gymn Digest Thu, 24 Mar 94 Volume 2 : Issue 93

Today's Topics:
College gymnastics - any interest?
Drug Testing
The Press and Gym (6 msgs)
Who is going to worlds?

This is a digest of the gymn@athena.mit.edu mailing list.

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Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 11:57:15 -0800 (PST)
From: ***@leland.Stanford.EDU
Subject: College gymnastics - any interest?

I have noticed that most of the discussion in this group (when not
following a Tonya Harding spur) seems to concern international
gymnastics. Is there interest (maybe among other silent viewers) in
the college (especially women's) sport?

Feel free to e-mail me if you don't want to tie up the mailing list.
I can post a summary.

-Patrick

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Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 00:05:16 EST
From: ***@QUCDN.QueensU.CA
Subject: Drug Testing

Since when is chemical enhancment liberty? Look at it this way. If liberty mean
s freedom, then how can an athlete be free if his'her performance is dependent
on a bunch of synthesized molecules, with side effects that we don't even know
about because they haven't been around long enough to see long term effects esp
. on humans. Yes, there are animal hormones being taken by humans. You can do w
hat you want, and in that way, you can have liberty, but you still won't be fre
e.

Bryan

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Date: Wed, 23 Mar 94 20:51:53 PST
From: ***@eworld.com
Subject: The Press and Gym

I take Robyn's meaning and totally agree. ABSOLUTELY results of testing
should remain confidential.

I wish we were living in a world where everyone did what they were supposed
to do. Then there would be no leaks, and athletes could all rest assured that
the results would not get to the sporting press.

Which brings me to a more important topic--does the sporting press help or
hinder gymnastics in the kind of coverage that it gives?

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Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 10:50:37 -0600 (CST)
From: ***@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu
Subject: The Press and Gym

>
> Which brings me to a more important topic--does the sporting press help or
> hinder gymnastics in the kind of coverage that it gives?


What coverage? If they cover a meet every season on tv we're lucky and
you hardly ever see anyone other than the top performer plus our American
team. The sport is too exciting for me to believe that the rest of the
saturday afternoon couch sloths really need more auto racing. Of course,
I don't have cable...

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Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 13:58:40 -0500 (EST)
From: ***@db.erau.edu
Subject: The Press and Gym

On Wed, 23 Mar 1994 ***@eworld.com wrote:

> Which brings me to a more important topic--does the sporting press help or
> hinder gymnastics in the kind of coverage that it gives?
>
First, I don't think that there is enough coverage in either broadcast or
print. but the coverage that is given not of the best quality.
As a member of the media, the problem I have found in covering the
events for print is the money and the publications to print them. I have
talked to SI for kids and they have almost a year lead time on their pub,
so current events are almost imposable. SI won't even give the time of
day to the sport unless it is around Olympic time. They are more worried
about the big three.
The only way I think that we will get better coverage is to cover
the evets ourselves, and show the network that their is an audience for
the sport at all levels.

Jimmy

no sig yet. (under construction)

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Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 11:21:48 PST
From: ***@eworld.com
Subject: The Press and Gym

David makes a good point. "What coverage," indeed.

It seems that only when McDonalds is ready to sponsor an event do we ever get
to see it on the air. I would hope that the situation would improve as the
box gets more channels (The Gymnastics Channel?), but I sort of doubt it.

I think the biggest limitation to covering a meet is that usually there is SO
MUCH going on at once. When I was at the Gilda Marx meet at UCLA last month,
there were no less than 10 events in progress simultaneously (4 women's, 6
mens.) I would hate to have to be the producer from ABC or ESPN or Prime
Ticket to have to decide what to look at--I was having a difficult enough
time watching it myself.

But I can't help but be amazed when I travel around China with Li Ning how 10
years after his 6-medal performance at the L.A. Olympics they mob him for
autographs. Mary Lou or Peter Vidmar would get that in a crowd of gymnasts,
but not when walking through a shopping mall. It leads me to believe that
gymnasts are not getting the kind of coverage they should be getting.

Anyone? Anyone?

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Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 14:58:23 EST
From: ***@BBN.COM
Subject: The Press and Gym

To follow up on what David said about coverage,
if by "sporting press" you mean newspaper and print coverage,
there's virtually none in any newspaper I read, except at
the Olympics and possibly the World Championships. Even when
there is "coverage," it's not infrequently relegated to the
"scoreboard" page of the newspaper, where you simply see
scores without any reporting. It's frustrating to
scan through page after page of coverage for football, basketball,
or baseball, sometimes featuring lengthy articles speculating
about future games as well as reporting of played games,
to find a lone paragraph at best giving terse and incomplete
results from a major gymnastics competition. To the extent
that you can't get new fans if no one knows your sport exists,
this is a hindrance.

As for non-network TV coverage, the non-premium cable channels
give you a little extra, but not a lot (1.5 times very little
is still only a little). I don't get any premium channels,
but my weekly scans of TV Guide don't give me the impression
that they're showing a lot of gymnastics, either.

How much of a chicken-and-egg problem is this? If there were
more gymnastics on TV, would more people watch, so that it
got good ratings and they gave us more of it? We're certainly
not the only sport fans who wish our sport got more TV coverage!
CBS is supposedly considering doing more "women-oriented"
(their classification, not mine!) sport coverage to carve
out a niche for themselves. Maybe that will bring us more
gymnastics coverage, if the women can wrest the remote
controls away from the men. (The accepted dogma is that
if a man and a woman sit down to watch TV together,
the man controls the remote, and often drives the woman
crazy by channel surfing. Note that this is the accepted
dogma, not my personal opinion; it sure doesn't happen in
my house!)

There is hope. Until about 1986, figure skating coverage
in the newspapers and on TV was no better than it is now
for gymnastics. After a couple of well-hyped Olympics,
we're now up to 5-6 hours of coverage each for the U.S.
and World championships, and better newpaper coverage
(and I'm *not* counting the Hardinggate coverage here).
If the U.S. gymnasts do well from now through the 1996 Olympics,
maybe about the year 2000 gymnastics be getting the same treatment.
In the meantime, there are the old "tried and true" methods
of persuasion: polite, reasonable letters to the networks
and the sponsors of gymnastics on TV, thanking them for
what they're already doing, and explaining why you think
it would be in their interests to provide more.

>>Kathy

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Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 16:08:12 EST
From: ***@aol.com
Subject: The Press and Gym

> Until about 1986, figure skating coverage
in the newspapers and on TV was no better than it is now
>for gymnastics. After a couple of well-hyped Olympics,
we're now up to 5-6 hours of coverage each for the U.S.
>and World championships, and better newpaper coverage ...
If the U.S. gymnasts do well from now through the 1996 Olympics,
>maybe about the year 2000 gymnastics be getting the same treatment.

Interesting that just today I was disappointed at finding, after the coverage
of Hardinggate, a mere blurb on the skating Worlds (in the NY Times, though
-- hardly notable for its sports coverage) lost behind a whole article
devoted to the spat between Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and coach Jimmy Johnson
over a toast (as in clinking glasses) that didn't go well. That skating has
improved to this and gymnastics gets even less is a depressing thought. (I
was happy to see Elvis is in first, though; I think he's cool. At least he
doesn't engage in poor imitations of artistry by flapping his arms to
classical music while wearing a frilly shirt)

: )
Gimnasta

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Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 10:40:28 -0600 (CST)
From: ***@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu
Subject: Who is going to worlds?

I heard that Stover is going to compete on floor. Is this just a rumor.
The guy does a whip to a full twisting double layout on floor, so it would
not be a mistake to let him wear "USA" at any of these meets.

david



On Wed, 23 Mar 1994 ***@aol.com wrote:

> Our men's team has already been selected for both the AUS Worlds and the
> Goodwill Games in July. This was done at the February 5th Winter Cup. John
> Roethlisberger, Scott Keswick, & Chainey Umphrey will compete in the AA and
> Paul O'Neil & Mark Sohn will compete as "specialists" in Rings & Pommel
> Horse respectively. Mihi Bagiu is our men's team alternate and will be the
> 4th memeber of the Goodwill Games team in July. Other countries need not
> publically announce who they're sending so you're guess is as good as mine
> but I'm sure we can expect to see the usual noteables. Also, Shannon Miller
> IS already pre-qualified for the US squad with her top 6 vault EF finish at
> the American Cup on the 5th of March.
>
> Susan
>

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End of gymn Digest
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