Romanian gymnastics fluff piece that's worth a watch at the start of the short version. Did any of the gymnasts Milosovich coached make elite?

Gymnasts

• Meng Fei feels like such a one comp wonder for me (even though I know she's not) because I just think about her 97 worlds routines as that's when I saw her in real-time. I agree that her floor routine is "delightful".
• Produnova has such an upright VT run.
• Not a fan of Khorkina's leotard. I have a soft spot for a lot of the weirder Romanian ones that don't use their colours and don't scream Romania (think the multi-coloured Tianjin leo), the red and black one comes under this category.
• Not sure if Meng Fei was doing a cat leap or a dance flourish after her first jump combo, if it's the former then it might be the only thing I can beat her at!
• Polozkova has strong toe point on her beam dance.
• What happened to McLaughlin after 98 CWG?
• Really enjoyed how fluid Khorkina was on beam and the different levels she used. Thought her routine with one big wobble was scored quite harshly compared to others with multiple small mistakes.
• Teslenko's FX music didn't seem to suit her style.
• I don't remember having seen Ling Jie's FX before.
• Wonder what Olaru and Moceanu were talking about on the medal rostrum?

Gymnastics

• Gosh I really miss UB mounts. Not a lot of variety here (hecht mount by many gymnasts and jump to low bar handstand from Moceanu) but it was still refreshing to see something other than a jump to kip/upstart.
• I also enjoyed seeing straight casts and that piked kick out front giant again.
• So who did have the best Phelps?
• When did Chinese gymnasts stop doing the two salutes in different directions? I think the Sydney team did it but not sure after that. Not sure I've ever known what it signified either. As a teenager I thought they were saluting the direction of China as well as the judges. Not given it much thought since.
• So many underrotated triple twists
• I don't miss twisting wolf jumps, Produnova's on FX is the exception.
• I enjoyed seeing Shushunova's on FX again, especially the stylised ones like McLaughlin's with her head to the side.
• I liked seeing gymnasts compete their harder vault second, just makes sense to me.
• Do not miss the long pauses in floor corners.

Nostalgia

• Ah massive tracksuits! Possibly even shellsuits. Good times!
• I fell for Moceanu in Atlanta and rewatched those videos (FX EF, gala, highlights) so many times that I wore them out. I was devasted that she didn't medal on FX and I resented Amanar for years because of it (got over this when I grew up a bit!). When my school got internet in 98 Moceanu was the first thing I looked up and I was so happy to see that she'd actually won something (at this point I didn't know she won US nationals and I didn't understand that winning wasn't everything). I had no idea what the Goodwill Games were and it didn't occur to me to look that up!
• Later in 98 we got internet at home and it took me 45 minutes on my dial up connection for Moceanu's FX to load. I think it was an embedded Quicktime player file as I have memories of that logo while I waited. I couldn't save the file so I waited the 45 minutes many times. You could watch while it had partially loaded so I came to know the beginning of that routine very well

 

[hav12gym31]

Amanar's basics really deteriorated after compulsories were discontinued. As a whole Romania did not look great.

I really enjoyed watching Moceanu. I really like an older moceanu.