At the 2006 Common Wealth Games, Hollie Dykes finished in bronze position in the all around ahead of Imogen Cairns. Hollie fell on every apparatus to finish .05 ahead of Cairns.
Vanessa Ferrari took the 2006 world all around title despite a fall on beam, ahead of Jana Beiger, Sandra Izbasa and Steliana Nistor who performed cleanly.
Vanessa Ferrari managed to finish on the all around podium again at the 2007 World Championships despite a fall on bars. Jade Barbosa tied for bronze despite a fall on floor.
Cheng Fei didn't live up to expectations when she fell on her 'Cheng' vault, however she was consoled with a bronze medal, ahead of Alicia Sacramone. In my mind, this medal belonged to Anna Pavlova
Nastia Liukin, He Kexin and Beth Tweddle all qualified to the bars final in Beijing, despite all falling in prelims. Personally, I think Yang Yilin deserved gold, having qualified without a fall.
Let's hope the next code is an improvement!
3 comments:
Nistor and Bieger never perform 'cleanly' they both have very ugly gymnastics.
Sure Hollie got the bronze over Cairns but again Cairns has terrible form and Hollie amazing form.
The real travesty is that the ugliest gymnastics is getting the podium spots. Even Shawn's form would have been frowned on in previous quads. The only saving grace was Nastia's olympic gold.
I don't know. I think Shawn actually has very good form, apart from her split leaps and low landings on beam. What she really lacks is any kind of grace and artistry.
It's not like Nastia has amazing form either - bent legs in her UB set, horrifically cowboyed double fronts and crossed legs in her twists.
For me, it's really hard to pin-point what exactly makes gymnastics less appealing to watch at the moment, becuase I just don't agree that form was better in the 'old days'. You only have to look at the low landings and cowboying of the 80s to know that that isn't true.
I think it's more about the overall impression, artistry and fluidity of the gymnastics rather than just the form. Boginskaya had ugly cowboyed double backs but her gymnastics was still incredibly pretty, just as, today, Pavlova crosses her legs really badly in her twists but is so much nicer to watch than Shawn Johnson.
I love Anna Pavlova and wish her second vault had been scored, but it was impossible for her to medal with a 5.6 SV on her second vault. She got a 15.2 the first day with a slightly better vault and if she got the same score in finals she'd be 5th. She would have needed a 9.9 execution score to tie for bronze which is basically impossible with this code. I do think she deserved bronze on beam though and in the '04 AA.
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