Results of Dynamo Cup competition

The competition took place this weekend in Penza. The Russian women's team for Rotterdam did not compete here, but the men's team did, partly as a pre-competition test.

I am delighted to see that my favourite gymnast Barkalov won, and would like to announce that henceforth, he will be known as Barkalot on these pages.

http://www.burtasy.ru/school/activities/event_64.html

The Russian men's team announced so far includes Anton Golutsutskov, Maxim Devyatovskiy, Sergei Khorokhordin, Igor Pakhomenko, Andrei Cherkasov, Dmitri Barkalot, David Belyavskiy.

The inimitable Pavlova, who could at this stage be considered the non-travelling reserve for the women's team for Rotterdam, won the women's competition.

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'Those who do not risk, cannot win'

Who said, some time in the late 1980s, �those who do not risk, cannot win�? I think it was twice World Champion Yuri Korolev, but do correct me if I'm wrong and you have the reference to hand. The sport has virtually been turned on its head. Just look at team competitions � all scores counting � teams can�t possibly afford to take a risk if they want to win gold. The sport has been turned into something akin to diving or trampolining � technical and interesting to watch, but almost totally devoid of artistic depth.

Which brings me back to ROV. A reader has queried the validity of my use of Groshkova as an example of ROV, given that (s/he states) ROV disappeared from the Code of Points in the late 1980s. I suppose this is fair comment given my assumption that the form of the sport reflects the state of the judging codes. But it does also introduce an interesting idea, that of the legacy of past sporting codes. Gymnastics is constantly in evolution, not total re-invention, and this would suggest that the influence of the Code of Points takes some years to embed itself into the body of the sport. In Groshkova�s routines, the values of ROV are still clearly evident. When I talk of ROV, I don't just mean a term used to judge the sport, I am also referring to a quality embedded within the sport.

I think that, these days, gymnasts are generally risk averse and virtuosity has almost been wiped from the sport, even at the very top ranks. I consider this to be due to a number of factors: (i) the evaluative, prescriptive nature of gymnastics marking that virtually alienates all ideas of artistic judgement; (ii) changes in competition formats; (iii) the relative de-emphasis of single moves of great difficulty. There are always exceptions, of course. But ROV has, mostly, disappeared from the sport.

A longitudinal analysis of major changes in the Codes of Points and alterations to competition formats would be necessary to evaluate the relationship between these changes and how the sport evolved in their wake, although this would not answer the wider ethical and political questions. Also necessary is an awareness of who has the administrative leadership of the sport at the time, who the various political groupings are, and what influenced the changes.

In a comment made to yesterday�s posting, it was suggested that Bruno Grandi had pushed through changes in a deliberate attempt to favour a wider variety of gymnastics countries in winning medals, and that his election as President of the FIG was largely supported thanks to promises made to certain gymnastic nations. Much anecdotal evidence exists of such arrangements in gymnastics, and indeed in other sports, but systematically collected and evaluated evidence from multiple sources is required to speak of this with any authority.

I doubt that Yuri Titov�s time as President of the FIG was much different, though assumptions about sport and its role in society presumably differed quite considerably between the two Presidents. Riordan (1977) offered up the idea that the West generally views elite sport as a means of accumulating financial and commercial capital, while the Soviet Union�s view was more greatly imbued with social and diplomatic aims underpinned by deeply held cultural assumptions.

I am sure there are many people out there who view Titov's presidency with great cynicism, and say he was only in the job to secure as many medals for the Soviet bloc as possible. But wasn't the sport 'better' and more artistic in those days? Weren't the Soviets clearly the best, by far? What was it that made the sport so much more ... entertaining? Youtube is heavily populated with videos of 1980s Soviet gymnasts and message boards abound with gasps of wonderment at the fine gymnastics on display at this time. They really did have something.

But then quite a few gymnastics federations around the world would bemoan the fact that they never got a chance to win a single medal while the Soviets were around. The Code of Points, and many of the deliberations around it, was generated primarily in the Russian language, containing such terminology as 'harmony' and 'choreography', which in Russian are imbued with subtle meaning that does not translate entirely, word for word into the English language, at least. Even the meaning of 'virtuosity' is somewhat open to interpretation. I could argue that the Soviets took a constructionist view of their gymnastics, while the current sporting codes are more scientifically based ... but let's not think about that today. Suffice it to say, however, that in 1993 anecdotal evidence suggests that the Russians first viewed the new Code of Points only six weeks before the World Championships ... it was written in English, and there was no translation available. Who won? Shannon Miller of the USA. Tit for tat?

The majority of us approach the Soviet sports ethic with a fair deal of cynicism, but are lamentably unaware of our own assumptions about sport. A new set of search terms for my literature review, along with �sport governing bodies� will encompass �Western cultural values and sport�.

Riordan, J (1977) Sport in Soviet Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

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Should the FIG 'allow' wins? Comments on the World Rhythmic Gymnastics Championships

I was reading International Gymnast Online yesterday and came across a story about the Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships:

http://www.intlgymnast.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1921:russia-wins-three-more-golds-in-moscow&catid=5:competition-reports&Itemid=164

What caught my eye was Tanya's comment at the bottom of the page, to the effect that the Russian team had won too many golds at this championships, and that the FIG shouldn't 'allow' it. Now, granted, I don't know much about rhythmic. The 15 point winning margin of the Russian team suggests that there wasn't much doubt about their win, though, and there seem to be enough people in the world gasping about Kanayeva's grace and artistry to make these wins seem reasonably legitimate; if anything can be legitimate in this sport given the amount of controversy surrounding figures such as Irina Viner.

What really got me thinking, though, was the poster's emphasis on the idea of the FIG exercising power over who can or can't win.

There is an important point of principle here.

Surely sport is about the best winning - not administrators 'allowing' countries to win as a sop to national pride. But what is 'best?', and who decides? Who exercises control over the form that gymnastics takes - the performers and coaches, spectators, or the administrators, and for what reasons? Is fairness about an equal spread of medals amongst diverse countries, or about awarding wins to those who perform the 'best' under the current set of rules? Who should decide what those rules are? Is who wins more important than the sport itself? Is it right to let the sport's administrators try to 'level the field' artificially?

I'm not a rhythmic expert and I may have missed the point - perhaps the Russians aren't clearly the best and should have come second, third, or even last. But if they are the best, what is the problem?

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What is this about? Gymnastics at a turning point?

Having followed gymnastics (women�s gymnastics in particular) for almost 40 years, I have seen many changes and would like to try to understand how the sport has developed over that time, and the direction it may take next. I am particularly interested in linking this thinking to overall cultural, societal and political changes in the world, the way that they have influenced the power structure and the judging of the sport, and the influence it has had on the form of the sport itself and the routines that gymnastics practice and present at national and international competitions. This is a fairly deep area of study that I am not at all familiar with. So I decided to begin a blog as a sort of research diary, to try to develop my thinking and also to get feedback and research references from anyone else out there who may be interested, or who has anything to say on the subject. There will also be a fair deal of cheer leading for my favourite gymnasts. The Russians. Yes, I�m partisan.

In the spring, I went to Birmingham and saw the Russian women win the European team title. Lots of people think that gymnastics is an individual sport � but it isn�t. It is a team sport, and gymnastics shines most brightly in the team format, where the testing of real strength in depth can take place, rather than the lottery that is an all around competition.

The Russians� win, in some ways, was not that remarkable. To be first in European gymnastics, at this point in time, is about the same as saying that you are third or even fourth in the world, what with the dominance of such countries as China and the USA on the world stage. Now, however, six months later, only a few weeks before the World Championships, the Russian team�s skills and performance are raising eyebrows. Like their Soviet predecessors, the Russian team is beginning to develop strength in depth and to perform intriguing, spectacular gymnastics.

For the past 17 years, since the break up of the Soviet Union, gymnastics has stagnated somewhat. If you are a fan of British or American gymnastics, or any of the other states who have benefitted hugely from the �retirement� of the Soviet Union from big-time sport, you probably don�t like me saying this much. People follow sport for many different reasons: some are highly partisan; others like complicated Codes of Points and developing ranking tables; others like to observe political developments within the sport; still others enjoy following personalities. Gymnastics offers the scope for all of these activities, and more. My particular interests are without doubt partisan, for I follow with passion the fortunes of the Russian team. But they are also artistic, in that I wish to follow a sport where the barriers of the possible are regularly challenged, where expressive performances are the norm rather than the exception, and where the quality of line and shape created in the movement is aesthetically pleasing. In the 1980s, the Soviets introduced a bonus system to gymnastics� Code of Points. It was known as Risk, Originality, Virtuosity. And, to me, what became known as ROV pretty much sums up everything that I love (or loved) about the sport.

I�ll give you a link to a routine that I consider to represent the epitome of ROV. I suppose most people will think of women�s floor exercise when they consider the aesthetics of gymnastics, but ROV was applicable across all four pieces of apparatus: vault, bars, beam and floor. I�ve chosen beam as an example of the degradation of ROV in the sport because to me it�s where the changes in the sport have become most obvious. The gymnast is Tatiana Groshkova, who rested on the margins of the Soviet team around the late 1980s and early 1990s. She performs here in 1990.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xptNl-NRf8

You could set this routine to music, such is the rhythm, form and intensity of the gymnast�s performance. And Groshkova was one of the more �staccato� sprightly gymnasts on the Soviet team at the time!

As a point of comparison, here is Deng Lin Lin�s beam routine from 2009, that won the world championships medal on the beam.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFOiIGu1pi0

Deng�s form is obviously beautiful, the somersaults are high, the exercise is technically correct. However, where is the �routine�? What makes this exercise more than an assemblage of difficulties out of the pages of the Code of Points?

Perhaps you�ll understand better if I turn to the floor exercise for help. Here is Groshkova�s floor routine, again from 1990.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mpl3VI7SQdU

That�s a double twisting in, double back somersault she performs in the first run, with both twists in the first somersault which she performs in a straight position. Such a difficult single move is rarely, if ever, performed in gymnastics these days. Oh and this routine I think shows fairly good interpretation of the music.

Here is Britain�s Beth Tweddle performing her gold medal winning floor routine at the 2009 World Championships.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU6RmtQ6oAk

Again, a relatively technically correct routine, but where is the performance? Does the choreography match the music, or is the background music as important to Tweddle�s movement as that which plays at your local Sainsbury�s is to you, while you do the shopping? Where is the innovation? The risk, originality, virtuosity?

This is not to attack individual gymnasts, but to try to illustrate the background to the thinking and opinion I would like to develop on this blog. For I�m convinced we are seeing modern day echoes of the conflicts between Jahn and Ling that informed the institution of the sport of gymnastics as we know it today. Arguably at its artistic peak during the 1980s and early 1990s, following a model developed by the Soviet Union, gymnastics� transformation during the 1990s and 2000s into a more athletic model was led internationally and, I would dare to suggest, is particularly imbued with Western capitalist values stemming from the US.

In short, I am saying that the sport as practiced during the �Soviet� era from 1952 to 1992 was as much an art as sport, and that the sport�s progress since 1992 has been characterised by a gradual move towards a more one-dimensional sporting model along the lines of diving, trampolining and acrobatics. This development has been effected through changes in the International Gymnastics Federation�s (FIG) Code of Points. Over time the judging system has moved from a qualitatively-based judging system to an arithmetically-based system of evaluation. There are many arguments that surround the desirability of this change: the influence of the Code itself on routines is one; another is whether perceptions of the sport today as stagnant, stolid and inferior to gymnastics in the past have any foundation; we also must consider the ideological perceptions of the West as regards the transparency and �fairness� of marking, and the �wholesomeness� of the sport; the identity of sport and physical culture itself comes into question; political issues of who holds the power in gymnastics, and who decides what is �objective� and �fair� also come into play. I can hardly begin to discuss these in depth as I have neither the time nor knowledge. But I do hope over time, with my readers� help and some hopefully well chosen reading, to begin to develop more opinion in this area.

Riordan (1977) writes interestingly about definitions of sport in the Soviet Union, and I think contributes something helpful to our thinking here: the idea that sport was a form of �physical culture� and as such linked to the overall development of society and the individual. Sport, as well as a political means of projecting the nation�s image positively to the world, also provided individuals with a means of self-improvement. I�ll take this a little further to say that if the Soviet work ethic informed the use of gymnastics as a means of providing healthy, hard-working role models, or �heroes� for Soviet society at large, the sport of gymnastics, with its emphasis on effortless performance of amazing artistic and acrobatic feats that in reality took years of gruelling preparation, also fed the Russian cultural liking for refined appearance.

Booth (1997) writes of sports history�s decline and its increasing alignment with Departments of Physical Education in Universities, leading to the chronicle as an important form of sports history, with little criticality or synthesis attempted within frameworks of sociology, cultural studies or politics. It has indeed proved difficult for me to find many references in the area I wish to work in, though my work is at an early stage and this is probably informed by ignorance rather than absence of references.

My main references to date are provided at the end of this piece, and I shall be gradually working through them and commenting on points I find interesting. As the results of world championships and other important competitions become available, I shall also be discussing them here.

References

Aykroyd, P (1987) International Gymnastics: Sport, Art or Science? London: Kingswood Press

Booth, D (1997) �Sports History: What Can Be Done?� Sport, Education and Society Vol 2, No 2 pp 191-204

Riordan, J (1977) Sport in Soviet Society Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Riordan, J (1993) �Rewriting Soviet Sports History� Journal of Sports History Vol 20, No 3, pp 247-258

[Post edited 1.10.10 to provide alternative video of Groshkova's floor - the original version was an exhibition which showed her performing a full in piked somersault and is still available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3S5CrYdSwM. The newly posted version shows Groshkova performing floor at the 1990 European Championships All Around competition. Heartstopping performances, both of them!]

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