Origin of London's difficult skills

All commentators stress the difficulty of certain skills. Certainly some of them are more prevalent now in competition than they ever were before, but extremely few were invented this side of the millenium which shows how innovative the 80's and 90's were when it did not pay to break the mould and perform a super-difficult skill. Here are the ones seen in London and their origins.

The Double Double/Silivas

This double double is currently a G skill and will be a H under the new code. In London it was performed by Jordyn Wieber, Victoria Moors, Larisa Iordache, Vanessa Ferrari and Anastasia Grishina. Though it is named after Daniela Silivas of Romania who performed it at the 1988 Olympics, it was first done by Aleftina Priakhina of USSR in 1986. Neither had great landings, but they were using a crap old floor.


Double Arabian beam dismount/Patterson

An exceptionally difficult beam dismount which requires a lot of height and speed. In London it was executed by Aly Raisman, Viktoria Komova and Marta Pihan-Kulesza. Carly Patterson of USA was the first to perform it, at the 2003 Worlds but Corey Fritzinger also of USA did it first in 2001. 

Standing Full twist- beam

A move which elicited awe when Shawn Johnson did it but it's much older than that. Usually has quite a low landing due to the difficulty of fully rotating it in time. In London it was performed by Gabby Douglas. This is another skill done first by Aleftina Priakhina of USSR, again in 1986.


Tucked full twist in acro line/combination

This one is more common as it provides more momentum to get the twist around, but is just as risky otherwise. In London it was performed by Larisa Iordache. The inventor is Ecaterina Szabo of Romania who performed it in 1983.


Full twisting double layout

This is the other skill to be awarded H status in the code. Performed only by Daiane Dos Santos of Brazil but although Catalina Ponor of Romania warmed one up in podium training she never competed it. Named after Oksana Chusovitina of USSR (at the time) who performed it in 1991. It was first done by Tatiana Tuzhikova of USSR in 1987.

Li Ya Jaeger-Jaeger combination bars

Performed only by He Kexin who despite growth has managed to keep this. Often called her original skill but it was first done by Li Ya also of China who competed it in 2006.

Tucked Barani/Grigoras

My favourite acrobatic skill on beam, it's quite rare. Sui Lu of China performed it in London and it was invented by Cristina Grigoras of Romania in 1980. Chellsie Memmel had a nice one too.

Amanar vault

The most common difficult skill/vault. It was performed by McKayla Maroney, Gabby Douglas, Aly Raisman, Jordyn Wieber, Maria Paseka and Viktoria Komova. First performed by none other than Simona Amanar of Romania who did it at the 2000 Olympics.

Produnova vault

This was performed (read: sat down feet first) by Yamilet Pena Abreu of Dominican Republic in London. It is the hardest vault with a difficulty of 7.1 Notoriously difficult as it requires immense height and a powerful block. It was first attempted by Choe Jong Sil of North Korea at the 1980 Olympics but she completely crashed it so credit goes to Yelena Produnova of Russia who most notably landed it totally upright in 1999.

Def release- bars

The Def is a one and a half twisting Geinger, first performed by Jacques Def of France. His name has carried over to WAG as the first woman, Snejana Hristakieva of Bulgaria who first performed it in 1991 has a much less catchier name. It was done in London by Elizabeth Seitz of Germany. Interestingly, both perform it very sloppily but is IS possible for it to look neat- check out Cha Yong Hwa and Elena Dolgopolova.

Double Double bars dismount/ Fabrichnova

One of the hardest bars dismounts, this was performed by Beth Tweddle and Viktoria Komova in London. It was first done by Oksana Fabrichnova of Russia in 1993, and remains fairly rare.

Piked Double Arabian/Dos Santos I

This was performed by Aly Raisman and Beth Tweddle. The originator, Daiane Dos Santos of Brazil who first performed it in 2003 was in London but has not been doing it recently. It is one of the hardest floor tumbles and should be rated higher.


Full-in beam dismount

Having watched the 1996 AA all over again just recently, this was more common then. Performed in London by Catalina Ponor of Romania. It is was first done by Albina Shishova and Natalia Frolova both of USSR in 1983.

If I have missed any others in London who performed these skills please let me know. I did watch every single subdivision but some things can be forgotten easily. I have real issues about the standing full..there's no way it was just done by Gabby. As for the originators, I stand by all of them as being correct.

 

 

Quick survey

Current favourite gymnast
McKayla Maroney

Current favourite Russian gymnast
Aliya Mustafina

Current favourite Romanian gymnast
Larisa Iordache

Current favourite Chinese gymnast
He Kexin

Current favourite 'everywhere else' gymnast
Christine Peng Peng Lee

All-time favourite Soviet gymnast
Tie: Elena Mukhina and Tatiana Groshkova

All-time favourite American gymnast
Hollie Vise

All-time favourite Romanian gymnast
Teodora Ungureanu

All-time favourite Chinese gymnast
Li Li 

All-time favourite 'everywhere else' gymnast
Henrietta Onodi

All-time best all-arounder
Elena Mukhina

All-time best floor worker
Daniela Silivas


All-time best beam worker
Li Li


All-time best vaulter
McKayla Maroney. I was determined not to pick her, but she technically is the best.

All-time best bars worker
Mo Huilan 


Favourite beam routine
Li Li 1993 worlds AA


Favourite floor routine
Anna Myzdrikova 2009 worlds qualifying


Favourite vault
A tie between Lilia Podkopayeva 1994 Soapberry Shop and McKayla Maroney 2012 Team Finals Olympics

Favourite bars routine
Kim Gwang Suk 1991 Worlds all-around

Favourite bars release
Gaylord 1/1 or Comaneci


Favourite vault
Handspring front layout


Favourite floor tumble
Tie: 3.5 twist (Moreno) or piked double arabian (Dos Santos 1)

Favourite beam move
Tucked Korbut (Chen) 

Favourite turn
Double scorpion

Favourite jump
Tour jete 1/2


Favourite bars dismount
Double arabian piked

Favourite beam dismount
Triple full

Favourite bars mount
Aleftina Priakhina's

Favourite beam mount
Aleftina Priakhina's  

Favourite floor pass
Whip-whip-triple full


Most exciting floor pass
1 and a half twist, double arabian, front layout punchfront. (Aly Raisman's 1st pass)


Best floor routine from London
Tie: Viktoria Komova AA and Aly Raisman

Best vault from London
McKayla Maroney team finals

Best beam from London
Sui Lu event finals


Best bars from London
Tie: Beth Tweddle qualifying and Yao Jinnan event finals
   

Greatest innovator
Aleftina Priakhina


Most exciting gymnast
Mai Murakami


Most powerful gymnast
Yelena Produnova

Best tumbler
Daiane Dos Santos


     

McKayla's vault in super slow-mo

http://deadspin.com/5930714/relive-mckayla-maroneys-phenomenal-vault-in-super+slow-motion?tag=gymnastics

WOW all over again. Yes we can see the deductions, but it doesn't get better than this- should have been a 10. But who knows, hopefully she can pull this off again in vault EF and they give a 9.8 or higher! In the today interview the team gave, McKayla stated she wants her own vault named after her, after being asked about the amanar being renamed the Maroney (I get why, she is the master of it..but Simona shouldn't be bumped out, jeez). I take that as TTY confirmation, there's no way that she isn't capable of it.

Yes, I will shut up about McKayla now, at least until vault EF.

Well done to Kohei Uchimura for getting back on form and claiming the all-around! Very sorry for John Orozco who is just having a nightmare at this stage, but well done to Danell for his bronze, and Marcel for the silver! Nice diverse all-around.

McKayla stuck her amanar!!!!!!!!

FUCKING YESSSSSS!!!! TH|RILLED!!!! AGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

16.2333!!! HIGHEST score so far in WAG these Olympics. Highest vault score since the new code. 9.733 execution GET IN. If you're wondering what they could possibly deduct from the most fabulous amanar we have ever seen, it is her slightly bent knees (very slight..) and her leg seperation right before she blocks, it's also very slight. It really doesn't take away from this. WOW. I hope Simona saw that!

Russia and Romania teams named!!

Team Russia: Komova, Mustafina, Grishina (like duhh), Afansayeva and..Paseka! Wasn't sure if Afan could do it, but Inshina and Bebelo were dissapointing and Sidorova was injured, so..good for her! Paseka is in a way a surprise, she crashed both her vaults at the Russian cup. Apparently she verified them, including the amanar, the other day. This means Russia have two amanars, maybe a third (though Musty only did a DTY at the verifying), killer bar routines and really good beams, though staying on is slightly questionable. Floor is a bit of a weak spot with this team- Grishina and Afan have beautiful floors, but not with amazing SV. Komova's is weak, Musty's is a tad unusable.

Team Romania: Ponor, Izbasa, Iordache, Bulimar (duhh) and..Chelaru! This differs from the victorious Euros team, replacing Haidu with Chelaru. Haidu has better bars than her, but Chelaru is safer. It doesn't matter a huge amount because the first four are so strong. No amanars or Cheng's were competed at the meet today- their being flung for the first time in comp in London is terrifying.

A look at the next quad's code

As we have seen, the race for increasing difficulty means that perfect execution doesn't matter as much anymore- chuck a skill and fall or have major errors on it, and you can still beat lesser routines. This has been seen most memorably when Cheng Fei who fell in 2008 Vault EF beat Alicia Sacramone to the bronze, after Alicia exhibited clean and well performed vaults. This is why we are seeing so many Amanars, so many Pattersons, so many skill-skill-skill beam connections, so many pirouette combos and release combos on bars, and so many leaps out of passes- all in a drive to up the D score. But FIG are not happy. Upping a fall to a point off and decreasing skills counted from 10 to 8 hasn't helped, actually it has made it worse because the skills counted now have to be more difficult. This is not the individual gymnasts or coaches fault- the code is there to be played. It is the code entirely at fault for what we are seeing now.

Next quad's code, 2013-2016, was released in draft form a few months back. Doubtless it will see alterations after the London Olympics,but the changes it has made are significant.

VAULT

Here we finally have the solution to falls winning and to sloppy amanars scoring well. The current way is of course to average the two vault scores. The new way is absolutely different and will big time penalise execution. Both vault D scores are added together and averaged, then 10 is added. And here's the fun part...the total deductions for both vaults is then substracted from that total. What does that mean? It means sloppy amanars will not be worth doing over clean DTY's. It means falling on a vault like Yamilet Pena's Prod won't be worth doing either. It is good news for knees everywhere. It doesn't change a thing for McKayla Maroney, if anything it keeps her further ahead of other amanars. She would still have won 2011 worlds EF. BUT Cheng Fei would not have medalled in Beijing EF under this code.

THE AMANAR IS BEING DEVALUED. Hurray! Admittedly it is only going from a 6.5 to a 6.3 which isn't much BUT it helps the case for a clean stuck DTY over a messy amanar. Cheng is too, down to 6.4. I think both need to be harsher because the incentive to do them sloppily and still get a big score is still there.

Run length must not be more than 25 metres, or it will take an 0.5 deduction. I'm not sure I like the sound of this, I think the run length should be whatever the gymnast is capable of in order to harness her power on vault.

BARS

Pirouette combos are going to be hammered, they are not going to be allowed stack up conenction bonus for D score anymore. Most people tend to look at leaps out of passes as total code whoring, but so were the beautiful routines of Nastia, He and Yang! This is good news for release combinations and transitions (think He Kexin's and Beth Tweddle's release combos) and bad news for those who relied on turns instead of releases. If Beth can hang on for another quad, she will be rewarded for her insane difficulty even more than she is now.

FLOOR

Nothing major composition wise happening with floor, the element requirements seem to be the exact same. Tumbling passes are still restricted to four, thankfully. BUT...artistry will be much more important! There will be deductions for pasuses greater than one second before tumbling passes, deductions for more than one stationary pause in the corner, deductions for lack of expression, lack of creative choreography, insufficient use of floor space and for lack of fluidity. Choreo can be 0.3 or 0.1, the rest are 0.1. This is BRILLIANT news!! We can expect a return for balletic grace being rewarded and sloppy mechanical routines being slammed by the code. The major emphasis seems to be that the routine MUST continously flow and the gymnast must express her theme from beginning to end and interact with her music. Routines that barely connect with the music or do not connect enough will be harshly penalised too. Fantastic. This is good news for beautifully performed floor routines. Of course, not all of the above is new but taken together it really shows FIG's stance on valuing artistry again.

One of the biggest pet peeves people have had with floor codes is the huge emphasis on sticking the landing. This code will allow for one lunge, woohoo! Maybe more when it's finalised? Connection bonuses look exciting too, D+A (dance) sounds interesting. C+E makes for exciting tumbling lines, with twists into a double salto...a la Maroney's troublesome third pass which is great when performed correctly. Turn combos will be rewarded also. Everyone's favourite leaps out of passes will not getting connection bonus unless they are at least a B. Expect to still see them, but much less. Higher difficulty rewarding is being brought in apparently- H elements- but no further info on that yet.

BEAM

Is following floor's lead. So often are we seeing beam routines with amazing skills, but absolutlely no flow or grace. Skill-skill-skill- arm wave. Lack of expression, fluidity, choreography, pointed feet and aesthetic presentation are all going to be hit. Hopefully we will see this enforced as it's not a major diversion from the previous code where we are seeing horrendously choreographed beam routines. You can do it FIG, kill lack of artistry!



Interesting! Vault is the one changing the most, but it is great to see the emphasis on artistry elsewhere. It is of course unclear as to how much this code will change before it's finalised. My guess is that after London they will be ever more determined to penalise lack of artistry and sloppy amanars, but we'll see!

UPDATE: I found the submissions from individual federations and individuals. Australia do not want deductions for feet landing apart and for deep landings if head is above hip height- what? The latter especially looks terrible and needs to be deducted. France want MOARR LUNGES, excellent. They are also loving the drive for rewarding artistry on floor. Plenty want higher difficulty for some dance moves. India want acro and dance on floor to be judged entirely seperate to each other..hmm. Russia want 4 up, 3 count in TF. YES! I wonder how many of these we will see in the finalised code.

Romania and Russia bring their A-game

Competition is hotting up a bit now. I still think USA will get the gold, but it will be tough especially if Russia don't fall off the beam, a skill they have been showing for quite a while now.

Sandra Izbasa has a Cheng vault, Larisa Iordache has an amanar and Viktoria Komova has one too. Mustafina is extremely likely to have an amanar, and was shown doing a timer for one. All of these were pretty going to happen anyway, but here is the proof. What does this mean for America? Unfortunately it means that Russia's massive bars d-scores and now amanars mean the gap is closing bigtime there for America's vault advantage. However, everyone still has weaknesses. Let's look at them.

America- Has no obvious weakness. Yes, bars are not a strong point but they are very decent in comparison to Romania. It would help if Gabby could up her D-score to 6.9, but nevertheless, even Jordyn's d-score is now a 6.4. Beam is good and strong, and nobody is likely to headcase and fall off. Two aggressive routines with high d-scores, and one beautiful artistic one. Vault obviously one of the strongest points- McKayla's vault will score more than 16, NOBODY else will touch that. Her vault will make shit of sloppy amanars elsewhere, which is great for her score. If she wasn't there, amanar scores would be more generous. Jordyn's amanar is very reliable, with great form and landings. Gabby's is getting better all the time, a bit flat but well landed with good form. Floor another strong point- Aly has the highest d-score of all with an AWESOME first pass, one of the most difficult ever. Form likely to take a hit, lucky the difficulty is massive. Jordyn's is strong, clean and difficult. I do think McKayla's should be here, and it's a 6.0 with artistry, it will score well.

Romania- It's amazing how much they have come on. Iordache is decent on bars, everyone else is weaker. They will fall down bigtime here. Vault has picked up a lot. Iordache's amanar looks clean and safe and fully rotated, with not a bad landing. It doesn't look sloppy. Sandra's Cheng looks messy and low, unlikely to break more than a 15.7 as it stands, but the video wasn't made yesterday and she has time to improve it. Same goes for Iordache. It's unknown whether they have a second amanar, but Bellu has hinted at more than one. Ponor appears to be the likely candidate for this. If not, they have a big deficit there against USA if they have to count a DTY. America will outscore significantly on vault, as they have the best amanar in the world and two very clean ones. Beam is their strong point- very high SV's, Iordache is probably the best beamer in the world right now, along with Sui Lu. Beam is traditionally awesome and Ponor and Iordache in particular will do very well here. Floor looks good- Iordache is likely to outscore Raisman as she has better form, and is only one tenth down in diffculty. The two routines will match America. Consider floor equal, beam better, bars and vault worse. However- consistency is their midde name, they can win if someone else falters.

Russia- Here we have extremely strong bars, more than a point over USA and even more over Romania. Not even China can get close. Komova and Mustafina both have beautiful 7.0 bars that will score extremely well, possibly breaking the 16 mark. Grishina's are a very respectable 6.5, which Romania would kill for. Vault is a bit more up in the air. Komova's amanar is neat with very good form, it is likely to outscore pretty much every other, except Maroney of course. Certainly it looks like it can rival Jordyn, Gabby and Larisa. It looks like Mustafina will have one too. Mustafina of the clean DTY, frightening helicopter-legs amanar and of the ACL on the same skill. Let us hope she can land it safely every time, with NO locked legs. Even before the injury she was doing that. It will be shot in execution, but the 0.7 is has over the DTY isn't to be sneezed at but even so, it's likely to be the messiest one we'll see in London. It is unclear whether Russia have another amanar. If not, using a DTY and Musty'a messy amanar will hurt them and seriously eat into their bars advantage. I predict Romania to score higher on vault, and USA to outscore Romania by a comfortable lead. Likely beamers are Komova, Musty and Grishina. Both Vika and Grishina have fallen off beam a LOT in the last year. Their beams are beautiful, if they fall it will  hurt their scores a lot. If they stay on, they are a massive threat. Musty's looks better every time, but she is uncertain on it too. Floor is a weakness. Musty's tumbling isn't near as clean as it used to be, and that twisting ability has really deteriorated when it was already bad before. Komova's floor is weak and she has low landings which will cost her. If Afan makes the team she will go ahead of Musty I think, but although her and Grishina's floors are awesome, the SV is several tenths below what USA and Romania are bringing.

In short:

Russia- Vault- Good, Floor- Weak, Bars- Super strong, Beam- Potentially strong
Romania- Vault- Strong, Floor, Strong, Beam super-strong, Bars- very weak
USA- Vault- super strong, Floor- Strong, Beam- Strong, Bars- weak

In short, I think Russia could take it if they counted no mistakes, but they are the one country where it is almost a certainty, much more so than the other two. I still see USA taking the gold. Romania is uncertain- they are stronger than ever and will be fierce challengers. How exciting! I cannot WAIT!

In AA news, this means that Gabby, Jordyn, Larisa, Vika, Huang and almost certainly Musty have amanars. Yao Jinnan is unknown, China have only confirmed Huang. I predict Larisa and Vika will fight the USA fiercely here, it's impossible to call. I no longer see both Gabby and Jordyn as podium almost certainties.

Open-ended code- waiting for disaster?

As we all know, gymnastics is getting more and more difficult. But not by natural progression. This code means that difficulty is rewarded. But at what cost? We now have a situation where the team with the most amanars is a shoe-in for the gold because of .7 per amanar over DTY that the code rewards. Every single interview with the Russian coaches stresses that their gymnasts need it if they want to contend, never mind the huge advantage they hold with bars. What we probably forget because it's now so common is that the amanar is incredibly difficult, and places great stress on the knees if the gymnast cannot get it around properly. We only have to look at 2011 where Aliya Mustafina blew her ACL on one. Aliya Mustafina has regained almost to the level she was at before, yet her form has suffered.

Let's look at how 'safe' America's amanars are. The safest of all are McKayla Maroney's, Elizabeth Price's and junior Simone Biles all of which are explosive, dynamic, fully rotated and also excellent in air and landing. Jordyn Wieber's is usually fine and fully rotated, but she did land with her legs locked Visa's night 1, a recipe for injury. Aly Raisman's is a cause for concern as she sometimes does not get it fully around. Kyla Ross did not compete it either night at Visa's and instead competed a lovely clean DTY. But the pressure is on for her to regain her amanar, despite the fact that she cannot land it safely. Sarah Finnegan with her beautiful lines and extraordinarily difficult beam and floor seems to be counted out entirely, not just for her weak bars but also because she has no amanar. Internationally, there is big pressure on Romanian powerhouse Larissa Iordache to exhibit one, as well as team Russia. Looking to Juniors, Katelyn Ohashi is under extreme pressure to get her amanar, even though right now her DTY looks extremely dangerous.

The amanar is not the only culprit of course. Landings that are not fully upright on double arabians, Dos Santos I and Patterson dismounts from beam (not so much Becca's sat-down ones, but Raisman's low ones) are all cause for concern, amongst others. Serious knee injuries can count out a gymnast for a year before she can regain her previous level entirely, and are on the rise. Yet increased difficulty is worth the risk in this code. We have seen gymnasts win medals with falls ahead of competitors with none. It is almost funny to listen to commentary on old competitions with its utter dismissal of the chances of a top contender once they fall, or even a lesser mistake such as a form break or OOB or even a step on a dismount. Kim Gwang Suk's 1992 bars routine is an extreme example. Despite the fact that she had a beautiful clean routine with excellent form and with a release nobody else could come close to, her tiny step on landing counted her out of medals while much simpler routines surged ahead.

The old system of gymnasts competing much more difficult routines such as the above and not being rewarded was clearly unfair. Tatiana Lysenko's DTY scoring lower than the FTY's of others being  perhaps the most famous example. Yet we seem to have gone the opposite way entirely. Gymnasts can make up for often sloppy execution and form by pulling out extremely difficult tricks. This is of course helped by no compulsories. Gymnasts like Aly Raisman who are top on beam and floor would be slaughtered in the old system for execution.

The code we are in now places more pressure for difficulty than the 2005-2008 code did, helped mainly by the explosion of amanars in team USA. If we were to hold the 2008 Olympic all-around tomorrow in today's code (assuming all gymnasts in it at their 2008 selves), Nastia Liukin would have a huge struggle to achieve gold with her 1.5 Yurchenko as her bars score would be lower as less skills are counted for the score these days. Undoubtedly, Shawn Johnson would emerge the winner due to her difficulty. But what is in the future? Will we see TTY's being performed? A huge increase in injuries? It all seems possible. The next quad's code has degraded the SV of an amanar, yet it still gives a distinct advantage.

Clearly both styles of scoring, old and new, have their advantages and disadvantages. Yet we are now seeing beautiful gymnastics fall by the wayside as more and more difficult gymnastics often with much poorer execution take centre-stage. This is not the route we should be aiming for. This open-ended scoring is pushing the boundaries of what is possible for top gymnasts to achieve, and this will only continue. Gymnasts showing beautiful, elegant gymnastics with lower difficulty are falling by the wayside, most notably Ana Porgras who just could not hack the strive for difficulty but who would have been a top contender at the 1996 Olympics and earlier. We need to find a way to reward execution more than it currently is, even at the expense of difficulty.