Home » The American women’s gymnasts, 2016

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The American women’s gymnasts, 2016 — 22 Comments

  1. Being of a similar age, I too prefer the artistry of past gymnastics to today’s singular focus upon athleticism. If athleticism and perfection of execution are now the sine qua non of gymnastics, then something vital has been lost.

    Which leads to the observation that now that accommodation of transgendered athletes has become mandatory, how long till women’s competition becomes a thing of the past? Feminist privilege VS gender ‘identity’…

    Slightly off topic, how about the very serious health issues arising at this Olympics and the multiple incidents of Muslim bad sportsmanship toward the Israelis? Talk about a violation of the Olympic spirit.

  2. I too prefer the balletic style, but Tourischeva already in 1976 is using some of the jerky modern moves (which I think verge on the obscene for some performers).
    She also works to the music, while most modern athletes, including ice skaters, could have put on a random recording and still had the same correspondence (or lack thereof) between the composition and the components.

  3. Torischeva is a good-looking young woman and the routine shows it, or takes advantage of it.
    Having the US team doing even a little hip-shot vamping would be silly. They’re not built for it.
    If some is good, more is better, and down the path you go until you have foreclosed other directions.
    Neo has remarked on that in dance.

  4. I#m not much of a sports fan, but watching the clios I’ve seen of people like Simone Biles is certainly a wonderful respite from the never-ending politics this year.

  5. GB: yes the irony of the feminists of the past pushing (and I agree) for more support for women’s sports, are now pushing for transgender participation which could effectively destroy women’s sports. As a father of two women athletes, I cringe when I see what’s happening.

    As far as the Olympics, I watch the women’s gymnastics and basketball (hey I’m from CT the center of the universe for women’s basketball), some swimming, and the golf and soccer. I hate track and field. The great thing about the summer games is that there’s something for everyone; one doesn’t have to watch everything.

    Now if we could just find a way to fire Jill Ellis as coach of the US women’s soccer team; all will be well.

  6. “Ferocious will” – what a beautiful phrase.
    The ferocity of Will of American women is terrifying, so no surprise that they dominate a sport which depends on it.

  7. Unfortunately young Olympic athletes have the same pressures College football players face without the chance of a big payoff. I went to high school with several Olympic speed skaters (women and men) in the early 1970s. Nice kids but their lives were totally warped. They drove 100 miles each way to the closest indoor olympic ice rink to train and had other intense commitments. But unlike figure skating there is no professional career other than coaching the next set of skaters. The old Communist countries changed that face of sports like this with their state sponsored training schools and camps. No more Olympic amateurs. The movie Unbroken has a nice substory about the main characters real life experience as an Olympic track star. He trained at high school in California but otherwise had an ordinary life.

  8. ESPN recently produced a short documentary on the story of a young gymnast (who was born without legs and was adopted) who set out to find her Olympian gymnast, biological sister (Dominique Monceau).

    It’s one of the most extraordinary and uplifting stories I have ever seen. I urge everyone to take 15 minutes and watch it. It’s a real antidote to the majority of the news stories these days:

    http://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=13718000

  9. According to the left
    They didn’t earn that
    They were priveledged
    Where are the fat gymnasts???

  10. Earlier versions of women’s gymnastic were perhaps better as a performance, but athletics are supposed to be, well, athletic.

    “Rumania” is the old spelling, which the Romanians themselves dropped about 150 years ago. Other countries followed suit slowly, and “Romania” has been official in English since between the World Wars. No need to bother to add the diacritical over the first “a” unless you are writing in Romanian, however.

  11. If you’re looking for the long legged ballerina gymnasts of old, rhythmic gymnastics floor routines is the place to find them.

    I don’t even know if the US fields a team in this sport, but there are some truly classically beautiful young women to be found there doing some pretty astonishing routines.

  12. El Polacko. The more “astonishing” they get, more than likely, the more “athletic” and “powerful” their moves will have to be to beat the competition. Same path.

  13. Did anybody notice that some of the Russian female athletes are beautiful? They certainly outclass the other females in this category.

  14. Ray:

    That’s been true for a long, long time. I’m not sure what it’s all about.

    Not that the other gymnasts are any slouches in the looks department, either.

  15. El Polacko:

    I love rhythmic gymnastics, but they don’t show all that much of it on TV, and it’s not a big deal in this country.

    It’s very strange, though.

  16. Richard Aubrey: Rhythmic gymnastics require nowhere near the same raw power the musclebound little tumblers and equipment gymnasts need.

    It is a remarkably graceful combination of balletic movement and handling of very light apparatus like balls, ribbons and hula hoops they toss around.

  17. I can’t imagine what a difficult decision it’d be for a parent to let (or push) a child down that road. Any sort of prodigy activity. Five hours a day violin, dancing, chess, skating, whatever. Knowing the kid will have a completely different upbringing than the usual. The chance that a bad landing will make all the effort for naught. I know that experts can spot the kids who physically don’t have what it takes (although there could be a lot of self-fulfilling prophecy in that), but as a parent you’d have to gauge if your child really has the intensity to stick with the activity for so many years. So much easier to give them three sports and two hobbies.

  18. There is a clear and present effort to blur the equal and complementary nature of men and women. It has been a progressive slope ever since the successful indoctrination of a fantasy that debases human life from conception.

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