The Stunt Gym!

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When the 2008 Olympics began in Beijing this week, Bruno Grandi, president of the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique, or the FIG, which creates the rules for all gymnastic disciplines, and governs all the international competition, made a statement regarding the rules changes in Artistic Gymnastics.  According to an article posted on the NBC website :

International Gymnastics Federation president Bruno Grandi said Saturday he soon will discuss curbing some of the difficulty athletes have been packing into their routines. The federation instituted a new scoring system in 2006, and it has led to gymnasts pushing the safety envelope while seeking higher scores.

“We need attention to the difficulty increases, which are too much,” Grandi said. “I’d like gymnastics to remain artistic, that we don’t lose this part, the artistic. It is not only a sport of biomechanical performance. Expressivity must remain.

When FIG scrapped the perfect 10 system after the 2004 Olympics controversy, its new judging method made difficulty a more significant factor. Now that the current system has been used for two years, Grandi is convinced it must be tweaked.

This is both laudable and commendable. I hope he manages to regain artistry in gymnastics.  But frankly, I believe that ship has sailed.

For readers unfamiliar with the full scope of gymnastics, I wish to interject since this is a Stunt Gym blog.  Gymnastics in the early 20th century taught all the disciplines together in the YMCA’s, Sokols, Turnveriens, and the school systems.  The full scope that they taught included all the equipment events (called Artistic Gymnastics), props (called Rhythmic Gymnastics), trampoline and tumbling, partner stunts (called Acrobatic Gymnastics) and group pyramids (left to the Cheerleaders, who also abandoned them).

Competition was governed by the Amateur Athletic Union, which governed a multitude of other sports besides gymnastics.  In the late 60′s, early 70′s, the United States Gymnastics Federation was formed, which is now known as USA Gymnastics,  because they had gained the FIG sanction.  Because the Olympics only included the events using equipment, the USGF abandoned all the other disciplines to concentrate on raising American gymnastics to international standards.  In that, they had succeeded in an outstanding way.  The other disciplines formed their own international organizations, but had a hard time gaining admittance into the Olympic competition.  Finally,  in the early 21st century, the International Olympic Committee declared that only those disciplines governed by the FIG could enter the Olympics, so they all disolved as organizations and merged with the FIG.  The same merger occurred at the national levels.

Getting back to Bruno Grandi’s comments regarding Artistic Gymnastics (the six events for men: 1. floor exercise, 2. pommel horse, 3. rings, 4. vault, 5. parallel bars, & 6. high bar; and the four events for women: 1. vault, 2. uneven bars, 3. beam, and 4. floor exercise).  Artistry has suffered because of the increase in difficulty. So he is right. The problem has been the influence of television and business. Extreme difficulty draws viewers and ratings.  And the more television broadcasts there are the more students tend to enroll in our gyms, which also increases the size of competitions and revenues for the governing bodies of the USAG, in the states, and the FIG, internationally.

The new rules were created to encourage even more difficulty, not for TV, per se, but in the interest of more equitable scoring for outstanding athletes and routines.  If Bruno is serious about increasing the artistry in Artistic Gymnastics, I have a few suggestions for him.

The high bar, unevens, rings and parallel bars are still beautiful artistic events.  Reducing difficulty for safety reasons should be pursued, but will not affect the artistry of these events.  I don’t know if pommel horse is considered dangerous, apart from athletic strains, so I see no need to change difficulty there.  Vaulting has little artistry anyway since they are one shot events.  Lower difficulty there for safety reasons.  However, floor and beam need major surgery. For both eliminate tumbling passes altogether.

In the early 1960′s tumbling was separate from floor exercise.  When tumbling stopped being a competitive event in Artistic Gymnastics, AG merely moved tumbling into the floor exercise.  Balance beam had little tumbling on the beam until the 1976 Olympics.   I had the privilege to watch  Abbie Grosfeld and Muriel Davis perform their floor exercise on 16mm film at the University of Washington back in 1974, and it inspired me with a vision of an artistic acrobatic dance style that was masculine for men, and fluid and aireal for women.   There are an abundant number of floor exercise movements that have been abandoned over the years as tumbling in floor became more and more difficult.  Tumbling is back under the FIG control.  Bruno, either make platform tumbling the seventh event for men and the fifth event for women, or let Artistic gymnasts join the Platform tumbling competition that already exists.   What ever is done, I am convinced that artistry in the floor exercise and beam will not be restored until tumbling is removed from these events.