3 posts tagged “uneven bars”

Finally. No, they're not bringing the 10 back. It's dead and its corpse is a feast for the maggots now.

The biggest change for the WAG side is the change from counting the 10 highest skills to 8. Still too many, IMHO, because BB will still be skill-pause-skill-pause and UB will be hour long sets with gymnasts trying to fit in a bunch of D and E elements, but hopefully this will end the side double full pass on FX. I doubt it'll be the end of the double pike dismount, though.

"Gymnasts from all disciplines will have to show exemplary mastery in their exercises. Execution will be favored."
These principles are not new, and exist within the philosophy of the current Code of Points. However, beginning in 2009, the women's Code will reduce the number of required elements from 10 to eight. That should lead to shorter routines and longer careers.

The proposed changes for the men's Code focus mainly on the juniors, for which eight skills will count toward the A-score. Also, the A-score will be halved for juniors, thus further de-emphasizing difficulty. Other safety measures for juniors include the prohibition of diving elements that end in a roll-out on floor, and saltos to upper arms or bent arms on parallel bars.

A "G" category, worth 0.7, will be added to the difficulty table, and skills listed there include a Ri Jong Song (triple-twisting double back) and Liukin (triple back) on floor, and a Cassina (layout Kolman) and Shahan (Kovacs with 1.5 twists) on high bar.

Nellie Kim in an International Gymnast interview had said that when they picked the original number for skills to be counted, they picked some arbitrary number and it ended up being 10. Glad they all thought this through before putting it into practice. But she also felt it was too many and wanted it to go down to six. Six is a much better number. The gymnasts can put in a few big skills, don't end up getting tired halfway through, don't have to have five tumbling passes, can have their skills connected and flow much better on BB and UB, etc. Speaking of tumbling passes, I'm hoping they'll put a cap on the number of passes in a routine, four being the max. Five is just excessive.

There's also the question about vault. With the rush to upgrade to Amanars, the main complaint is that even with a fall, an Amanar can score as well as a good DTY, which doesn't seem right. How will the FIG resolve that? Devalue the Amanar a few tenths? If a gymnast falls, give it the value of a DTY and deduct the fall as well? Somebody pointed out that a fall on vault is essentially a blown routine.

What about falls in general? Another person had an idea that you don't get the credit if you fall on a skill. If you don't show "exemplary mastery" on a skill, then why should you still get the full A score?

The "longer careers" comment is debatable. That's not happening as long as they keep putting emphasis on risky high level elements and chucking skills that are beyond a gymnast's capabilities.

A World Champion on UB before finishing kindergarten, Kim exhibited a difficulty that surpassed the standards of her era and could settle right into today's era of gymnastics.

The fact that she did her release skill right off the bat is impressive enough; no wasted giants to propel herself.

Thanks to NastiaFan101 @ WWGym, with a little bit of tweaking to match some of the requirements in the new Code, here's the breakdown and the A-score for Kim's routine:

Hecht mount (B)
KCHS (B) Tkatchev (D) Kim Salto (F) 0.2
Up to HB
Giant 1-1/2 (D) Jaeger (D) Bail to HS (D) 0.2
Clear hip circle (C)
Up to HB
Giant full (C) Giant (B) Giant (B) Double layout (D)

EGR 2.5
Bonus 0.4 - 2.9
1F 0.6 - 3.5
5D 2.0 - 5.5
2C 0.6 - 6.1
2B 0.4 - 6.5

I wish there was somebody out there now who was proficient enough to do this kind of routine. It would certainly change things up a little.