Let's talk about ex(ecution), baby.

USA Gymnastics

Quick! Who do you think are the girls with the highest execution in the USA? I assumed that the "Chosen 4" would rank highly and then I thought that with only execution counting that Sarah Finnegan and Sabrina Vega would squeak into the top 5 or so. In fact, I thought that Sarah Finnegan would become a virtual lock for the team disregarding difficulty. I thought she had a good chance to place higher than Douglas. Well, I was wrong.

The Top 12 in execution only over the 2 days of competition were: (parentheses indicate place w/ D & E scores counting)

USA Gymnastics

1. Kyla Ross (4th)
2. Jordyn Wieber (1st)
3. Gabby Douglas (2nd)
4. Aly Raisman (3rd)
5. Elizabeth Price (5th)
6. McKayla Maroney (N/A)*
7. Sarah Finnegan (6th)
8. Sabrina Vega (7th Tie)
9. Brenna Dowell (9th)
10. Kennedy Baker (7th Tie)
11T. Bridget Sloan (10th)
11T.  Abigail Milliet (11th)

*I multiplied Maroney's day 1 E scores by 2 so we could see where she fits.

Places 13-18 fall in the same order that they did in competition.

Frankly, I was surprised. I started to question myself and other gymnastics fans. We love Sabrina Vega, we love Sarah Finnegan, We Well, I, love Kennedy Baker. We say that it's because they have clean gymnastics, but we're lying to ourselves. It's because they have pretty gymnastics. There's nothing wrong with liking gymnastics because it's pretty, we just need to be honest with ourselves about what's going on. It's worth mentioning that these girls fell, but even if they hadn't they wouldn't have been the leaders in execution. It's a myth that these girls would be the strongest if their difficulties were higher, as they're in the same positions or even lower. Pretty doesn't necessarily equal well executed, as much as sometimes I wish it did.

Inside Gymnastics

Other surprises included Raisman placing 12th amongst vaulters. (Maroney, not surprisingly, placed 1st), Jordyn Wieber placing higher than Anna Li on bars and Gabby placing 3rd on floor. You may not like her music, but you can't argue that she performs it well.

So difficulty aside, who would I name to my team? (Execution based ranks are in parentheses)

VT: Wieber (3), Ross (2), Maroney (1)
UB: Wieber (3), Ross (2), Douglas (1)
BB: Wieber (4), Raisman (3), Ross (1)
FX: Douglas (3), Raisman (2), Wieber (1)
Alt: Price, Sacramone, Finnegan

Terrible Tuesdays - Things I Hate About the Code

I don't miss the 10.0 scoring system... Okay, maybe I miss it a little bit, but for the most part, I like the D + E way to judge. However, there's no doubt that there are parts of the code that are causing the quality of gymnastics to decline.

Here are 3 things that I hate about the current code:

1. Vault scores are entirely too high. 

The highest score at the World Championships on Vault was a 16.033 (Maroney) while the highest floor score was only 15.133 (Afan). Thats a .9 difference! With vault and bars consistently scoring higher than beam and floor, the system really isn't fair to people like Aly Raisman whose strengths are on the lower scoring events. (Someone on the International Gymnast Forum pointed out Raisman in particular, but I can't remember who.)

 If I were rewriting the code, I might add an extra composition requirement on floor and maybe beam (adding .5 to most SVs) or I would devalue all of the Vault start values by .5.

2. A Hop up onto the beam is considered a "mount". 

There are forty five unique beam mounts in the current Code of Points. According to this report by FIG, 68% of gymnasts at 2010 Worlds used an A Mount. Yet, A skills only account for 17% of the mounts in the code. I'm not even against A Mounts, as long as they display something worthwhile. I personally think that a simple leap onto the beam is such a cop out. You're setting the stage for your whole routine! You think you'd want to do something that would impress people, rather than bore them to death.

Ideally, I wouldn't get rid of "A" Mounts, but I would eliminate mounts that don't require much skill, like the leap and hop.

3. People can cheat the Frontwards/Sidewards Requirement on floor. 

Come on, you're an Elite Athlete. You do FOUR tumbling passes and for some reason, you can fit a front layout into one of them? I HATE when gymnasts add an aerial or a side somi to fulfill the composition requirement on floor that says that each gymnast needs a backwards and a frontwards/sidewards element.

I would require that the backwards and frontwards/sidewards element be part of a tumbling pass and connected to other elements.



Those are my 3 biggest pet peeves with the code... for today. What do you dislike about the code?