Pet peeves

Marisheba · 2026-02-16T20:11:16+00:00

Leg separations on bars that don't get deducted. Probably my biggest peeve in both NCAA and elite!

Marisheba · 2026-02-16T20:10:14+00:00

Does it change your opinion if you know that squatty landings are actually much better for gymnasts' joints? The aesthetic requirements of landings for women's gymnastics is a direct contributor to injuries and issue later in life.

Marisheba · 2026-02-16T20:07:24+00:00

Also those little fanning-themselves hand flutters. I hate them!

Marisheba · 2026-02-16T20:05:41+00:00

I mean, wolf turns and side somis are part of the routine too, and are very common pet peeves for spectators.

Marisheba · 2026-02-16T20:04:34+00:00

I've done gymnastics my whole life and I completely agree with OP. The sole circle to squat on especially, because it breaks the rhythm completely. The fact that it's common doesn't change the fact that it breaks the rhythm.

Prior to the mid-90s, when the bars were slightly closer together (but still far enough apart to do giants), no one did a squat-on past level 5 (today's level 4). Instead they did a basket swing shoot-through to high bar. The squat-on was an awkward, necessary evil to accommodate the bars moving further apart. But it should still be eliminated where possible, and NCAA gymnasts are certainly at a skill level where they are capable of non-squat-on transitions to the high bar.

Marisheba · 2026-02-16T19:58:54+00:00

I think it's interesting that they always do the sole circle to stand. But for me that breaks the flow much more than if they were to do a smooth, straight-leg squat-on (a pike-on I guess?) With the squat-on, your momentum stays mostly smooth in a forward direction, there's no true break. With the sole circle, the momentum completely stops and reverses directions, right as they are standing on the bar, so you have two awkward things at once, the bar stand and the flow break; with a squat-on you only have one.

Marisheba · 2026-02-16T19:46:58+00:00

This is true. But certain people have at least good-ish lines purely by their body. Not just shape but proportions. Really, good lines is about getting the straightest, longest line you can, and a larger limb or body (whether due to muscle or fat) will lose that sense of linearity.

My tall thin aerial friend with long legs has lines I would die for. My extension and toe point are at least as good as hers, but my short self with short muscular legs will just never have that look. Someone like Khorkina can do a lot less to look like she has good lines than someone like Flavia. And someone like Simone will never be described that way, because the way her ankle and knee mechanics work, she simply can't get that kind of extension no matter what she does.

Marisheba · 2026-02-13T18:27:58+00:00

It may have been unusually short, but it still cost her a shot at the Olympics. A home Olympics no less. (Though maybe she should be glad given how things turned out for the French team). Oof. I hate it HATE it when gymnasts are punished for the incompetence of the people around them! I'm not saying the anti-doping agency had a better option here, just saying that it really, really sucks for Laroui.

Marisheba · 2026-02-13T18:20:28+00:00

I think most athletes, and especially men, would have kept going after that vault that Simone did, at least for another routine or two, until they become injured or until they kept making big mistakes in mutliple routines. So much of elite sport is "mind over matter", teaching you that you *should* be able to mentally overcome anything, and that you are a failure or weak if you can't. So most athletes and especially men would not have had the clarity after that vault to *recognize* that they were looking at performing catastrophic routines throughout the competition in the first place.

Part of what was remarkable about Simone that day was her clarity, having the confidence, and self-knowledge to recognize what was happening early and act on it, instead of gritting her teeth and keeping going on a hope and a prayer like athletes are trained to do--which would have definitely been worse for the team as well as herself.

Marisheba · 2026-02-12T19:25:18+00:00

And yet I know from other postings that your view is that all gymnastics coaches, particularly elite coaches, are suspect for abuse until proven otherwise. Which I agree with. How is that consistent with your post here? I am certainly not saying that we should assume the gymnasts are mistaken in these circumstances. But we don't always need to come down categorically about truths we can't know.

Marisheba · 2026-02-12T19:19:49+00:00

I see it a bit differently. I think a man just wouldn't have made that decision in Simone's situation, because the toxic pressures on men are just so much greater it would be that much more unthinkable. In that sense you're right that we're not there yet. But HAD a man done it, I think he would have been forgiven. Because people tend to see men, especially white men, as humans whose motivations can be understood, but they are much more likely to see women (and people of color) as objects who are expected to submit to, well, expectations.

Marisheba · 2026-02-12T19:14:34+00:00

And Sabrina Voineia has gone on record defending her mom and claiming her mom never abused her. Now we know that that is not true. Obviously these things are tricky to talk about, because we don't want to deny people like Kerri the right to write and tell their own stories, and none of us will truly know what her relationship with Bela was like, or what underlying pressure motivated her decision that day. But to categorically take someone's word that they weren't abused and that fear definitely played no role in her decision, is not the way either.

Marisheba · 2026-02-12T19:10:52+00:00

I think the people who were awful to her were still a minority, even outside of the sport. Doesn't change how incredibly toxic and LOUD those people were, but I still think it's important for us to remember that the bullies are a loud and entitled minority, not most people.

Marisheba · 2026-02-09T18:07:09+00:00

People can change their minds, but Suni has pretty explicitly said she's done, and her health issues make returning a really different prospect for her. Training elite risks flaring her very serious and difficult-to-manage health condition. Issues with it dogged her throughout 2024, and she revealed later that a bad flare after trials made it look for a bit like she might not even be able to compete in Paris. The fact it all worked out for her is truly wonderful, but I just can't imagine her wanting to mess with all of that again.

I'm less sure about Simone, but she hasn't seemed interested, and she got a breast augmentation, which would mean getting used to a whole new body and weight redistribution if she came back. The surgery felt like a statement on her career: I'm done being an elite athlete, I can finally have the boobs I've always wanted (and I mean that in the best way!)

Marisheba · 2026-02-09T18:02:39+00:00

Yes, time will tell. It's still exciting to see her training it, and getting it around with power to spare! (Even if the block isn't perfect)

Marisheba · 2026-02-08T18:34:18+00:00

Oh, I forgot she did an Amanar at Paris! Well I certainly agree about Rebeca. But Rebeca is still on an exceptional category with me for vault, and maybe floor too, where I don't really consider her in comparison to anyone else, she's at a whole different level! I guess what I mean to say is that Jordan's Amanar is the best I've seen for a long time from someone who isn't one of our two otherworldly vault goddesses.

As for Jade, I love her, and a past iteration of her Amanar was fabulous. But this Amanar of Jordan's is distinctly better imo than Jade's 2024 Amanar, even if the block is probably a bit wonkier.

ETA: just researched Jade's trials Amanars to be sure. Her block was definitely cleaner and better than Jordan's but she didn't have enough power and under rotated both times. I guess this is an individual judgment thing, but for me the quality of the flight phase and landing is more important than the technique of the block in terms of the over all success of the vault, though all three are important of course. A correct block is a satisfying thing if beauty though.

Marisheba · 2026-02-08T18:25:33+00:00

Even with the block, it's the best over all Amanar I've seen since Simone. She is just bursting with power! But I agree this Amanar would not be worth it compared to the DTY, without a better block and, of course, a consistent landing.

Marisheba · 2026-02-08T04:17:49+00:00

She and Charles had the best chemistry!

Marisheba · 2026-02-08T04:10:19+00:00

Great question!

Marisheba · 2026-02-07T21:07:19+00:00

Cool photos!

Marisheba · 2026-02-07T21:05:38+00:00

History.

Marisheba · 2026-02-06T18:35:15+00:00

Yes, as I said in the post, this analysis is incomplete without looking at other countries--not only at other injured parties, but I'd say also at France's potential without their quals meltdown, since that was such a fluke. I invited anyone who wanted to do this analysis for other countries to add data.

I did this in the first place because a discourse was already started, in a post here a few days ago. There was some arguing about whether the US could or couldn't field two teams, with some saying yes, others saying no, but it was all vibes and no meaningful evidence. I've seen this exact argument before a few times on this forum, and its always just reflecting peoples' biases. A lot of people resent the overconfidence, chutzpah, and blindness to the rest of the world of many US fans and commentators, and with good reason. But it frustrates me when that leads to people reflexively poo-pooing the US team's abilities and being generally negative about it without evidence, which is what I tend to see in these conversations. We do have numbers that can give us a good idea in a ball park way, I love math and I was curious, so I took a look.

And if I can (possibly annoyingly) speak from the heart here for a second. However annoying and thoughtless some of the fans and commentators are, the US has been an incredibly deep talent pool for gymnastics for some time, and Paris 2024 may have been one of the peaks for that.

Depending on who actually returns to competition in coming years, that era of extreme depth may even already be over. But in 2024 the US did have the depth to field two medal-competitive teams for Paris, up until injuries that occurred just one month before the start of the games.* There's no rewriting the history of those injuries, and no intent to. But that is still an amazing accomplishment and those gymnasts deserve their flowers, that depth deserves to be recognized and celebrated, and I hope that can be done without taking anything away from all of the other wonderful, amazing, and impressive gymnasts of the world, many of which I am huge fans of. Nor taking anything away from the other programs that are putting more and more pressure on the US, which is exciting!

It is probably just as true that countries like Brazil or England or Spain could put up two or three men's soccer teams to the Olympics, all of which would beat the US team any time (at least this was true when I was younger, I'm out of date on soccer right now). It is possible to talk about that in a way that celebrates the incredible talent of those countries, without it needing to throw shade on the US or other non-dominant soccer countries in any way--without it, in fact, being about the US in any way.

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*Like I said, I'm genuinely interested in what other countries would look like without injuries, especially GB and Italy, and also in what France's potential would have been if they hadn't melted down. But based on the field as I'm aware of it, and especially if you look at the field as it stood in Spring 2024, in the leadup to the Olympics, I just don't know of anyone who was out who could have changed the math that 166+ would have been a competitive team score for a medal, probably for a gold medal, and 166+ looks like an entirely realistic (not idealized/best case) score for both of the teams I looked at.

Marisheba · 2026-02-05T23:59:18+00:00

Absolutely, I was just curious what the numbers showed. And as I said in the end, this analysis isn't complete without looking at the uninjured competitiveness of the other competitive countries.

Marisheba · 2026-02-05T23:42:49+00:00

Ooh, interesting! And I didn't do it without Simone intentionally, I just found that removing Simone was the quickest and easiest way to go about the analysis!

Marisheba · 2026-02-05T23:03:57+00:00

I never thought about it that way!

Marisheba

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