Russia: Remove BILES And We Will Easily Beat Them!

[Sasha]

Seven? Eight?

 

[irichluck21]

@Doug1233 it did happen, but Biles put the USA girls in a hole from the start.
Obviously the Chiles fall didn’t help. But right after vault the US ladies were done and knew it.
Had Biles withdrawn from team finals completely and Suni vaulted successfully…it might have been a different outcome, especially with Russia having two falls on beam.

I think the whole situation was unusual and wasn’t what Valentina meant.
Let’s see what happens in Liverpool.

 

[Puffin]

Seven? Eight?

Hopefully she’ll retire before she hits 94 - she’s 86 this year?

 

[RichardL]

Also, adding Skinner to the main team in place if Biles would have been a huge boost to vault and might have helped morale. Although I don’t think Chiles’ mistake was because of stress related to Biles.

 

[irichluck21]

Also, adding Skinner to the main team in place if Biles would have been a huge boost to vault and might have helped morale.

Skinner could not have replaced Biles.

 

[RichardL]

I know, but I meant if Biles had not gone to Tokyo. Valentina’s comments were not related to Biles pulling out of the meet. She meant that Russia could beat the U.S. if Biles weren’t on the team. I think it’s fair to say that a team of Lee, McCallum, Chiles, and Skinner (although I would have preferred Wong or basically anyone else) would likely have beaten Russia.

 

[YurchenkoLoop]

USA lost by 3.5 points and Skinner’s Cheng wasn’t scoring anywhere near 17.0

 

[Hatsumomo]

And speaking of mismanagement, it probably helped that she got to use Listunova before she had time to destroy all her potential. Imagine what Listunova would look like if her first Olympics was 2024.

 

[RichardL]

Okay, fair enough!

 

[irichluck21]

Russia definitely benefitted from having Listunova a year earlier than expected.
Who would have replaced her on the team? Vorona or would it have been Germinasova?

 

[Doug1233]

I still don’t think this was the right call by the FIG.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

The US needed Jade in for Simone for that one to get interesting, Mykayla wouldn’t have done it. For the latter lineup to work, they’d have had to sit Jordan out on floor, which never looked like a realistic possibility. In retrospect it’s possible to come up with a theoretical argument that Jordan’s front double full pass was a bigger risk than anything any of the others were doing, but in practice it would never have worked like that.

 

[irichluck21]

I still don’t think this was the right call by the FIG.

I agree.
Only 3 teams used 2005 athletes: Russia (Listunova), Canada (Ava Stewart), and Belgium (Jutta Verkest)
For Canada it actually backfired because Stewart had struggled in TQ falling on her bars dismount and also falling on BB. Without those two falls, Canada would have easily qualified for TF.

Belgium qualified 5th with Verkest’s scores on all 4 counting toward team total. She also qualified to the AA final and did all 4 events in team finals. So Belgium really did benefit from her being on the team. Though I suspect that they would have still qualified to team finals even without Verkest.

Russia obviously benefited the most from Listunova on the team, specifically for UB and BB. Most likely Akhaimova would have done FX in TF. But who would have done UB and BB? Vorona? Mineava? Germinasova?

If you replace Listunova’s scores on UB/BB/FX with Akhaimova’s FX and Geraminasova UB/BB the team total is 166.761. So the US still takes silver by .665.

However, the US team would have been leading by 1.404 going into FX.
Chiles might have still fallen? Or maybe she goes for an easier routine knowing the US had a solid lead?

The Russians won by a large margin but Chiles’ FX disaster really is the reason for that large margin, coupled with Biles’ balk on VT.

Without Listunova, USA would have won qualifications as well. That puts them in a different mindset.
Perhaps Biles would have completely withdrawn from the start which would have allowed the US ladies enough prep time to know they were doing the AA each in TF.
Lee vaulting would have bumped up the score given what Biles had done.

I do believe Biles was pressured into competing in team finals despite the twisties and mental health concerns. After TQ performances, the team needed her at her best and added to the frustration of the twisties, she also felt that pressure to compete for her teammates.

I also wonder if they had let Suni do VT and FX and Chiles do UB, if they could have had Simone warm up double pikes off beam in the back gym and let her do BB only in TF.

So many what ifs…

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

The idea that the rules should’ve been changed to exclude a cohort of age eligible seniors in some futile attempt to replicate the impossible doesn’t get any more sensible with time. I do enjoy a good thought exercise though.

 

[Doug1233]

but they weren’t age eligible for the 2020 olympics

 

[irichluck21]

The idea that the rules should’ve been changed to exclude a cohort of age eligible seniors in some futile attempt to replicate the impossible doesn’t get any more sensible with time.

But the rules did change to let them compete.
It was still 2020 Olympics just postponed to 2021 due to Covid.
So technically the 2005 were not eligible.
They did not rename them 2021 Olympics.

 

[rue_des_plantes]

But the rules did change to let them compete.
It was still 2020 Olympics just postponed to 2021 due to Covid.
So technically the 2005 were not eligible.
They did not rename them 2021 Olympics.

What got changed? The FIG admitting that Tokyo needed to match up with their own technical directives isn’t a change, it’s the process and the rules they wrote. The entire point was that they never wrote or changed the rules to allow for the exclusion of eligible athletes in any clear or clean fashion.

The technical directives govern individual FIG meets, not vice versa. If your master document says “everybody who will be 16 at the end of this year gets to compete in FIG meets occurring in that calendar year,” there isn’t much to be done unless you admit you’re just nuking the rules on at least a partially emotional basis.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

They were though. The ones that actually happened. They all turned 16 that year. You don’t have to like it, but it’s a fact that 2005 born gymnasts were of age for Tokyo.

And the same point to @irichluck21. The decision of the IOC to keep the Tokyo 2020 name, not that they could’ve really done anything else considering all the money already spent on branding and merchandise, didn’t change any of the other aspects we’re discussing here. The default is for gymnasts who turn senior that calendar year to be age eligible, so for that not to happen the rules would have to be changed.

 

[QuietColours]

That’s not what the master document said, though. The document said athletes need to have birthdays on or before December 31, 2004.

 

[QuietColours]

I honestly still haven’t decided how I feel about the 2005s becoming age eligible.

On the pro, the intent of the rule is that you need to be 16 in the competition year, and that is how it’s been applied since 2007 (where it was even looser, allowing athletes who turned 16 in the Olympic year to compete as seniors). Internal consistency in intent of the age limits argues for it, and integrity in intent is important.

The cons are more numerous, though. It was literally the only rule changed–when I checked the rules for participation in gymnastics at the 2020 Olympics, it gave specific dates for eligibility. That’s significant. It also put a huge amount of stress on 14-15 year olds around the world to suddenly prepare for a major competition that they weren’t supposed to be able to do and had in no way been paced for. It worked out very well for Listunova, more mixed for Stewart (making the team, but not performing to potential), and badly for virtually everyone else (I’m not sure how Verkest did). The sudden increase in psychological pressure and physical training for young teens in the middle of the stress of a pandemic probably was not exactly great for them. I definitely don’t feel comfortable making a sweeping generality that sudden being eligible did more harm than good for them as people, but I think the argument can be made and needs to be considered.