China Women's Gymnastics Gold applicable to figure skating?

mskater93 said:

One of the complaints about Kwan was that she didn't push the technical envelope any further and it actually regressed some during her reign (no 3/3 for a long time and no 3A for ~10 years).

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This complaint has always puzzled me. Is it Michelle Kwan's fault that no other skaters ever tried to beat her by working on their triple-triples and triple Axels? Did Michelle's rivals look at her success and say, well, Michelle doesn't do a triple Axel so durned if I'm going to do one either!

Anyway, in my opinion the only solution is somehow to resurrect professional skating competitions. Then you could have your cake and eat it, too. If you want to see young kids jumping up a storm, you've got amateur conests and the Olympics every four years. If you want to see a more mature blend of athleticism and artistry -- that's where the professional events come in.

Unfortunately, at the moment in the U.S., the market just isn't there. And certainly not for gynmastics, which has never had much of a post-Olympics pro circuit.

There is no way they would ever limit elements allowed in competition at the International level. (...)

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Actually, the limits (of sorts) on elements have actually been in use for some time in juniors. When Mao won her Junior Worlds title, the commentator mentioned that she couldn't do 3A or 3-3 in SP, also, a 3L was required. And every year a different element is required, some particular jump or a flying entry to sit spin... I would just change those requirements a little.

Plus, I certainly do not mean to limit elements allowed in all competitions - just in the junior ones! We would still get to see Midori get to land her axels. I'm all for the progress in figure skating!
I just think there is little sense in concentrating on high-risk elements at a very young age, when it's highly probable that you'll lose those elements during the growth spurt anyway.

I think it's especially important for the young skaters, because they often do not realize the extent of their own abilities and the possibility of damage. Instead they are more impressionate and more likely to be influenced by the media. And the media know and care little about the downsides of concentrating only on difficult jumps. They just want to see more quads and 3A.

This reminds me of Mao's situation. She was a very versatile skater, but because she could do 3A and 3-3-3's the media labeled her as a jumping genius (in contrast to "artistic" Mai, in reality I think that in their novice/junior days they were equally artistic) and encouraged her to try for high-risk elements. She kept challenging 3As, 4S, 4L... This backfired at Junior Worlds 2006, where she wanted to do three 3As (1 in SP, 2 in LP) and 4L, but ended up losing her concentration and performing poorly. In addition, she lost all of those jumps in the summer, when the growth spurt hit. Thankfully she got her 3A back eventually.

I think it would be very beneficial for her if instead of focusing on those high-risk jumps she worked on cleaning up her 3Lz, 3T, 3S, continued her ballet training and work on keeping and improving her flexibility. She is doing those things now, but if she had started it in her junior days, she wouldn't have to struggle in her senior career.

One of the complaints about Kwan was that she didn't push the technical envelope any further and it actually regressed some during her reign (no 3/3 for a long time and no 3A for ~10 years).

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Michelle was a fighter and I think that if she could, she would challenge more difficult elements. She had a 3-3 in her earlier days. I think she stopped attempting it and never challenged more difficult elements not because she didn't want to, but because her body didn't let her.
And I agree with Mathman. I think that if anything, Michelle's successes should encourage other skaters to find something to overcome Michelle's dominance. I think she could hardly be expected to risk ruining her body to attempt elements that she didn't even need in order to win. It's highly probable that had she done so, she would be forced to retire much sooner.

Mathman said:

Here is a recent article about Patterson. It makes the point that it is not so easy to translate Olympic success into big money opportunities later.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-olycarly27-2008jul27,0,7029547.story

IIRC she was in a couple of the those Disson shows featuring skating an gymnastics. I think another one is planned by Disson this season.

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If they want to make a career out of Acrobatic Dancing the best was for them to go would be Cirque du Soleil. That Russian gal would not even have to audition for that. She was goooood.

btw, we have 2 Cirque du Soleil clones in NYC now;.

mskater93 said:

There is no way they would ever limit elements allowed in competition at the International level. Sport is about moving forward to be the "highest, strongest, fastest" and by eliminating that potential (no more of element X allowed in competition), it takes some of the fascination for the casual fan (every 4th year for the Olympics) out because the phenom doesn't get to to perform the trick because it's not on the allowable list. We would never have seen Midori Ito land that awesome 3A of hers (and let's face it, Midori, Kristi, Tanya, and Nancy started to push the wave forward to the peak of skating's ratings). One of the complaints about Kwan was that she didn't push the technical envelope any further and it actually regressed some during her reign (no 3/3 for a long time and no 3A for ~10 years).

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I agree. I will never forget watching Tara do a 3toe half loop 3sow at the end of her competitive program. As a skater I have to admire the strength and technical ability to do something that hard at the end of a long. I think Todd used to to 3 axel at the end of his long. There are lots of pretty skaters. There are only a handful of pretty skaters who can do the really hard elements well and push there own envelopes...

It never ceases to amaze me how Kwan will show up in a thread any thread, that has nothing to do with her or with figure skating.

I didn't like the way the US TV commentary sounded on Chinese gymnasts. They start complaining how unfair things may be when the US is defeated. It sounds like sour grapes and doesn't sound classy. Even when the result was determined by the fair rule (like the gold/silver divide in women's uneven bars), they complain how unfair it may be.

Regarding the age issue, some of the Chinese girls indeed have younger-looking faces and less feminine curves compared to the Caucasian counterparts in the US, Russian, and Rumanian teams. It is not unusual for an Asian girl to look like that. Especially among dancers, there are many of them. In my ballet studio, there is a 21-year-old Indonesian woman who looks no older than 15 years old. She has a baby face, extremely young skin, very long, skinny legs, and lacks feminine curves on her chest and hip. It seems that she has never had feminine curves.

One of the commentators asked the audience if one of the Chinese girls "looked" 16. I thought it such an unfair leading question that would incite distrust without decent evidence.

I am happy and grateful that we have many FS commentators who are more classy.

Bennett said:

I didn't like the way the US TV commentary sounded on Chinese gymnasts. They start complaining how unfair things may be when the US is defeated. It sounds like sour grapes and doesn't sound classy. Even when the result was determined by the fair rule (like the gold/silver divide in women's uneven bars), they complain how unfair it may be.

Regarding the age issue, some of the Chinese girls indeed have younger-looking faces and less feminine curves compared to the Caucasian counterparts in the US, Russian, and Rumanian teams. It is not unusual for an Asian girl to look like that. Especially among dancers, there are many of them. In my ballet studio, there is a 21-year-old Indonesian woman who looks no older than 15 years old. She has a baby face, extremely young skin, very long, skinny legs, and lacks feminine curves on her chest and hip. It seems that she has never had feminine curves.

One of the commentators asked the audience if one of the Chinese girls "looked" 16. I thought it such an unfair leading question that would incite distrust without decent evidence.

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Not just the commentators asked that - there was e.g. an entire gallery on Sports Illustrated dedicated to that question and the link to that gallery was "judge for yourself". I can understand the doubts - but the reactions were extreme (one poster on another figure skating board kept calling He Kexin "embryo") and everybody and every newspaper is / was commenting on it. Kind of reminded me of Salt Lake City where the entire world wanted some solution to the judging pair skating scandal and in the end even G.W.Bush publicly voiced his opinion on that matter.

And I really don't think you can tell how old these girls are just by looking at them. The newspaper reports they digged out may be some proof - but the looks? Has anybody ever taken a look at the Japanese team? For example that tiny girl at the balance beam today? She didn't look a day older than Yang Yilin or He Kexin. And if someone would tell me that Ksenia Semenova is 13 - I wouldn't be surprised either, she looks very young. Same goes for some of the Romanian girls.

I'm more than a bit tired of people saying the age rule ensures that gymanstics is more polished. Why? Am I tired of this because gymanstics was actually MORE artistic in the days before the age limit.

For example Yang Yun, the girl who admited to being 14, was one of the most gorgeous gymnasts ever. She did the most perfect vault in Team Finals for China. She and Yang Wei are getting married, if their kids could inherit his longevity/difficulty and her style.. .

It basically comes down to this Artur Akoypan said this. Beautiful gymnastics comes from when your six years old. Those old Soviet gymnasts were beautiful because at a young age they were given dance classes after dance classes. Same goes for Nastia who was beautiful at 14 too.

Sure age might develop more expression. But trust me Yang Yilin has more artistry in her little finger now, than someone like Nistor/Memmel will ever have.

Yang is another example of this. People who saw her live talked about how she had the most perfect form.. Even in slow motion her form was perfect. And there's some talk that Yang might only be 13.

Plus, you have the issue that gymnasts can get injured. What if said gymnast would only have 2 years available why deny them that opportunity. And yes why deny the gymnast who might be great before puberty the opportunity as well.

The age rule is also unfair because it's an age lottery. If your born at the right time you get to compete before puberty, if not too bad for you. There's a lot of speculation that puberty is not going to be kind to Shawn Johnson. But she had the luck of being born at the right time.

bethissoawesome said:

... but if ages are being falsified for the Summer Olympics... how long until the same thing starts happening in the Winter Olympics with figure skating?

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There was speculation here that a Chinese figure skater, Bingwa Geng, had a falsified age so that she could participate in a competition (perhaps World Juniors). The age falsification wasn't the issue, rather that she was so good for someone so young. She may just qualify for competiting in Vancouver.

The two Chinese women competiting in 10m platform diving are said to be 15 and 16 years old. They look to be that age, albeit too skinny. So I think that the reports that some of the gymnasts are 14 or 15 years old is true because they look to be that age.

The Chinese girl that won in Sydney in 2000 later admited that, despite what her "official" documents said, she was only 14 at the time of the competition.

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Did you get that from a reliable source? I don't mind the gold medals the Chinese women won. Rather, that a federation is falsifying ages or stunting the growth of its gymnasts.

ChrisH said:

Did you get that from a reliable source?

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It seems to be very well documented that the gynmast in question admitted to being underage in a television broadcast. Here's one of dozens of recent articles which mention it.

Documents surface contradicting age of third Chinese gymnast

North Korea was barred from the 1993 world championships after FIG officials discovered that Kim Gwang Suk, the gold medalist on uneven bars in 1991, was listed as 15 for three years in a row. Romania admitted in 2002 that several gymnasts' ages had been falsified, including Olympic medalists Gina Gogean and Alexandra Marinescu.

Even China's own Yang Yun, a double bronze medalist in Sydney, said during an interview aired on state broadcaster China Central Television that she was 14 in 2000.

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ChrisH said:

Rather, that a federation is falsifying ages or stunting the growth of its gymnasts.

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They asked Bela Karolyi about that. he said, no, gynmastics doesn't make girls small any more than playing basketball makes people tall. It's just that small girls have an advantage in gynmastics.

On the otyher hand, any kind of intensive physical training messes with your hormones, delays puberty, etc.

ChrisH said:

Did you get that from a reliable source? I don't mind the gold medals the Chinese women won. Rather, that a federation is falsifying ages or stunting the growth of its gymnasts.

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Well, the gymnast in question actually admitted that she was only 14 in Sydney. I'd call that pretty reliable.

Medusa said:

And I really don't think you can tell how old these girls are just by looking at them. The newspaper reports they digged out may be some proof - but the looks? Has anybody ever taken a look at the Japanese team? For example that tiny girl at the balance beam today? She didn't look a day older than Yang Yilin or He Kexin. And if someone would tell me that Ksenia Semenova is 13 - I wouldn't be surprised either, she looks very young. Same goes for some of the Romanian girls.

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Wow, I was thinking exactly the same thing when I saw that small 15-year Japanese girl at the balance beam final. She looked like a little kid at distance. But perhaps she is never questioned because she is Japanese. But if we apply the same criteria, every one of these tiny girls of any country can be questioned.

Mathman said:

It seems to be very well documented that the gynmast in question admitted to being underage in a television broadcast. Here's one of dozens of recent articles which mention it.

Documents surface contradicting age of third Chinese gymnast



They asked Bela Karolyi about that. he said, no, gynmastics doesn't make girls small any more than playing basketball makes people tall. It's just that small girls have an advantage in gynmastics.

On the otyher hand, any kind of intensive physical training messes with your hormones, delays puberty, etc.

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Has she been investigated and deprived of the medals yet? If not, why not?


Also this is already 8 years ago. Suppose this was true at that time, I don't necessarily think that they are still doing the same thing.




Cheating ages and attracting such public attentions don't seem to be worth it. The hostile media attention would be a great stressor for those athletes, which could affect their performances.


The Chinese field is so deep that I'm not sure if they are so desparate to make such a severe offense of the rules as cheating ages. Is it really worth risking the earned medals taken away?

Bennett said:

Wow, I was thinking exactly the same thing when I saw that small 15-year Japanese girl at the balance beam final. She looked like a little kid at distance. But perhaps she is never questioned because she is Japanese. But if we apply the same criteria, every one of these tiny girls of any country can be questioned.

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The reason no one is questioning the age of the little Japanese girl is because there havbe not been multiple articles out about her identifying her as being underage. Size has nothing to do with it. Shawn Johnson is only 4'9", is anyone questioning her age? No. It is well known that smaller girls are generally more successful in this sport, so it seems logical that we would see really small girls. On face value along, I would no question the ages of the Chinese, it is the fact that there have been articles that show some of their girls to be underage, then suddenly when they become good enough to represent China in the Olympics, suddenly their ages change. THAT is the problem.

Joesitz said:

Chinese Ladies ignore the music on the Floor Work routines. The Figure Skaters are so much better at music.

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ITA! Cheng Fei's floor routine had no musicality/dance to it whatsoever. I did think, though, that Jiang Yuyuan was captavating on floor, and had the audience right in the palm of her hand...

Mathman said:

It seems to be very well documented that the gynmast in question admitted to being underage in a television broadcast. Here's one of dozens of recent articles which mention it.

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I am wondering if those dozens of recent articles were all generated from one source. China central television is a central government controled and run media. Didn't they know that it would cost their medal and create a big scandal?

AwesomeIce said:

Well, the gymnast in question actually admitted that she was only 14 in Sydney. I'd call that pretty reliable.

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Sounds a little weired, don't you think? Why didn't IOC strip her bronze medal then or now?

I have no interest in defending Chinese government. I just feel it is unfair to guess and speculate without hard evidence. If indeed Chinese government did manipulate the documents and be found out any time in the future, it will be justified that those gymnasts' medals are taken away, and restore the respect to the integrity of the people of China.

jennylovskt said:

Sounds a little weired, don't you think? Why didn't IOC strip her bronze medal then or now?

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Probably because the IOC has a history of ignoring these age issues in gymnastics. Probably because it is not an IOC rule, but a FIG rule.

nubka said:

Jiang Yuyuan was captavating on floor, and had the audience right in the palm of her hand...

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Yes, her floor routine is captivating. :agree:

Jiang Yuyuan is a pretty girl, and I was also captivated by her incredibly long and elegant fingers. And she used them very well and artistically throughout her floor.

I agree about Jiang Yuyuan’s floor exercise.
I was also impressed by her long hands, ( fingers ) She has such a small body but her hands are so long and she was using so artistically well and this made more impact.

Yang Yilin and He Kexin ’s uneven bar were also great. Yang Yilin’s body position was beautiful to watch similar to Nastia Liukin. I was amazed by He Kexin ’s technical difficulty in it.

I’ve never seen such difficult movements in the past maybe with the exception of Olga Korbut’s back flip movement ( later a few gymnasts copied her movements but soon it got banned because I’ve heard that it was so dangerous ) . It was really a shame that after He Kexin successfully performed her most difficult movements, she fell on another part, but it was still impressive. I have already watched that amazing move four times or more . One of the commentators said he just absolutely could not believe what he was seeing the first time he saw He Kexin perform her uneven bar.

Since more technical difficulty is required these days, it must be hard to feel with music, so if I compare with many of past gymnasts, all the present gymnasts seem to not so naturally feeling with music. And also in this event, I saw many gymnasts were doing same movements, maybe they were required elements ?

I didn’t see much creative original movements. I love Nastia Liukin’s performances the most, and even though Nastia’s each pose is so beautiful and artistic but the connection or transition movements from each beautiful pose to the next one, didn’t look so smooth and was not naturally feeling with music. And I thought Anna Pavlova actually was more feeling with music.

About the Chinese girls age issue, I’m not so much care about it.
I’ve seen many gymnasts who have small bodies in the past, such as Yelena Davydova who was the 1980 AA gold medallist, she was 18 years old at that time but looked much, much younger than her actual age. I was a big fan of her floor exercise.

Also a German girl Maxi Gnauck in the same year, she was also a very small girl and looked 13 or 14 years old. For me, it’s normal to see small gymnasts.

For this team competition, only thing, I thought Shawn Johnson’s balance beam score could be higher, because her only mistake was landing, just stepped out, and other parts she was very stable all the way, and was doing very difficult movements.

And also at vault, I thought Alicia’s score could place higher. But since I’m not very familiar with all the judging system, I can not say for sure it was mistake score.

But overall I enjoyed a lot the gymnastics. Especially I have a good impression for all the gymnast’s attitude during the competitions, they all looked like they had great sportsmanship to each other.

Especially it was great to see Cheng Fei was hugging and kissing to Shawn Johnson after Shawn did great job, and even though Cheng Fei was very disappointed for her own floor performances she congratulated with a nice smile to a Romanian girl who won floor exercise .

My favorite gymnasts in this Olympics are, Nastia Liukin, Yang Yilin, Anna Pavlova and Jiang Yuyuan . And for personality, I like Cheng Fei and Shawn Johnson’s personality the most .( although this is just my impression from seeing TV broadcast ).

nubka said:

ITA! Cheng Fei's floor routine had no musicality/dance to it whatsoever. I did think, though, that Jiang Yuyuan was captavating on floor, and had the audience right in the palm of her hand...

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You are joking, right?

Cheng Fei's was one of the best that I saw from this games. Especially the one she performed in one of the team competetion (forgot at prelimiary or final). Her floor movement FULLY meet that chinese concertor (forgave me for the spelling). The music piece she chosen was not from main stream western music abulm. If I remembered correct, it was composed by a 'short lived' young chinese musician (NieRe or Xian Xinhai?) in last centry 20s or 30s. This viariasion was edited to mixed in with some traditional chinese instruments (the style they plaid in 'JinXi'). To a western ear the music might sound a little 'jarred' and 'no sense'. But to me watching her perform this routine with the musics felt she and music become ONE and it brought me back to many, many years ago (believe or not, I was kind growing up under this music). To me she interpreted every beat, style and the spirit this piece music called for.

Jiang Yuyuan's music was called 'Take off Your Red Burka' (?? not sure the right translation). The music has the flavor of musics from west area of china (XingJiang), where a lot of Muslim and/or Islamics lives. In routine she was trying to potraite a shy muslim girl. She was charming. But to me her 'role' is easy to interpreter. If you had the general arts experience in mainland china 'kindgarden' to 'middle school' system, you know immediately, where she is from.

Mathman said:

They asked Bela Karolyi about that. he said, no, gynmastics doesn't make girls small any more than playing basketball makes people tall. It's just that small girls have an advantage in gynmastics.

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That much I agree. What make girls natural small?
1. 'Gen' makes girl natural small. Like most said the asia femal build is natually smaller than cocasion femal. In china, girls from southen part are natually smaller than the norther part. If I remember correctly, back in old days, at the time chinese people could not move around in country freely, most gymnast competed on top level in china were from that part (LiuZhou). Read some where that Jiang YuYuang was original from LiuZhou.
2. The diet habbit makes you 'skinny'. Traditional chinese diet dose not include so much 'fried', 'desert', 'milk', 'cheese', etc. that we saw so often in here US. imo, diet habbit and/or food structure (Hormon in meat, etc.) play a big factor here. I've seen a lot ABC (american born chinese) girls have much 'bigger' build than their chinese moms, and with much earlier puburty.
3. The small body builder makes you look young.
4. The 'closed' trainning and living environment, remember these girls lived together in dorm from young age. 'Well taken care of' by their domestic 'coaches', makes them looks naive and 'innocent'. The 'innocent' apperance makes you look young.

Think with 1.3 billion population, china can't choose dozens of age eligible natually small build girls? And every one of them would wanted to be 'chosen'. Heck, I wanted to be the one chosen so badly back in the days. But too bad I was from a so called 'capitalist' family, that alone should kill any of my chances.(lol). I agree with some one early said, with more open media these days in china, it really not worth it to cheat. ... remember the true democacy society, one is innoncent until prove guilty.