4 posts tagged “fig”

Despite committing an error almost DPRK-esque in magnitude, China will get to keep their team gold. What does this mean for Chinese gymnastics and gymnastics in general?

1.) China will continue falsifying ages. It's naive to think otherwise. They're just going to be much more careful about it. Are they going to risk another He Kexin and fake the documents of another little prodigy and attempt to erase all articles referring to her as being age-ineligible for the Games mere months before the Olympics? Well, I don't know. That was a huge risk to take. Not only did it pay off for them, but they got away with it. If nothing else, they're no longer going to put important documents on the Internet anymore.

2.) China will now be put under a microscope. While I'm going to say that any articles about rising stars that end up on the Internet will not have any references to age, people will be keeping caches of any and all articles. Speculation will continually follow them.

3.) The FIG and IOC, long regarded as incompetent, have lost pretty much all credibility. This whole "investigation" was just a dog-and-pony show to put up the pretense that they're doing something and that they do not condone the cheating. They had the same evidence before the Olympics as they did when they started this whole thing. They just hoped that, like all news stories, it would soon fade away for the next big thing. Unfortunately for them, the only way that would have happened is if any team, not necessarily the USA, but any team had won over China. But China won and when a team that most people believe is cheating wins, those people want something done about it. What I wonder is what this will do to Grandi's bid to raise the age limit. When they refuse to enforce the age limit in place now, it's stupid and unfair to impose a higher limit.
 

Knowing that this decision will be unpopular, the FIG and IOC brought in Yang Yun and Dong Fangxiao from the 2000 Sydney Games. Yang famously said she was just 14 in a documentary aired on state-run television and Dong showed up as a worker at the 2008 Games with papers that suggested she would have been ineligible for Sydney, not to mention that her own blog also supported that. I highly doubt it's still up on her blog, though.

However, the statute of limitations for medal revocation is almost up. And what would be the point now? Some have suggested that China is barred from the 2010 Worlds (being barred from London 2009 isn't much of a punishment because the National Games are also around that time and China never sends their A-listers to the Worlds vs. the National Games). Given the rules in gymnastics, not only would China miss a major competition, but they wouldn't get to qualify for the Olympics. Since the top 24 teams in 2010 get to go onto 2011 and those 12 teams qualify a full team to the Olympics (that is, if I have that right).

But you want my prediction on the absolute outcome of everything? Nothing. Absolutely nothing will happen.

Just announced on International Gymnast:

The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) has reduced the number of gymnasts on an Olympic team from six to five, the federation announced Friday.

The decision comes as part of the FIG's new Olympic qualification procedure, proposed by the Executive Committee and accepted by the FIG Council at its meeting last weekend in Cape Town, South Africa.

According to the FIG announcement:

"In the future, two events will serve as qualifying events: the world championships organised the year preceding the Olympic Games and pre-Olympic events.
The number of gymnasts in a team will be reduced from 6 to 5.
All medallists will be qualified for the Olympic Games."
The FIG also has cancelled the biennial World Cup Final, last held in 2006. The federation has struggled to find a host for the World Cup Final on several occasions.

In addition, the FIG announced that as of Jan. 1, 2009, all gymnasts will need "licenses" to participate in international competition.

So it's official, I guess. They really could have found another way to allow medalists to qualify to the Olympics, even if their country didn't qualify a full team and have less athletes at the competition without damaging the team aspect of the sport.

In addition, the FIG announced that as of Jan. 1, 2009, all gymnasts will need "licenses" to participate in international competition.

What the fruit does that mean? They have visas, passports, and birth certificates, forged or not. Now they need another form of identification?

BTW, there is no mention about how the team format will change yet. 5-3-3 just won't cut it. It had better be something that truly utilizes the team, like 5-5-4 or 5-4-3. And I still advocate a constant in team format in prelims and team finals. Nothing like 5-5-4 in prelims and 5-4-3 in finals.

Bruno Grandi is running for reelection. Unopposed. Fantastic.

Y'know, if his job has good health insurance, I'd totally go for it.

According to Gymmedia.de (translated from German to English by Ingrid on WWGym), the FIG Executive Council voted to reduce the team size from six members to five. It still has to go in front of the FIG Membership and be approved or vetoed, but from what I hear, they usually never go against the EC. This could possibly go into effect for the 2009 Worlds (though aren't the Worlds the year after the Olympics EF-only).

Now what benefits could this possibly bring to gymnastics competitions? The only reason this was done was so more spots would be open for previous World medalists to get Olympic spots, but I'm sure there could have been a better solution than further damaging the team aspect of gymnastics.

The number of people on a team didn't necessarily need to be changed; it was the format that needed to (and keeping the format constant in a major competition; having 6-5-4 in qualifications and 6-3-3 in finals is ridiculous and detrimental to countries without a lot of depth). The format should have been changed to 6-5-4, 6-5-5, 6-6-5, or 6-6-6 if you wanted to be sadistic. Something to make it a team final, not *the star of the team* and friends.

Are they really trying to get rid of the team aspect when that is what has taken precedence over the AA in recent years? Specialists have become so ingrained already that I don't see the AA become as important as it once was again (at least, not soon).

And really, the team final is what fills the most seats, the AA second.