Artistic Gymnastics VS The X-Games

Over the years the X-Games have emerged as a spectacular sport with exceptional athletes. This new age of sports has many differences from the traditional sports and offers many lessons to be learned.

Interesting is the fact that gymnastics is the original X-Games without the skateboards, snowboards, bicycles, etc. If you add rock or alternative music, get rid of the rules that sometime inhibit the athletes, let the athletes create their own moves and allow for more updated apparel then artistic gymnastics fits right in.

It is important to look closely at this fast growing sport and in the X-Games there are many different types of sports. The audience continues to grow and these sports are entering the Olympic movement on a regular bases. The artistic Gymnastics World needs to take notice and see how can these two feed off of each other.

At present, the X-Game type sports are recruiting in the Gymnastics World and they are attracting the middle and upper middle level athlete. In time, the high end athlete may find his or her way there. So, what can be done to promote the artistic sport more?

I think it is time to look at the format of the competition. Can the sport become a more spectator friendly sport? Can the entertainment value be raised? This happens by competing with the X-Game excitiment but in a more professional way. The lighting, music and how the competition runs is criticial to becoming a better spectator sport.

Just having the gymnasts do gymnastics and waiting 3 to 5 minutes for a score is not going to cut it. I mean has the spectator base grown in the past 10 years? Stayed the same? Or fallen? This would be good information to have.

For a sport to survive and more importnatly grow in this day and age it needs to be creative. If a sport is not growing in advertising dollars then is it fading away over time.

An important part of being a successful sport is having rules that the spectators can follow. You have heard me mention this before. The spectators have to know who is winning and how close it is at the end to build the excitment. Do you think the rules are too complicated? Is it important to have the spectators know what is happening on the competition floor?

Look for the next blog – The Future scoring system.

Where is Artistic Gymnastics Headed?

Well, it appears the same leadership in the sport is still the same. This old out or date thinking has prevented the sport from growing. Is there hope for the future of artistic gymnastics?

I say YES, it has to come from the athletes and coaches, the great men and women who dedicate thier lives to the sport. These are the people who really understand what the sport represents.

So what do you think?

Ok ,more thoughts on this once you have voiced your opinion in the poll above.

2009-2012 Code for Men’s Vault – What Happened?

Ok, there have been several code changes for men’s gymnastics and some make sense in helping to equal the events out. But, what HAPPENED to VAULT!  The same rule standards, means vault will out score every event by a long shot and will control the outcome of team and all-aorund finals most likely.

I mean come on is one event really worth more than any other event? Just off the top of my head you could almost drop all vault start values by a half a point and you get close to equally it off to the other events. This needs to be looked at closer but, an event wehre the gymnast can fall and still out score most of the scores on the other events is just not right.

Do you think that Vault should have been adjusted as well in the new code changes?

Video Review – Shut it off

The 2008 Olympic Games have come to a close and for those who are true gymnastics fans, the talk is that it is time for an independent review of the judging of men’s gymnastics at the World and Olympic level.

This review should center itself around the video judging by the technical committee. The use of video judging has now been abused, as every routine is being judged by video and this takes away from the performance and undermines the judges on the competition floor.

Lets face it, anyone reviewing a video can slow down the action thus changing the real time aspects of judging. If you put the technical committee on the floor and have others use video to evaluate their judging I am sure they will not do very good.

One thing is for sure, video judging of all routines allows for manipulation of the scores and it slows down the competition. These two are facts about video judging. Especially, now the MTC is calling in and changing A and B-Panel scores on floor. Hmm, I thought it was just for a review of A-Panel scores.

So lets get this discussion started over the next month.

Besides, you see things or create things that are not seen in real time as you do on video. Example, slow motion and the ability to pause, etc. The reality is that this video review should only be used when an inquiry is handed in and at all other times it should be SHUT OFF!

Ok, so we know that video is being used to judge all rouitnes on the floor. Why do we know this, several people have sat behind the MTC during the last couple of World Championships and at this years Olympics, NBC even showed this on television. So, you would think that the judging would be correct, right? Well over the next month lets take a look at routines and see if the rules were actually used. I am talking about angles on high bar or strength skills that were evaluated on still rings for two examples.

Its time to clean up the over use of video judging and return the sport to what it is suppose to be real sport between the athletes. If not, why have the competitions, just send in your video and the MTC can tell you the following week who has won.

The New Five Gymnasts Rule for Worlds and Olympics – Hmm!

We now see that each team will have less gymnasts to comprise their World and Olympic Teams in the future World Championships and Olympic Games. Does this start to diminish the importance of the team competition? When is the number too small and it is no longer a team competition? Does this give an advantage to some countries over others.

These are interesting questions that will be answered in the future. It would appear that by lowering the number on team members on a team it will only make the best teams stronger. This would weaken the team competition down the road. However, maybe the sport is heading into just an individual event sport and the team competition will fade away in the years to come.  I guess only time will tell but a change is coming and over the long term the face of gymnastics is going to change.

There was a time when the team competition had a 7-6-5 format and the numbers for the Olympic Games were at the highest for the sport. These numbers continue to drop or are being reshaped.

Probably the more important task, is how do you keep interest in the sport of gymanstics after the Olympics has ended? The World seems to forget and waits another four years to watch. So the biggest task like all sports is to increase marketability. What would you say has been the biggest change in the sport to improve entertainment value for the spectator and the media? Has this marketing effect worked? Are the number of people watching gymnastics increasing, decreasing or staying the same? This is an interesting topic and survey to explore. If you have a comment on this please post it here.

Talk to you soon…………………………………

 

The Sport of Gymnastics – The Future

Wow, the 2008 Olympics is coming fast, an updated Code of Points for both the Artistic Men and Women and all the elections to decide the leaders for the next four years. This is an exciting time.

It would be exciting to see the most recent great athletes of the sport get an opportunity to lead and offer ideas as to how to help the sport grow. In this day and age of sports it has become more and more important to be aware of the fact that all sports are entertainment events. If you do not continuosly build your spectator base you will disaappear in the near future. There are just too many sports for the spectator to entertain their time.

In addition, sport is becoming a young person’s marketing tool to attract new spectators and new young athletes. The big sports in the World of Sports like; European Football, American Football, Nascar racing, Extreme Sports and others are tough to compete with. Just think of the marketing and excitment that these sports generate in entertainment value.

Having an arena with quiet background music, dead time when nothing is taking place, scores that take too much time to be displayed, a display board that you can not really see in the arena, lack of explanation to  the spectator as to what is going on with the A and B Panel scores and events that create unequal value does not create an exciting event. As an example, you have to wait until all gymnasts, in the men’s competition, have competed Vaulting before the scores start to look equal.

By bringing in the super stars of the sport (past World and Olympic Medallists) from the past four to six Olympics, as an example, you have individuals with fresh ideas and can develop new leadership for the sport.

The sport has amazing people out there that the pesent fans want to see involved it would be great to have them lead gymnastics into the future.

What do you think?

 

2009-2012 Code of Points – Vaulting

The new code continues to develop and comments are coming in. However, vault appears to still be an event that will score higher then the other apparatus. This needs to be thought out. I am not sure that just having all gymnasts doing two vaults is the answer. The difficulty tables could be adjusted as a simple answer but not neccesarily the answer either.

One thing for sure, do not ush a new or revised code foward too fast. The code for 2005-2008 has constantly been updated and new interpretations have been coming in each year and not just one or two but many changes. Most of these are made through out the year at the World Cup events. But, there are changes and new interpreatations at every World Championships. A better idea would be to have a time period were all rules are locked in.  Something like six months out and no new interpretations either.

This is a great opportunity to fix the code and improve the code for the gymansts, coahes and the spectators.

What do others think of the 2009-2012 code development? How would you fix the vaulting issue? Right now until all gymnasts have vaulted you have no idea how the gymnasts rank with each other. This is not a good competitive situation.

2009-2012 Code of Points – Is It Open Ended?

Following the 2004 Olympic Games, it was thought that the sport needed a new set of rules. it seems there were several problems at 2004 Olympic Games related to judging issues. Now remember the gymnasts had nothing to do with this, they like always were out doing their job and performing routines. The sport itself had created issued related to poor judgement in the evaluation of routines.

So, it was decided that since the administrators of the sport had caused these poor judgements, changes had to be made. Again, remember the gymnasts and coaches had nothing to do with the problems. The most important individuals in the sport, both gymansts and coaches, had to adapt to new rules based on the need for change.

So, an open end code of points was introduced as a new direction for artisitic gymnastics, even though this type of code was tested in the past and had its problems, it was presented to fix the problems and be the future. In fact, it was a code or points (rules for the sport) that would last forever and need no changes for many Olympics. Hmm, it appears it has already had many changes over the first years and now needs even more updating to fix the problems associated with it.

Is this an open ended code? I think a better terminology would be to call it an additive code. It is not open ended  since each apparatus has a limit based on the element groups and the limited number of D,E and F skills on each event.

The biggest problem with the present code of points is that the events are unequal in scoring. The old 10.0 system created a more equal system (in general) so, that the outcome of the competition was not going to be determined by the event a gymnast ended the competition on. In the present code of points the two lowest scoring events are PH and HB. Is it really fair that SR and Vault are worth more than PH and HB?

The new code of points is being developed and it appears there are some changes. The rumors floating around include the following:

General – No more chronological order

1. Floor Exercise – Only one combination pass and connection only with D skills, only two diagonal passes in a row

2. Pommel Horse – nothing mentioned

3. Still Rings – Combining skills for one value part is being removed – example Honma to Cross would valued as a B and B

4. Vault – nothing mentioned

5. Parallel Bars – skills using the reverse cut to HS will become two skills – Glide to Reverse Straddle Cut would then be A and B as an example

6. High Bar – Upgrading some releases to G skills – like the Cassina. The 1/1 Tak will have two values, to mix grip D to double under grip E

Just some things to think about. However, this is still not an open end code of points, it is additive.

 

 

2009-2012 Code of Points – Junior Rules

As most of you have seen the new code of points for the upcoming period 2009-2012 is under construction. The rumor has it that there will be a Junior rules section now and from the initial comments made this could become a problem in the development of junior gymnasts in many countries.

From the general comments that have been received it appears there will a limited on the skills that a young athlete can perform. This can cause a problem for countries, that have lawyers, that like to see the rules followed. A country can not just then have their own rules that would include higher difficulty.

Is this neccessary to have a set of FIG Rules for the Junior gymnast?

2009-2012 Code is Coming

Well the new code is underway and it is time to look over the present situation to determine the future.

There are key element to fixing the unequal nature of the events. At this point it has come to either putting a cap on difficulty and the top is like a 17.00 start or creating many new rules to equal the events off. If you have a cap each event can have rules that benefit that event. Without the cap you have to create rules to equal off the events. It is much easier to create a cap and allow the artistic part of the sport to return. Well, just my thoughts.

And what about the cronological order rule, it has two serious problems asscoiated with it 1). it penalizes the gymnast if a mistake is made in the routine and a change happens which lets say adds the wrong Element Group to the gymnasts routine. Is it necessary to penalize the gymnast twice he or she has already made a mistake that costs them. 2). It is a time consuming judging issue that is really not needed.

The sport of gymnastics need to become a better spectator sport and I mean for the people who are not advid gymnastics fans but to attract the general sports fan.

Have you ever listened to people in the stands trying to figure out what is going on, on the competition floor. They know that they just have to wait to the end to figure out what is happening. There is no suspense since no one knows what is going on. It is like watching an exhibition most of the time.

Sport is to be high energy not an arena where you can hear a pin drop.

Lets try and simplify the rules so everyone can enjoy this great sport. A set of rules that manipulates the outcome is not that exciting.