A Smart Sport with Stupid Mistakes

Gymnastics has always been a smart sport. It requires intelligence from all aspects. Our gymnasts must have incredible awareness and focus at all times, not to mention physical and mental toughness beyond normal capabilities. Our coaches must understand how a body can fly through the air and what it takes to guide said body.  Judges must know the mechanics of thousands of skills and what it takes to execute them properly. And we as fans have to be able to amalgamate all of this.

We have to know that our gymnasts and coaches and judges are human beings. Mistakes are made by all. Mistakes are missed by some. The sport will never be perfect. Would we want it to be? If Komova and Wieber had both given flawless performances, would we have been happy then? Probably not.

The code had to evolve because we were too smart to believe perfection could be achieved so easily. We had moved outside the 10.0 box. Is it confusing to the general public? Absolutely. But as I said, our sport requires intelligence.

With that being said, its sad to know that we have made steps in the right direction while still holding ourselves back. We recognized in Athens that the 10.0 code was no longer giving fair results. So we made a change. Once again, this change is far from perfect. However, if we recognized that our scoring was no longer effective, what about the equipment? We saw that the old horse was wrong, but why can't our vault landing mats be more forgiving?  Or any of our mats. We are still holding to these archaic equipment standards while asking our gymnasts to be progressive with their skills. These girls rarely train on the surfaces they use to compete. 95% of the time they're tumbling into pits and padding the beams. The 5% of the time they are using the competition surfaces, they are ending up injured. Obviously injuries occur into pits too, but the point I'm making still holds true. When we evaluate and change this code after the 2012 Olympics, I hope points like these are taken into consideration. While I believe the artistry versus power debate is very valid and needs to be addressed, I hope the safety of our athletes is the number one priority.