What happened in Team Finals

[arabiandoublefront]

I don’t think gymnastics is just her, and I feel bad for her, too. This just shows to me how toxic the atmosphere for gymnastics has become with the combination of the typical risks of the sport and the huge expectations. I’ve never seen this happen before. Not at the Olympics.

 

[RedBirdie]

I am almost convinced that the Yurchenko Double Pike destroyed the Amanar. The different block of the YDP made the Amanar feel unstable. Every upper level gymnast knows what it feels like when you go to pull the multiple twist and you start to go end over end instead. If you start “cruising” you just bail right away… automatic… just what happens.

I buy this. And think it’s another example of how Simone was mismanaged. She should have been training two and only two vaults. That she came to the Olympics and was uncertain of what vaults she would do blows my mind.

 

[Passion]

Is this really the sport of gymnastic’s fault though? Every Olympics the media has their star they hype to no end. There’s no Phelps or Usain Bolt this year. The only other person I’ve heard mentioned by NBC is Katie Ledecky. It’s just been Simone Simone Simone the goat this whole year from the media. She talked about feeling pressure to get the 3-peat in 2015, pressure to win the Olympics after winning 3 Worlds in 2016. This year was worse, because the media expected her to top her Rio results. Plus the COVID delay had her hanging on to do this for a year longer than she had prepared herself for. Another entire year of hype and pressure.

Basically I feel like there would have been the same pressure if she had been dominating diving, beach vollyball, swimming, track etc.

 

[Dex]

He would be my ex BF
That is really the problem, people needing to have an opinion without knowing what they are talking about, the price of SM…

 

[anon65539698]

I hope I don’t offend anyone – I haven’t posted on a gym board in years. Here are my observations and wonderings. Maybe this is naive and simplistic – I never did gymnastics at the level that it is today – but I wondered if Simone’s uncharacteristic overrotations in qualifications, and then loss of air sense or twisting sense, had something to do with her training different skills that have different levels of height and therefore different levels of needed repulsion. For example, on floor, after doing a triple twisting double back, which probably needs more height than say a full-in or double double, that might lead to you overrotating a full-in. Similarly, if you train a double double dismount off beam, it seems to me you might overrotate a full-in dismount. Similarly the Yurchenko double pike vs the other vaults she’s doing. Now maybe gymnasts can handle all of this, but I think I would get confused about how much take-off momentum is needed, and easily overpower it.

Also, on NBC, did you see the brief clip of Tom Forster with his head in his hands? And it sounded like – I could be totally wrong – that although you could barely hear it, and maybe I misheard this, that Simone said to Jordan, not to worry, this (I thought she meant this type of mental health issue) has happened before. So that made me feel like this will resolve itself in time. But I may not have heard this correctly, and I may be taking something out of context.

I love the comments about the lack of productivity during the Olympics, haha, so true, I can totally relate. Augh! It happens every four years. But give yourself a break! It’s worth it.

Simone is a human being. Media hype is always exaggerated and unhealthy. Great job by Sunisa, Jordan, and Grace!

 

[onodian]

This is a very well mannered post, thanks for the contribution and don’t be scared to post something out of line, if anybody has an issue with what you say my experience is it will be pointed out and we will discuss/move on. Except with doug and his not-awarding-connections hate speech which i just won’t stand for

 

[Dex]

Love him! Still not loving the gorilla actions after his routines but loving this!!! Well and humbly spoken about his own goals and the pressure on Simone…

 

[JaJa]

I hope I don’t offend anyone – I haven’t posted on a gym board in years. Here are my observations and wonderings. Maybe this is naive and simplistic – I never did gymnastics at the level that it is today – but I wondered if Simone’s uncharacteristic overrotations in qualifications, and then loss of air sense or twisting sense, had something to do with her training different skills that have different levels of height and therefore different levels of needed repulsion. For example, on floor, after doing a triple twisting double back, which probably needs more height than say a full-in or double double, that might lead to you overrotating a full-in. Similarly, if you train a double double dismount off beam, it seems to me you might overrotate a full-in dismount. Now maybe gymnasts can handle all of this, but I think I would get confused about how much take-off momentum is needed, and easily overpower it.

Not at all naive or simplistic i don’t think. Thank you for the thoughtful contribution.

 

[formerly_odessa]

He’s not on social media and couldn’t care less. He just noted that it’s not uncommon for athletes to underperform and then pull out w a mysterious injury to save face. It was a casual connect made through text. He absolutely believes in mental health issues but thinks it’s weird that it was at that moment when no one could be subbed in, that Simone felt unsafe. And then he carried on to watching The Sopranos. Lol

 

[Perfect10]

I agree. I thought right away that training three different vaults led to air confusion. Think back to all the great one vaulters who said they couldn’t figure out a second. I remember Wieber said they tried but her body/mind wouldn’t cooperate.

 

[kimbee]

My husband had similar thoughts. And like your bf, he’s not on social media and couldn’t really care less.

After I explained things we’ve been discussing here, especially that if her body simply isn’t cooperating with her brain, that it would be dangerous for her to compete, he has a much greater (and more sympathetic) understanding of the situation.

 

[cats]

I have a hard time believing this because the Amanar was fine all the way through prelims.

 

[RAFIKI]

She should have been training two and only two vaults. That she came to the Olympics and was uncertain of what vaults she would do blows my mind.

The other side of this is that training new skills has been part of her motivation this quad. Without that would she have kept going? Especially going a year without competing, maintaining skills with no competition would have been very dull for her. Since the YDP is so challenging you want to have a back up and if you want to go for vault medals then that means three vaults.

 

[tempest]

I have a hard time believing this because the Amanar was fine all the way through prelims.

there is no rhyme or reason for these things though

 

[Doug1233]

I do feel like learning the double pike might have impacted her ability to Amanar.

 

[Perfect10]

She has probably been training the YDP more seriously in the last few days since she knew she wasn’t competing it until after prelims.

 

[tempest]

mental blocks are so weird/interesting to me… for example I can not eat pork anymore… I did not have a bad experience or anything but one day the thought of a pork chop, pork roast etc made me want to vomit

 

[choclatechip45]

Didn’t Simone train a lot of these super difficult skills under Aimee too? The difference was Aimee wouldn’t let her compete them while the Landi’s did.

 

[Hatsumomo]

These should have been skills done for funsies but not seriously trained to be put in competition. But she put them up on IG and everybody latched on these crazy skills for competition purposes.

And the thing is, Simone already had her legacy in place. She didn’t need to Khorkina the CoP for her lasting impression on the sport.

The ironic bit is, Simone kind of proved the FIG right in low-balling these skills. When she even became unable to compete them, why are they going to give it a value enticing enough for other gymnasts to attempt? Especially those from poorly funded countries.

 

[Jack]

Agreed with everything that has been said. It has been baffling to me how many US routines were not set into stone by trials. The YDP should have been all or nothing. Suni is playing with fire by having two different UB routines