GYMN-L Digest - 22 Jul 1996 - Special issue

There are 16 messages totalling 602 lines in this issue.

Topics in this special issue:

1. Russians lead, USA second (3)
2. Bogus Olympic Results
3. Canadian Profiles
4. MAG: Day 3 Team Optionals
5. Anyone know US AllAround standings?
6. Individual rankings posted
7. NBC's coverage so far
8. RUS Men Lead Compulsories
9. Canadian Indiv results from Compulsories
10. Question re: Boginskaya on compulsory beam
11. weight problem?
12. WAG Compulsories qs
13. WAG--NBC--Save me! I can't take it!
14. WAG--Strug!

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Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 06:30:05 -0700
From: ***@NETCOM.COM
Subject: Re: Russians lead, USA second

> so. I think the US should be leading, but it could be going either
> way, and the Russians deserved it for no better reason than they
> hit compulsory beam. A couple of comments...

IMHO, RUS performed much better than the US last night and should be
leading by more than 0.1. RUS was superior on V, B and FX (and possibly
UB, too, but NBC didn't show that rotation). The team looks fantastic,
and if they are as solid in optionals, they should win the title.

> 5) On the same thread, no routines from Spain or France?

Well, since ESP was in the same subdivision as the US, that pretty much
explains it. Hopefully, NBC will give equal airtime to all the teams
during team optionals, and not dwell on the US performances.

Debbie

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Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 09:50:31 -0400
From: ***@CAPITALNET.COM
Subject: Bogus Olympic Results

Good grief! The results for Men's Compulsories that are posted on the
official IBM Olympic web site are totally bogus -- still -- after two days.
It says that Ghana is in first place and that team is made up of Marius
Toba, Olivier Walther, Uwe Billerbeck, Jan-Peter Nikiferow, Valeri Belenki,
and Andreas Wecker -- Germany.

http://results.atlanta.olympic.org/cgi-bin/db2cgi/results/GA/results_GA.d2w/
report?event=RSGAM410081

I hope the buffoons that are doing this aren't getting paid for it.

Someone get me a plane ticket to Atlanta. I'll fix it.

In the meantime, are there official, accurate, comprehensive results
posted anywhere else in the cyber-junkyard?

Regards,

Grace

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Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 09:48:52 -0400
From: ***@AI.MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: Russians lead, USA second

>4) SHAME ON NBC!!! SHAME SHAME SHAME!!!! You show us Eileen Diaz
>(who came as close to falling on comp floor as I've ever seen) and,
>with her and her teammates clear in the background, NO YVONNE TOUSEK!!!
>WAAAAHHHH!!! :( And apparently she hit comp floor.
>
>5) On the same thread, no routines from Spain or France?

How about how they showed us Romania *warming up* on bars when other
"lesser" countries were already competing. Couldn't they have shown
us a routine or two from someone with no chance?

I really think coverage would be greatly improved if we got to see,
say, the best-scoring routine from each country, regardless of how it
compares to the best routines overall. It's always nice to see where
the other countries are at, and their peculiar styles.

--Robyn

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Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 10:00:48 -0400
From: ***@CAPITALNET.COM
Subject: Canadian Profiles

While the Coke-guzzling webmonsters of the IBM (I Buy Microsoft) Olympic
web site figure out how to attach profiles to the hyperlinked athlete names
listed under the non-existent gymnastics results, please feel welcome to
visit the Gymnastics Canada Gymnastique web site at
http://www.capitalnet.com/~chiug/cangym.html for profiles of the Canadian
Olympic gymnasts.

BTW, in the first rotation of men's optionals, Kris Burley nailed his
Yurchenko half- front piked salto vault for 9.475, Richard Ikeda got
through rings okay, and Alan Nolet survived pommels for a 9.250. Keep it
up guys!

Regards,

Grace

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Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 11:05:32 -0300
From: ***@CCN.CS.DAL.CA
Subject: MAG: Day 3 Team Optionals

Been watching CBC again...and I am starting to find things about our
commentators that bug me. I won't go into any depth; now is not the time
for a commentator bashing, but I want them to stop referring to gymnasts
'being on the bubble'.

A few routines were shown this morning:

First shown was Flemming Solberg of Norway on vault. I missed watching
though I heard them say he did a sukahara vault of sorts. I came to the
TV as he landed...on his hands with both feet off the extra mat.
Commentator said he didn't have enough time on his 2nd twist. He scored a
9.025

Next shown was Diego Lizardo of Peutro Rico (sp?) who did a sukahara w/ 1
1/2 twist; he hopped forward on the blind landing; scored 9.275

Spain's Jesus Carbelo (sp?) has serious troubles with his tumbling on
floor. He was over-rotated on his first pass and almost stepped out, and
then on his last pass (double back) he steps out of bounds with both
feet. Unfortunately I cannot offer a score...

Kris Burley of NS (cheer!) did a Yurchenko half on front piked vault,
landed with a small hope forward and scored a 9.475. (His vault in comps
was a 9.525...)

Richard Ikeda's rings was shown, he showed good strength and had a small
hop on his dismount landing, but again CBC didn't show a score.

Nolet's PH was his first event this morning. He broke with leg form at
one point, and his scissoring wasn't too high but on his dismount he got
up into a nice high handstand. His score was a 8.925.

--
In conclusion i'd like to apologize to MAG fans if what I've said makes
no sense! I am better with WAG...Lisa

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Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 10:09:47 -0400
From: ***@TRISTATE.PGH.NET
Subject: Anyone know US AllAround standings?

I was just wondering if anyone knows what the individual US standings
are...I would definitely think that Strug is in the top 3 but I just wanted
to be sure. Also in the Olympics, do the compulsaries and optionals count
50-50 or 60-40 like nats and trials???? Thanks in advance!
LeeAnne

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Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 09:56:24 CDT
From: ***@PROCTR.CBA.UA.EDU
Subject: Individual rankings posted

The individual rankings are posted at USA Gymnastics online.

Shawn

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Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 15:56:17 +0100
From: ***@ACHILLES.DEMON.CO.UK
Subject: Re: Russians lead, USA second
>
>1) I said I felt the US should be leading. I REALLY feel the scores
>were in line last night. I don't think they were over scored, or
>that any one else was appreciably underscored. The judges did a
>good job of rewarding and keeping in line.

I broadly agree. I thought Moceanu was a touch generously treated, but
the judging I saw was generally solid except for the usual disadvantage
of being outside a full team and not being an established name. Case in
point: Mo, Bogey and Reeder all messed up bars (Bogey & Reeder
identically: regrasping with only one hand out of their hecht). Mo still
got about a 9.4, Bogey a 9.3??, but Reeder was down to an 8.8!

>
>2) Apparently Octavian Belu was complaining the judges were conservative
>with his team. I don't see why he is complaining. Amanar fell off beam,
>the rest of the team (with the exception of Marinescu) looked slow
>and cautious, and Milo apparently got a gift on vault and definitely
>got one on bars. And Gogean stumbled on floor. The fact of the matter
>is, they blew compulsories yet again, a real disapointment.

Romanians complain about being **underscored**? Well they do say, if you
live long enough, you get to hear everything! From what I saw, they were
lucky to get what they did; and I agree Milo's vault mark was gross. If
I had a suspicious mind, I'd note that Ms. Simonescu was overseeing
marking on vault...

>
>3) Shocked and sad for the Chinese. After all the talk about their
>compulsories on beam, they blew the event. And then, nothing else
>went particularily well. I felt for Mo and Liu. Neither will be in
>bars finals, which really stinks.

Agreed again. I've been feeling quite smug so far, since most of the
tips I've given friends - Russian comeback in spades, Galieva shining,
Pod heading for gold, Ukrainians doing well in team - have been coming
up. But I also thought the Chinese had a real shot at team gold. Boy
does it seem I got that one wrong!

>
>4) SHAME ON NBC!!! SHAME SHAME SHAME!!!! You show us Eileen Diaz
>(who came as close to falling on comp floor as I've ever seen) and,
>with her and her teammates clear in the background, NO YVONNE TOUSEK!!!
>WAAAAHHHH!!! :( And apparently she hit comp floor.

UK coverage has so far (touch wood quickly) been good going on very
good...provided you're getting Eurosport (excellent) as well as the BBC
(so-so). With the Open Golf (BBC) and Tour De France (Eurosport) ending
yesterday, both are giving close to 24-hour a day coverage, though most
of the live stuff is of necessity late night/overnight. Gymnastics, I'm
glad to say, is getting as big a share as anything. Both networks gave
some of all four sessions last night, with a nice variety of athletes,
including Tousek on both beam and floor (yes she did hit) and even the
Moroccan girl who has been mentioned on GYMN.

Of course it would help if the BBC acknowledged the existence of
gymnastics other than once every four years...

>
>5) On the same thread, no routines from Spain or France?

We got a nice slice of both, though it was cruel showing the French on
beam where they were dropping like flies. Good news is the high scoring
of both Furnon & Juarez (as well as Tousek) on FX. I would love to see
this trio - all from outside the "magic circle" countries - make FX
finals.

BTW, for the benefit of trivia-buffs (Mara?) the last ever compulsory
exercise was...Ludivine Furnon on FX.

One moan: the crowd.

i) Couldn't they have shown *some* trace of interest in other countries'
athletes even when the Magnificent Seven were up? One of the Spaniards
completed an excellent bars, looked off for a crowd reaction in the
nearby seats...and saw a row of silent faces all looking off in another
direction. Not one person was watching, let alone applauding.

ii) Considering tickets were like gold-dust, don't you think more than a
quarter of the crowd could have bothered to stick around and suffer
watching such minor gymnastics nations as Russia, China and France even
after the United States were done? From the number of abandoned seats,
it seems that 25% of the crowd came to watch gymnastics and 75% came to
wave flags and chant USA, USA, USA! The media over here is *savaging*
the nationalism, over-commercialisation and poor organisation of these
games (most of the criticism aimed at NBC, BTW). I wouldn't want to see
the gymnastics competition contribute to this trend.
>

--
Frances

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Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 12:39:15 EDT
From: ***@BBN.COM
Subject: NBC's coverage so far

After the stories here that half of NBC's coverage time devoted to gymn
would be fluff, I was pleasantly surprised at the relatively small
amount of time that was used up with such pieces. (The ones we got were
awfully saccharine, though, especially the one about Moceanu :-(.)
The two most bothersome aspects of the fluff were Tesh harping on
the upcoming piece about Scherbo before it was shown, and the
placement of the piece about the men's Chinese team just before
Li X.'s disastrous rings compulsory. (This was only "plausibly
live" coverage, so NBC already knew what had happened when the
program was aired.)

Nits of various sizes:

Tesh talked _way_ too much during the routines.
No Chechi on rings!
No Dina Kochetkova (3rd highest individual compulsory total)!!
Not enough Russian men.
Not enough Scherbo.
Hardly anything of Chinese women on beam, to answer the question: Wha' happen?
No reporting of individual compulsory totals--for instance, how
far back in their respective teams are Li X. and Mo? Which
US/Romanian/Russian/Chinese women are currently top 3 in
individual scores for their respective teams (see below for US)?
No French women at all, even on FX.
No Romanian vaults, even the ones that were the high scores of the day.
How about a few more notable individual's performances? Chusovitina, maybe.
In general, it seemed that the coverage of the final women's session
(with China and Russia) was relatively skimpy, perhaps because we'd
already seen every single US woman up on every apparatus.

Pluses:

Tim Daggett's remark to Tesh about the latter composing the
music for the next compulsory FX. (Think about it :-).)
Schlegel (sp?) and Daggett did a good job of commentary,
despite being interrupted often by Tesh.
Seeing so many routines, even if the coverage was lopsided.

A possibly less painful way to watch the coverage:
If you have a VCR (actually, this would work better with two):
Don't try to watch it live, just wait until the program's over
and watch the tape. I'm sure I would have found the 90-minute
wait into the primetime show for gymnastics annoying if
I hadn't been able to zap through it in 5 minutes. (With
two VCRs, I could watch the afternoon coverage on one while
taping the evening coverage on the other.) The only problem
with this was staying up until 2 in the morning.

Comments about the events themselves:

Way to go, John Roethlisberger! (3rd in compulsory totals
after Nemov and Scherbo, ahead of people like Wecker and
Voropaev!)

Shannon Miller is amazing, Strug stepped right up when it counted,
and Moceanu did her job along with everyone else. Only one major
break for the US women, and only one bad apparatus, the same
one that gave most teams so much grief (BB). I'm impressed.

The Russians certainly took the lesson of Sabae compulsories to heart!

The women's scoring seemed to be fair, even if harsh for the balance beam,
although a few routines seemed a bit over- or underscored.
(For instance, I thought Miller was a bit underscored and
Moceanu a bit overscored on UB.) Once again, beam was the key.
(I don't think NBC showed enough men's routines for me to
get a sense of how fair the scoring was, although apparently
John R. and Wecker didn't suffer too much from going early on.)

BTW, I wonder if that beam routine wasn't choreographed by
Ludmilla Turischeva with an eye toward reminding everyone that
some of the stuff she did 20 years ago (e.g., remember the two
consecutive shoulder rolls in her optional BB routine?) is
_still_ tricky. I'll miss compulsories.

Mo always seems to have one major break in competition; let's hope
that her UB compulsories was it, and that it doesn't keep her out
of the AA.

According to the NY Times, some top women's scorers in the compulsories were:
1. Podkopayeva
2. Miller
3. Kochetkova
4. Galiyeva
5. Moceanu
---
9. Strug
11. Dawes
(Sorry, no totals yet.)

Where are Khorkina, Mo, and Boginskaya?

>>Kathy

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Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 12:49:20 -0400
From: ***@CAPITALNET.COM
Subject: RUS Men Lead Compulsories

Okay, so this isn't really new news for today. But having finally gotten a
hold of the complete scores on paper (via fax from GCG via COA via
IBM/ACOG), there's something odd here.

The Russian men led the compulsory round with a team score of 287.258.
Alexei Nemov leads individually with 57.862 and then Alexei Voropaev in 6th
place with 57.274. The next RUS guys are WAY down in 77th, 82nd, 83rd, and
93rd places! That's only 6 men: is someone missing?

#77 Nikolay Krukov didn't compete on rings. Was this intentional? I know
RUS started on pommels, so it couldn't be that he didn't show up on time or
something. His scores on everything else were over 9.50! Don't they want
this guy in the all-around?? I hope someone interviews Arkaev on his
bizarre strategy, because it certainly is interesting!

(BTW, wildcard pommel-king Pae Gil Su of PRK is in 76th and competed on all 4.)

Regards,

Grace (in digest mode)

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Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 12:56:03 -0400
From: ***@CAPITALNET.COM
Subject: Canadian Indiv results from Compulsories

For those of you Canadians without access to results, here are our
gymnasts' individual scores from compulsories:

Men's Compulsories: Individual Ranking:
Rank Name FX PH SR HV PB HB TOTAL
50 Alan NOLET 9.250 9.025 8.900 9.350 9.350 9.350 55.225
61 Richard IKEDA 9.375 9.475 7.175 9.275 9.300 9.575 54.175
67 Kris BURLEY 9.250 7.275 8.450 9.525 9.200 9.300 53.000

76 out of 112 men competed on all 6 apparatus

Women's Compulsories: Individual Ranking:
Rank Name HV UB BB FX TOTAL
40 Yvonne TOUSEK 9.250 9.450 9.212 9.600 37.512
48 Jennifer EXALTACION 9.200 9.337 9.237 9.337 37.111
68 Shanyn MACEACHERN 9.275 9.362 8.087 9.175 35.899

77 out of 103 women competed on all 4 apparatus

These can also be found on the GCG web page at
http://www.capitalnet.com/~chiug/cangym.html .

>From what I've seen of their optionals so far, Rich and Kris aren't doing
very well. They've crashed on their best events, so no chance for event
finals on high bar for Rich & floor for Kris. I've only seen Alan on
pommels, rings, and vault so far & he's doing okay as he tries to climb up
enough places to make all-around finals.

Regards,

Grace

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Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 13:20:24 EDT
From: ***@BBN.COM
Subject: Question re: Boginskaya on compulsory beam

Does anyone know why Boginskaya was so upset after finishing her
compulsory beam? NBC showed her running to the coach and beginning
to cry, and she continued to weep while the coach was saying
(_very_ rough translation): "It's OK, it's OK, you did fine."
Granted, it probably wasn't the best compulsory BB she could
have done, but she certainly didn't do that badly. Did she have
an inkling of how close the Belarus and Ukrainian team scores were?

NBC interviewed her, but only about her break on bars. Considering
the flurry of attention give to Podkopayeva's brief tears, I was
a bit surprised that they didn't follow up on this other major
breaking news story :-).

>>Kathy

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Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 10:16:46 -0700
From: ***@GOODNET.COM
Subject: weight problem?

Not to flame anyone at all, or even give the slightest of
disrespect as they all are great gymnasts!
But, have you noticed that when ex-olympian gymnasts finish off
their careers, they gain alot of weight? I know that retton gained alot of
weight after the olympics, but now she looks great!
I noticed that zmeskel (sp?) has put on some weight. You would
think that with as much training as they've had, they'd be a little more
careful about this!
Also, can someone update me on this zmeskel thing? Why was she
such a disapointment to us? Did she "step off the beam" as stated by that
idiot John Tesh?
Girls are doing great, and I hope the Men can continue to surprise
us all!
kovacs

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Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 10:03:53 +0000
From: ***@IGC.APC.ORG
Subject: WAG Compulsories qs

1) Ukrainian women on vault: did something go wrong
with the lineup? On NBC, it looked as though Sheremata
(I think) was waiting for the green light, but then noticed
Mirgorodskaya's number was flashed. She gestured to Mirg,
who looked as though she just jumped up on the podium and
vaulted without knowing it would be her turn. Could be wrong,
but that's how it looked.

2) Roza and Grosheva looked great! Was surprised to
see Roza as anchor. Same for optionals? R-R-R.

3) How did I miss this? I thought Chusovitina was going
to be competing for Russia, not Uzbek. Enlighten me, please!!!

4) Fluff piece on Dom Dawes: "headed to Stanford on scholarship".
Suspect remark. She could have gone on athletic scholarship,
but is not, since she is not NCAA-eligible. Instead, she'll be like
all other Stanford entrants--with assistance if they need it. Makes
her sound like a charity case. Grr.

Have to bubble over: great to see Onodi again.... some may
disagree, but tickled by her shouts and the Chinese high 5s..
Lilya's beautiful, hope she keeps her nerve.... Americans
doing better than I thought... Russians look uptight but still my
sentimental fave.

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Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 13:26:53 -0400
From: ***@HICOM.NET
Subject: WAG--NBC--Save me! I can't take it!

Howdy, GYMNers:

Regarding Kelly's post:

>>However, I want to COMPLAIN about not seeing one Canadian performance. I
just saw them in the back ground.

Wait!! Call NBC!! You mean Canada was actually in the Olympics? Go on, you must
be mistaken. I had heard a rumor that they would be there, as would France,
Spain, Greece, Japan...but of course there was NO sign of them on NBC.

>From the way NBC showed it (in between FIVE MINUTE FLUFF PIECES:( ) *I*, the
humble, idiot viewer was led to believe that only Romania and the USA were
there, with a couple of Russians, Hungarians, Ukranians, Belorussians, and
Chinese, with a Puerto Rican and an Austrailian thrown in there, just to make it
interesting.

Gee, was the *Defending BB World Champ* Dina Kotchetkova only vauting tonite?

John Rothlesburger was actually in THIRD following compulsories? Who knew?

Was there a actually first rotation in the final (RUS, CHN-there were no others)
women's session?

I actually had to hit the 'mute' button on John Tesh last nite, because he truly
would not keep quiet. At one moment, Elfe, who is the women's gymn *expert* of
the broadcast trio, actually had to cut him off in the middle of some fluff
commentary to point out something having to do with GYMNASTICS--and that made
*her* sound like the boob, not him, the truer boob. I heard the exact, verbatum
commentary about Roza Galieva's parents being 'displaced by Stalin to break up
regional affiliations' on the Atlanta Invite. John, do us all a favor, just
narrate the fluff pieces for us, ok? Heaven knows there are plenty of them (and
LONG, at that) to keep you busy...

Joy, you should've tripped him while you had the chance...

***Someone PLEASE PLEASE swap an SRC broadcast of these games with me, PLEASE!!!
I have taped every (few and far between) routine and (GO NBC) fluff piece, and
will continue to do so. PLEASE!!! I will be your friend and humble servant for
life, but I really can't take NBC much longer...

Thanks for saving my brain,
Michele Walker Crefeld

PS--Let me know if anyone actually SEES a Canadian, or anyone from any other
country listed above (I forgot one, but NBC forgot many more...);

PSS--The US veterans are doing their jobs--Go Shannon and Kerri, and Dawes!


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Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 13:27:00 -0400
From: ***@HICOM.NET
Subject: WAG--Strug!

Howdy, GYMNers:

Strug was a *rock* last nite! Allow me to be so bold as to predict SHE will
make AA finals...'course I am suprised NBC showed her...

I am thrilled for this girl--she actually smiles now:)

Michele

PS--This one's for Jeff:
Shannon, Kerri, Shannon, Kerri, Shannon, Kerri...;)

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End of GYMN-L Digest - 22 Jul 1996 - Special issue
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