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Silky Johnson



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PostPosted: 07/30/21 12:08 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

mercfan3 wrote:
I disagree that it's a patriarcal definition of athleticism. Sure, strength and speed is...but balance, endurance, and flexibility are athletic traits that women are better than men in.

The "power" gymnasts, as they have been titled..exemplify ALL of those athletic traits, where as..again..the more "graceful" gymnasts are beautiful to watch, graceful, and artistic...people can prefer whichever they want. I prefer the former.

My point though, was that Simone seemed to end the debate in terms of which way gymnastics was going to go.


It does strike me as suspect that the discussion around whether "strength" is bad for women's gymnastics seems to have picked up steam around the time that WOC became the strongest gymnasts in the world.



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Last edited by Silky Johnson on 07/30/21 1:07 pm; edited 1 time in total
GEF34



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PostPosted: 07/30/21 12:51 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

mercfan3 wrote:
pilight wrote:
mercfan3 wrote:
pilight wrote:
mercfan3 wrote:
(To show where the sport has progressed, Johnson's difficulty score would now be two points higher than Liukin's)


"Progressed" = become more like men's event

Favoring strength over balance and flexibility is not a step forward. Next thing you know they'll be eliminating the balance beam in favor of rings and taking the music out of the floor exercise.


No, progressed means that they favor strength, balance, and flexibility over "gracefullness." It's "athletic" vs "art"

(Both of which are completely valid, but I have a strong preference for the former. )


Because you're defining "athletic" in the traditional, patriarchal sense. When the word was created, it was done to describe something that was universally male. Therefore things like "faster and stronger" became the metric used to determine who was a better athlete.

Interestingly, when women's gymnastics first appeared at the Olympics the women did compete in the rings and the parallel bars (not uneven bars). Laddie Bakanic, a member of the US women's team that took bronze in 1948, said "When I was on the flying rings and I had to leave go I was scared cause there was nothing there but a cotton mat on the ground." Even then women didn't do the pommel horse, because ladies were expected to ride side saddle. Laughing 1948 was the last Olympics to feature women on the rings or the parallel bars.


I don't want women on the parallel bars or rings, the women's events are better. Laughing

I disagree that it's a patriarcal definition of athleticism. Sure, strength and speed is...but balance, endurance, and flexibility are athletic traits that women are better than men in.

The "power" gymnasts, as they have been titled..exemplify ALL of those athletic traits, where as..again..the more "graceful" gymnasts are beautiful to watch, graceful, and artistic...people can prefer whichever they want. I prefer the former.

My point though, was that Simone seemed to end the debate in terms of which way gymnastics was going to go.

edit: Here is the article discussing Johnson and Liukin's difficulty score - where Johnson's is now 2 points higher than Liukin's.

https://balancebeamsituation.com/2020/03/18/why-does-the-code-hate-nastia-so-much/


Shawn Johnson is not 2 points higher, she is actually 1.3 higher, and using the composition of the skills each performed under a different COP has flaws starting with the amount of skills that were counted. Under the current COP they count the 10 highest skills, under that 2008 COP they counted the 8 highest skills. So that’s 2 more skills that had they needed to compete would have been different as opposed to just using them as filler for lack of a better word. And also various skills have been upgraded and downgraded. If you look at the article you posted, Shawn’s vault was down graded more than Nastia’s was, so I don’t think it actually portrays all you think it does.

Also the area where Nastia loses the most points in on the uneven bars and it has to do with connection values not “power” skills. All the other events are for the most part a few tenth or so difference in actual scores.




Last edited by GEF34 on 07/30/21 1:30 pm; edited 1 time in total
myrtle



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PostPosted: 07/30/21 1:27 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

If you're going to make changes, why not have the men compete on balance beam and the uneven bars, rather than going the other way? [shrug]
Really not sure why they need to be the same.


Silky Johnson



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PostPosted: 07/30/21 1:31 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

myrtle wrote:
If you're going to make changes, why not have the men compete on balance beam and the uneven bars, rather than going the other way? [shrug]


I want no parts in watching males compete on balance beam. If a man stumbles on beam, it just... well, let's say it hits different.



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undersized_post



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PostPosted: 07/30/21 1:46 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

Moreso than the power vs. artistry debate, Biles has settled the "difficulty" vs "execution" debate, by showing that it's a false dichotomy.

Prior to Biles, people were worried that difficulty was overtaking execution. Ever since the open-ended scoring system was implemented in 2006, athletes have been incentivized to push the boundaries of their difficulty even if it means more execution deductions because mathematically the risk had become worth the reward. This peaked at the 2012 London Olympics. (A great example is Epke Zonderland's gold medal winning horizontal bar routine which is incredible difficulty but has some major form errors).

Every "quad" (four years leading up to and culminating in an Olympics), the FIG (Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique) alters it's CoP (Code of Points). This could mean deciding certain skills should be valued as harder/easier, or it could mean instructing judges to evaluate form errors more/less harshly. Starting in the 2013-2016 quad (when Biles started competed on the senior level), the CoP became more strict. What has made Biles so great is that she has shown it's not difficulty OR execution... for a great gymnast like her, it's difficulty AND execution. She is one of the only gymnasts who has been able to maintain textbook form even as she pushes the limits of difficulty.


undersized_post



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PostPosted: 07/30/21 2:02 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

Re: The Shawn vs. Nastia debate. The biggest issue with the 2006-2008 CoP was that uneven bars were inflated compared to the other apparatuses. The best gymnasts on UB were capable of scoring 17.0+, while the best gymnasts on the other apparatus were lucky to get above 16.0. This alone gave Nastia an edge over Shawn since UB was Nastia's strongest event while it was Shawn's weakest.

This has since been rectified in the CoP. Now, the scores for superior routines on each apparatus are more in line with each other so that a gymnast who is more of a specialist on any one apparatus doesn't get an undue advantage in the all around.

To clarify, I'm not saying Nastia wasn't a good all-arounder. Clearly she was good on other events as she won individual medals on floor and beam as well as bars. But Shawn was the better vaulter (by a lot), and better on floor and beam, too. But Nastia's UB routine gave her just enough cushion to always give her a chance to win.

It is true that Nastia's routine would be considered substantially less difficult than Shawn's under the 2017-2021 CoP. However, this is kinda an impossible comparison. Neither gymnast would perform the same routines now. They would work with their coaches to re-arrange things add/substract things to maximize your score. Criticizing Nastia for having a lower D-score under the 2017-2021 CoP is analogous to criticizing an older basketball team for not shooting 3-pointers before the 3 point line was even a thing.

In addition, you could play devil's advocate and say that Shawn's execution on certain skills would be more highly penalized nowadays. Judges at the 2021 Olympics have been extremely strict with 180-split leaps/jumps on beam and floor, and this lack of flexibility was always seen as one of Shawn's weaknesses.

It IS fair to say though, that Shawn's beam routine was ahead of her time. Since Beijing, the CoP on beam specifically have moved more towards benefitting gymnasts who do her types of connections. Given that hindsight shows her beam routine was a bit undervalued during her time, it makes it extra impressive that she still won gold.


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PostPosted: 07/30/21 4:45 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

Silky Johnson wrote:
myrtle wrote:
If you're going to make changes, why not have the men compete on balance beam and the uneven bars, rather than going the other way? [shrug]


I want no parts in watching males compete on balance beam. If a man stumbles on beam, it just... well, let's say it hits different.


OH GOD I JUST CROSSED MY LEGS AND KEENED

and I don't even *have* that equipment



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pilight



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PostPosted: 07/30/21 5:28 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

Silky Johnson wrote:
myrtle wrote:
If you're going to make changes, why not have the men compete on balance beam and the uneven bars, rather than going the other way? [shrug]


I want no parts in watching males compete on balance beam. If a man stumbles on beam, it just... well, let's say it hits different.


Can't be any worse than the pommel horse



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toad455



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PostPosted: 07/30/21 6:34 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

As the only boy in my gymnastics class way back when, I was actually learning the balance beam for about a year. Just because my studio I was being taught at didn't have any of the men's equipment like the rings or pommel horse.



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Silky Johnson



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PostPosted: 07/30/21 9:28 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

pilight wrote:
Can't be any worse than the pommel horse


Nobody's doing a backflip on the pommel horse.



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myrtle



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PostPosted: 07/30/21 11:46 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

Silky Johnson wrote:
pilight wrote:
Can't be any worse than the pommel horse


Nobody's doing a backflip on the pommel horse.


I've seen some pretty brutal accidents on the hurdles in track and field and in bicycling. It's not just a one sport problem.


undersized_post



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PostPosted: 07/31/21 12:39 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

Silky Johnson wrote:
pilight wrote:
Can't be any worse than the pommel horse


Nobody's doing a backflip on the pommel horse.


Or a Korbut!





GEF34



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PostPosted: 07/31/21 1:02 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

Here’s a video of some men on beam and also doing some other skills on the uneven bars and floor.

https://youtu.be/Jvz3F4HP170


undersized_post



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PostPosted: 07/31/21 9:03 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

GEF34 wrote:
Here’s a video of some men on beam and also doing some other skills on the uneven bars and floor.

https://youtu.be/Jvz3F4HP170


Ohh my Laughing Their reaction to the Geinger at 2:54 was my favorite Laughing


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PostPosted: 08/03/21 8:27 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

Simone reveals that her aunt died a couple of days ago. I didn't see if it was a sudden death or if she had been ill prior.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/2021/08/03/simone-biles-aunt-died-during-tokyo-olympics/5474258001/



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