GYMN-L Digest - 23 Aug 1995 to 24 Aug 1995

There are 20 messages totalling 638 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

  1. Miller Stalked (2)
  2. The Time article (2)
  3. re-design of WWW pages
  4. Stormy Eaton (2)
  5. Re[2]: Time Article (4)
  6. RINGS question (3)
  7. Questions (3)
  8. NBC coverage
  9. Stormy's Award
 10. LEVEL 6 E-MAIL PAL

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Date:    Thu, 24 Aug 1995 00:49:08 -0400
From:    ***@AOL.COM
Subject: Miller Stalked

While coming back from New Orleans, I had a several hour layover in Dallas.
While waiting around, I bought the August 20, 1995 Dallas Daily Morning News.
In it is an article by Mark McDonald about Shannon Miller being stalked. The
article says that according to Steve Nunno, Shannon has been stalked by an
obsessed fan for the past couple of years. Nunno also says that sometimes the
man shows up in the gym and at different competitions. Apparently, he showed
up at Nationals last year and waited for Miller as she came out of a bathroom
in a restricted area right before the competition. Nunno partially attributes
Shannon's "poor performance" last year to this incident. Nunno also said that
this man dresses all in black and tells Shannon that the devil has sent him.
The man also gives her dozens of foxes. ( I have no idea what the symbolism
of that is supposed to be.) Also, Shannon doesn't want to give out this man's
name because she's afraid it may encourage him.
That's about all the article said. I tried not to quote the article, and I
hope I've stayed within the rules for referrring to articles on gymn.
Has anyone else heard of this problem before?

LeeAnn

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Date:    Thu, 24 Aug 1995 01:50:59 -0400
From:    ***@AOL.COM
Subject: Re: Miller Stalked

Hey all,

This seems to be an ongoing problem with all persons in the public
eye.....It's scarry.
The laws are changing and it's the responsible of the event personnel to
provide security at meets.  I have seen some real poor security in the
past....BTW recently at the Peachtree Classic in Atlanta, Georgia a fan
(male) stopped me because he saw camera's and press credentials and wanted to
know details about...Shannon......I thought this was kinda weird..so I
advised meet personnel.......even though I am a journalist,  EVEN I feel a
responsibility to these atheletes.  We should do whatever it takes to make
our atheletes safe.  We all remember Monica and Nancy K.

I feel real sorry for Miss Miller and I hope that her parents and Coach Nunno
stop this harrasment.  Everyone here in Georgia are gearing up for the
Olympics and I hope that they address the security problems well.
...........................................................

Me.........I'm staying home and watching it on
TV...............................................
BTW, congrads to Dominque at
Nationals..........................................................

Jim

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Date:    Thu, 24 Aug 1995 05:02:00 MDT
From:    ***@RMII.COM
Subject: The Time article

Well, thankfully I can clear this up to a certain degree.  I have not seen
the article yet, but I can describe what I think the author (Jill Smolowe?)
is talking about:

During floor compulsories, Amy Chow scored a 9.425.  She was immediately
followed by Moceanu who clearly hit a significantly better routine.  The
positions were crisper, the form was better, and everything just flowed
better.  I thought Amy Chow did fine, but I was really very impressed with
Moceanu's routine.  At any rate, the initial score (I don't think it was
ever lifted, but the judges had it on their scoreboards) was approximately 9.65.

At this point, the women's "panel" -- not any of the judges at the meet!!!!
-- "protested" to the woman's program administrator.  I put "protested" in
quotes because I don't believe it was any sort of officially documented
protest.  The "panel" (not their official title) consisted of the "biggies"
in women's gymnastics in the USA.  I honestly don't know which names go with
which faces, so I cannot say who was on the so-termed "panel".

At any rate, what happened? One member of the panel saw the (approx.) 9.65
that was going to be the score.  She walked to the Woman's Program
Administrator and expressed that if Amy Chow had received a 9.425 then
Dominique deserved a <mumble>.  I could not hear what she said.  And to be
honest I'm surprised that anyone did hear what she said. She certainly did
not shout it; I would expect that only the two or three people directly
around her could have heard.

At this point this "protest" was communicated to the judges who then raised
their scores and Moceanu ended up with a 9.85 (or was it 9.825?).

So:
1. It was NOT one of the judges at Nationals who made the comment.  I don't
know if the person who made the comment is even a judge.
2. The comment was made among the Women's Program Cmte, not to the press.
3. We were never given an official reason for the obvious change in
Moceanu's score.

Rachele

------------------------------

Date:    Thu, 24 Aug 1995 05:38:44 -0600
From:    ***@RMII.COM
Subject: re-design of WWW pages

Hey Gymn,

As many of you have noticed, the Gymn pages
(http://rainbow.rmii.com/~rachele/gymnhome.html) have been redesigned.
The "re-design" is about 85% complete, the rest being my translating
some of the gifs to "transparent" gifs (instead of the white
backgrounds) and adding some of the results that came across Gymn
recently (aside from Nat'ls).

I would appreciate any feedback on what you feel would improve the
Gymn pages.  Predominantly most of our new subscribers are joining
because they've seen our WWW pages, and so I would like for them to be
as classy as possible!

Rachele

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Date:    Thu, 24 Aug 1995 08:06:01 -0400
From:    ***@A1.CSOC.UMC.DUPONT.COM
Subject: Stormy Eaton

Lisa wrote:

>We missed Stormy Eaton :(.

I think that, for me, the highlight of the Ceremony of Honors was
the special award given to Stormy Eaton for his contributions to
the sport.  The award was presented to his son and daughter and
was followed by a wonderful video showing the many facets of
Stormy's personality.

Though I didn't know him personally, everything I hear and read
about him tells me that he was the kind of coach (and person)
that I want to emulate.  To paraphase his son: I just hope that I
can be half the man he was...

Jim

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Date:    Thu, 24 Aug 1995 10:05:32 -0500
From:    ***@ASTRO.OCIS.TEMPLE.EDU
Subject: Stormy Eaton

I thought this would be a good time to tell a Stormy Eaton story.

In 1980 I was a Class I gymnast competing in NY state.  My family decided
to take a trip to Arizona and Nevada, and I didn't want to be out of the
gym for a whole week, so I called Desert Devils to ask if I could work out
there.  They said sure.

I acutally only got to join their practice once because travel plans got in
the way, but the first thing Stormy did was ask if I wanted to compete as
part of his team in a meet that weekend.  This was before seeing me on even
one event.  I didn't get to compete, but it was nice to be asked.

The girls on the Desert Devils clearly liked and respected their coach.
Workout had lower pressure and more fun than any workout at my own gym, and
the girls were doing great gymnastics.  The whole atmosphere was one of
excitement at the sport and mutual respect.  The only hard part for me was
that some of the class IIs were doing better gymnastics than I was! :-)
(That changed on beam, though, where I was doing back-to-back side aerials
and for some reason no one at D.D. was doing even one.)

I left Desert Devils wishing I lived out West and could train there regularly.

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Date:    Thu, 24 Aug 1995 10:22:42 -0400
From:    ***@PHARM.MED.UPENN.EDU
Subject: Re[2]: Time Article

I have a hard time having people think that a 9.425 is a very low score --
in an international competition that could win a medal.  That is about what
Amy received at World's also.  An 8.425 is a very low score.  Remember -
this meet was not scored for television like the olympics will be or like
an NCAA women's meet.  Amy had a lot of mistakes and overall did not look
as good this past week, as did Kerri, both of whom I expected more
consistency from - the scores were a little high to begin with but by the
end they were in line with the gymnastics that was being done.

The biggest thing was that Dominique M. looked so good technically, and
very clean that she really did make all the rest look worse than they
really were.  But then again as someone pointed out, this is a qualifier
meet, and Shannon, Kerri, Amy, and Dominique D. with their previous
international experience all know that the important meet to hit in is the
world's in Sabae not Nationals in New Orleans.  I have a feeling that when
the heat is on, the "old women" will show us exactly what they are made of.

Mayland


 I understand that a 9.425 is already a very low score.
>And why was she over scored? certainly because other judges didn't agree
>with that judge.
>If that disagreement between judges were simply by a few tenths then that
>judge had no reson for making those coments about Amy, or should he? he
>would probably just say that Amy performance was very poor.
>
>

------------------------------

Date:    Thu, 24 Aug 1995 12:26:51 -0600
From:    ***@ZEPHYR.MEDCHEM.PURDUE.EDU
Subject: RINGS question

I have to ask, since people are often more knowledgable about things than me:


Who was the first gymnast to perform cross strap moves on rings? You know,
when they do a half turn and swing through and then have to do another
half turn to un-cross them.


I know that Yang Yueshan was doing it in the mid 1980s. Anyone know of others
before him?


Thanks.


Jeff

P.S. When are the ROMANIAN champs being held to determine their Sabae team?

------------------------------

Date:    Thu, 24 Aug 1995 20:31:27 +0000
From:    ***@TPONE.TELEPAC.PT
Subject: Re[2]: Time Article

>A 9.425 is hardly a very low score.  A 9.425 indicates that a gymnast
>performed a _very_ solid, artistic routine with a few minor problems.  We
>have gotten used to inflated scoring, but it's worth remembering that if we
>were seeing any but the top few performers on a given event we'd be seeing
>many scores in the eights and a few in the sevens.  And this is in national
>and international competition.

That's why a previous selection is made. The 9.425 indicates that a gymnast
performed a _very_ solid, artistic routine with a few minor problems and
all gymnasts who goes to nationals should perform _at least_ very solid,
artistic routine with few minor problems. The point of national is not a
competition among a representation of gymnasts from each state but instead
among the very best from them so they will be able to compete with the very
best worlwide.

At world competitions gymnasts are suposed to perform it with no problems
at all. However I must say that a mistake is not to be considered as a bad
thing that would decrease the gymnasts score, instead the way gymnast gets
over that mistake is certainly most important than a performance with no
mistakes at all. And that's because the gymnast has previously planned what
she is about to perform, and if a mistake has occured then how gymnast will
get over it is a proof that if the gymnasts is really thinking and
concentrated about what she is doing or just performing some routines over
and over again.

The way mistakes are over come should be very important for the final
score, not to decrease it but instead to increase it.


>Also, in many televised meets the scores seem artifically high to me.

That's my point. Is there no more perfect ten's around? Sould the media
make it or is it supposed to gymnasts perform it rigth?

------------------------------

Date:    Thu, 24 Aug 1995 20:31:48 +0000
From:    ***@TPONE.TELEPAC.PT
Subject: Re: The Time article

>During floor compulsories, Amy Chow scored a 9.425.  She was immediately
>followed by Moceanu who clearly hit a significantly better routine.  The
>positions were crisper, the form was better, and everything just flowed
>better.  I thought Amy Chow did fine, but I was really very impressed with
>Moceanu's routine.  At any rate, the initial score (I don't think it was
>ever lifted, but the judges had it on their scoreboards) was approximately
>9.65.
>
>At this point, the women's "panel" -- not any of the judges at the meet!!!!
>-- "protested" to the woman's program administrator.  I put "protested" in
>quotes because I don't believe it was any sort of officially documented
>protest.  The "panel" (not their official title) consisted of the "biggies"
>in women's gymnastics in the USA.  I honestly don't know which names go with
>which faces, so I cannot say who was on the so-termed "panel".
>
>At any rate, what happened? One member of the panel saw the (approx.) 9.65
>that was going to be the score.  She walked to the Woman's Program
>Administrator and expressed that if Amy Chow had received a 9.425 then
>Dominique deserved a <mumble>.  I could not hear what she said.  And to be
>honest I'm surprised that anyone did hear what she said. She certainly did
>not shout it; I would expect that only the two or three people directly
>around her could have heard.

>1. It was NOT one of the judges at Nationals who made the comment.  I don't
>know if the person who made the comment is even a judge.
>2. The comment was made among the Women's Program Cmte, not to the press.


Thank you Rachele for clearing this up and sorry for my wrong
interpretation on that judge opinion that in fact he was not a judge at all
and had nothing to do with Amy's score. That means all judges had most
probably the same opinion about Amy's performance and it seems that it was
a fair score. Sorry again.



>At this point this "protest" was communicated to the judges who then raised
>their scores and Moceanu ended up with a 9.85 (or was it 9.825?).
>
>We were never given an official reason for the obvious change in
>Moceanu's score.

I believe scores are not universal. Scores may be different from a
competition to another and depend on the quality of most gymnasts in a
competition.

------------------------------

Date:    Thu, 24 Aug 1995 13:31:21 -24000
From:    ***@USAID.GOV
Subject: Questions

Just a few questions:

1.  In the Washington Post (8/23/95) there was an article featuring Paul
O'Neill.  In the article it was proposed that since the prospects of a team
medal in Atlanta for the American men was near impossible and even a top six
finish unlikely, perhaps specialist such as Paul and Mark Sohn could be
included on the Olympic Team, in order to improve the chances for an
individual medal.  Would this be a good idea?

2.  My father and I were talking, and he mentioned seeing a clip of a male
gymnast running toward the vault and bouncing off it like a billard.
Supposedly this was almost as infamous as the shot of the crashing skier Wide
World of Sports used to show in its opener.  Which gymnast was this, and at
what competition did this occur?

3.  Does anyone know why Gail Kachura and Tanya Maiers did not compete at
Nationals?  Also, as specialist were alllowed, why did Trent Dimas not
compete on the high bar?

4.  Did any of the GYMNers meet in any numbers in New Orleans, and if so, how
did it go?


Just curious.
ge

------------------------------

Date:    Thu, 24 Aug 1995 12:55:11 -0700
From:    ***@NETCOM.COM
Subject: Re: RINGS question

>
{...}
>
> Who was the first gymnast to perform cross strap moves on rings? You know,
> when they do a half turn and swing through and then have to do another
> half turn to un-cross them.
>
{...}

I believe thast one of the cross strap moves was called a Yamawaki (sp?)
So maybe thats the dude who started it.
First guy I ever saw do it was Jeff Bender (Lancaster PA).
Now 1/2 Stanford does it.

-texx

------------------------------

Date:    Thu, 24 Aug 1995 14:21:58 -0700
From:    ***@NETCOM.COM
Subject: NBC coverage

I should have known Ron would love it.....
(He only likes girls gymn)

Actually I was rather upset about it.
I found it gloomy and depressing.
I was also anoyed that NO coverage of the guys was shown
out here n the silicon valley.
I was interesting friends in gymnastics and they
had a negative reaction to the sport due to the coverage.

Real bummer....

I noted that they had the floor miked so you could hear in
total hi-fi sound, people crashing.
They had a lousy angle on Dawes on most of her landings.
I couls swear the camera WANTED her to look like elephant legs.
And the angles, her landings looked bad.
I dont think her landings were as bad as TV showed.
I think some camera person had it in for her.

Bela is BACK!  And hes got a new waif !
Well sounds like the fight over Bela good/bad will again
be cluttering our mailboxes....

Why cant we get this kinda attention for mens gymn ?

-texx

------------------------------

Date:    Thu, 24 Aug 1995 17:55:12 -0400
From:    ***@AOL.COM
Subject: Re: Re[2]: Time Article

>> This is an example how judging gymnastics is becoming more and more
>> depending on judges than gymnasts performance.
>
>> Let's see, if Amy Chow got a 9.425 and that fellow judge said that if
>> Amy got a 9.425 then Moceanu deserved an 11, that means that this judge
>> gave Amy something like a 8 and if she scored a 9.425 that means that some
>> judges gave her at least a 9.9.
>
>If that were the case, there would have had to have been a rather lengthy
>judges conference after Chow's routine. Judges must be within a certain
>range of of the other judges scores (only a few tenths) or a conference is
>REQUIRED. A range of 1.9 between two judges would be absurd.
>
>

I don't know what is happening in other countries, but in the USA at all
meets outside of the JO program there is no longer such thing as a range of
scores.  This goes for the Olympics, World Championships and all major
competitions.  The range of scores issue was eliminated before the Olympics
in Barcelona rather quietly.  Only JO competitions in the USA still use the
range of scores that I am aware of.

Dean

------------------------------

Date:    Thu, 24 Aug 1995 19:00:03 -0400
From:    ***@PHARM.MED.UPENN.EDU
Subject: Re: Questions

perhaps specialist such as Paul and Mark Sohn could be
>included on the Olympic Team, in order to improve the chances for an
>individual medal.  Would this be a good idea?

The idea has been being kicked around for the past year about having Mark and
Paul on the team. They seem to think that not only will it help improve the
US's chances on indivdual basis, but also team wise.  Our two weakest events
right now are rings and pommels.  The average that both of these gymnasts
are capable of at international meets is about 9.4 in comps and 9.7 in
optionals.  Had their scores counted at World's in Dortmund last year the
team compulsory score would have been 274.775 and optional 276.737 with a
total of 551.512.  This score would have put the US in 7th place behind
Japan.  With the increase of experience on the US men's team this year in
international meets and the addition of these specialists there is a chance
that the US could finish in the top 10 (as last year in Dortmund) and even
the top 6.  So, they should not have a problem making the olympics.

 Also, as specialist were alllowed, why did Trent Dimas not
>compete on the high bar?

I think (hope) he realizes that after his speech on national TV that the
gymnastics community (gymnasts themselves) would be none to warm to his
coming to nationals.  He also has a tremendous amount of pride, and I have a
feeling that he wouldn't come as a specialist - he wants to be an AA,
something he has a lot of work left to do to accomplish - better get in that
gym 5 times a day there Trent!!!

hope this answers some questions
Mayland

>Just curious.
>ge
>
>

------------------------------

Date:    Thu, 24 Aug 1995 19:23:49 -0400
From:    ***@PHARM.MED.UPENN.EDU
Subject: Re: Re[2]: Time Article

>>A 9.425 is hardly a very low score.
>That's why a previous selection is made.
> However I must say that a mistake is not to be considered as a bad
>thing that would decrease the gymnasts score,

Then what is supposed to bring down their score?

>instead the way gymnast gets over that mistake is certainly most important
than a >performance with no mistakes at all.

Well, then a change in the code needs to occur because a score does not
reflect recovery at all, but mistakes -- a gymnast makes a mistake then they
get a deduction, they don't get bonus points for doing a good cover-up.

>At world competitions gymnasts are suposed to perform it with no problems
>at all.
In the top 3 teams at Worlds a number of girls scored under 9.5 in  -- these
included:
Romanian team
Nadia Hategan 9.4 (UB)
Nadia Hategan 9.387 (UB)
Daniela Maranduca 9.337 (UB)
Daniela Maranduca 9.487 (FX)
Simona Amanar 9.462 (B)
Gina Gogean 7.062 (B)
USA team
Amy Chow 9.35 (UB)
Amy Chow 8.912 (UB)
Amy Chow 8.3 (B)
Amy Chow 8.8 (B)
Jaycie Phelps 9.437 (V)
Larissa Fontaine 9.3 (B)
Larissa Fontaine 7.475 (UB)
Kerri Strug 9.487 (UB)
Kerri Strug 9.337 (FX)
Russia
Oxana Fabrichnova 9.212 (v)
Elena Grosheva 9.337 (B)
Eugenia Rochina 9.012 (UB)
Eugenia Rochina 8.737 (B)

of these more than 1/2 of them counted toward the team scores --



------------------------------

Date:    Thu, 24 Aug 1995 20:01:39 -0400
From:    ***@AOL.COM
Subject: Stormy's Award

>I think that, for me, the highlight of the Ceremony of Honors >was the
special award given to Stormy Eaton for his >contributions to the sport.  The
award was presented to his >son and daughter and was followed by a wonderful
video >showing the many facets of Stormy's personality.

Jim,
I made the "wonderful video" honoring Stormy. Thank you for your kind words,
I am very glad you liked it.

Dawn

------------------------------

Date:    Thu, 24 Aug 1995 19:17:40 -0500
From:    ***@NETCOM.COM
Subject: Re: Questions

>2.  My father and I were talking, and he mentioned seeing a clip of a >male
gymnast running toward the vault and bouncing off it like a >billard.
Supposedly this was almost as infamous as the shot of the >crashing skier
Wide World of Sports used to show in its opener.  Which >gymnast was this,
and at what competition did this occur?

I'm pretty sure it was Brian Meeker; the competition was the US Sports
Festival from the early 1980s.  WNBC in New York occasionally does a sports
segment called "Spanning The Globe" -- kind of a bloopers thing -- and this
crash is featured in the opening clips.

Debbie

------------------------------

Date:    Thu, 24 Aug 1995 20:07:26 -400
From:    ***@IN.NET
Subject: LEVEL 6 E-MAIL PAL

My name is Lydia and I am a level 6 gymnast.  I am 11 years old and
train at Wright's American Gymnastics in Indianapolis.  I would like to
have e-mail pals who are also level 6 gymnasts.  If you would to contact
me, e-mail me at my dad's address.

------------------------------

Date:    Thu, 24 Aug 1995 19:30:00 MDT
From:    ***@RMII.COM
Subject: Re: RINGS question

> Who was the first gymnast to perform cross strap moves on rings? You know,
> ...
> I know that Yang Yueshan was doing it in the mid 1980s. Anyone know of
> others before him?
>
Texx writes:
>I believe thast one of the cross strap moves was called a Yamawaki (sp?)
>So maybe thats the dude who started it.
>First guy I ever saw do it was Jeff Bender (Lancaster PA).

The first time I saw cross-strap work was (reaching a little here, not
terribly sure) at the '90 Goodwill Games in Seattle, and the gymnast was
Vitaly Scherbo.  Obviously if Yang Yueshan (?) did it in the mid-80's,
that was before Scherbo.

A Yamawaki is a double front between the rings without releasing.  (A
Guzhocghy (sp) is a double back.)  I think a (very) few times I have seen a
gymnast do a Yamawaki between crossed straps so possibly therein lies the
confusion.

Rachele

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End of GYMN-L Digest - 23 Aug 1995 to 24 Aug 1995
*************************************************