GYMN-L Digest - 16 Nov 1995 to 17 Nov 1995 - Special issue

There are 12 messages totalling 509 lines in this issue.

Topics in this special issue:

1. Atlanta Invitational (2)
2. Dominique Dawes
3. Subway Meet
4. IBM Atlanta Gymnastics Invitational - Men
5. IBM Atlanta Gymnastics Invitational - Women
6. peachtree Invite in Atlanta
7. Accepting money (3)
8. AGI - corrected pommel horse
9. IBM AGI - commentary part 1

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Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 08:53:12 -0500
From: ***@AOL.COM
Subject: Atlanta Invitational

Here's a short update on the Atlanta Invitational (first half):

1. Liu Xuan (CHN)
2. Yelana Piskuin (BLR)
3. Oksana Knijnik (UKR)

I only saw the results of the top 3 before we left - BB and FX are tonight!
It was a great meet. Marinescu and Grosheva had minor difficulties, but
Boguinskaya looked good (new vault - piked Quervo - spelling?).
Unfortunately Katie Teft had trouble on V again...she was not injured, but
she sat down *both* tucked 1 1/2 Yurchenkos.

I'll write a much more detailed report (including men) later!

Amy :)

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Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 22:38:17 -0500
From: ***@EXPERT.CC.PURDUE.EDU
Subject: Dominique Dawes

Does anyone know where Dominique Dawes received her money, which caused
her to become ineligible? How about the amount? I am kind of
disappointed that she won't be competed in college now, hopefully she
will win something at the Atlanta Olympics to put an exclamation mark at
the "end" of her career. I can understand her "giving in" finally on
accepting money. Do earnings from a competition count as being a
"professional"? If so, does that mean if a gymnast wins an exhibition
with prize money, that they must decline it?
Thanks ahead of time!
Gymnastically Yours,
Aaron

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Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 23:43:22 -0500
From: ***@YALE.EDU
Subject: Re: Subway Meet


> A Rulfova is a full-twisting back handspring swing-down on beam.
> I don't know who Rulfova is, but Elena Shushunova did it in '88.
> It also has a "D" value. It looks insane. My photo of Roza Galieva
> doing it on Sunday is all blurry.

Rulfova was a Czech gymnast; don't know anything else. Shush began
performing the skill at least in '86 (maybe earlier, but not at Worlds in
'85, as I recall).

:)
Adriana

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Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 20:18:06 -0700
From: ***@RMII.COM
Subject: IBM Atlanta Gymnastics Invitational - Men

IBM Atlanta Gymnastics Invitational
Georgia Dome, Atlanta, USA
16-17 November 1995

Men's All-Around

FX PH SR AA
1 Alexandre Svetlichnyi UKR 9.550 9.450 9.600 28.600
2 Vitaly Rudnitski BLR 9.587 9.500 9.475 28.562
3 Jordan Jovtchev BUL 9.462 9.300 9.612 28.374
4 Andrei Kan BLR 9.500 9.450 9.400 28.350
5 Blaine Wilson USA 9.250 9.375 9.687 28.312
6 Eugeni Podgorni RUS 9.662 9.450 9.100 28.212
7 Oliver Walther GER 9.175 9.500 9.500 28.175
8 Jair Lynch USA 9.450 9.325 9.275 28.050
9 Alexei Bondarenko RUS 9.175 9.375 9.350 27.900
10 Krasimir Dounev BUL 9.150 9.275 9.350 27.775
11 Rustam Charipov UKR 9.375 8.925 9.437 27.737
12 Kip Simons USA 8.800 9.300 9.625 27.725
13 Jan-Peter Nikiferow GER 9.325 8.825 9.375 27.525
14 Mihai Bagiu USA 9.350 8.875 9.225 27.450
15 Huadong Huang CHN 8.950 9.550 8.925 27.425
16 Masanori Suzuki JPN 8.450 9.400 9.075 26.925
17 Masayoshi Maeda JPN 8.900 9.175 8.750 26.825
18 Hong-Chul Yeo KOR 8.500 8.500 8.825 25.825

Floor Exercise standings

1 Eugeni Podgorni RUS 9.662
2 Vitaly Rudnitski BLR 9.587
3 Alexandre Svetlichnyi UKR 9.550
4 Andrei Kan BLR 9.500
5 Jordan Jovtchev BUL 9.462
6 Jair Lynch USA 9.450
7 Rustam Charipov UKR 9.375
8 Mihai Bagiu USA 9.350
9 Jan-Peter Nikiferow GER 9.325
10 Blaine Wilson USA 9.250
11 Oliver Walther GER 9.175
11 Alexei Bondarenko RUS 9.175
13 Krasimir Dounev BUL 9.150
14 Huadong Huang CHN 8.950
15 Masayoshi Maeda JPN 8.900
16 Kip Simons USA 8.800
17 Hong-Chul Yeo KOR 8.500
18 Masanori Suzuki JPN 8.450

Pommel Horse standings

1 Huadong Huang CHN 9.550
2 Vitaly Rudnitski BLR 9.500
3 Oliver Walther GER 9.500
4 Eugeni Podgorni RUS 9.450
5 Alexandre Svetlichnyi UKR 9.450
6 Andrei Kan BLR 9.450
7 Masanori Suzuki JPN 9.400
8 Blaine Wilson USA 9.375
9 Alexei Bondarenko RUS 9.375
10 Jair Lynch USA 9.325
11 Jordan Jovtchev BUL 9.300
12 Kip Simons USA 9.300
13 Krasimir Dounev BUL 9.275
14 Masayoshi Maeda JPN 9.175
15 Rustam Charipov UKR 8.925
16 Mihai Bagiu USA 8.875
17 Jan-Peter Nikiferow GER 8.825
18 Hong-Chul Yeo KOR 8.500

Still Rings standings

1 Blaine Wilson USA 9.687
2 Kip Simons USA 9.625
3 Jordan Jovtchev BUL 9.612
4 Alexandre Svetlichnyi UKR 9.600
5 Oliver Walther GER 9.500
6 Vitaly Rudnitski BLR 9.475
7 Rustam Charipov UKR 9.437
8 Andrei Kan BLR 9.400
9 Jan-Peter Nikiferow GER 9.375
10 Alexei Bondarenko RUS 9.350
10 Krasimir Dounev BUL 9.350
12 Jair Lynch USA 9.275
13 Mihai Bagiu USA 9.225
14 Eugeni Podgorni RUS 9.100
15 Masanori Suzuki JPN 9.075
16 Huadong Huang CHN 8.925
17 Hong-Chul Yeo KOR 8.825
18 Masayoshi Maeda JPN 8.750

# # #

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Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 20:17:23 -0700
From: ***@RMII.COM
Subject: IBM Atlanta Gymnastics Invitational - Women

IBM Atlanta Gymnastics Invitational
Georgia Dome, Atlanta, USA
16-17 November 1995

Women's All-Around

VT UB AA
1 Alexandra Marinescu ROM 9.618 9.700 19.318
2 Liu Xuan CHN 9.606 9.700 19.306
3 Yelena Piskoun BLR 9.525 9.775 19.300
4 Roza Galieva RUS 9.587 9.712 19.299
5 Oxana Knijnik UKR 9.693 9.512 19.205
6 Svetlana Boguinskaya BLR 9.493 9.637 19.130
7 Mohini Bhardwaj USA 9.737 9.312 19.049
8 Laetitia Begue FRA 9.468 9.575 19.043
9 Lyubev Sheremeta UKR 9.393 9.637 19.030
10 Elena Grosheva RUS 9.243 9.700 18.943
11 Mirela Tugurlan ROM 9.518 9.362 18.880
12 Risa Sugawara JPN 9.487 9.362 18.849
13 Elvire Teza FRA 9.043 9.700 18.743
14 Diana Plaza ESP 9.143 9.400 18.543
15 Ji Liya CHN 9.668 8.825 18.493
16 Katie Teft USA 8.862 9.600 18.462
17 Mercedes Pacheco ESP 9.362 9.012 18.374
18 Miho Hashiguchi JPN 9.175 8.775 17.950

Vault standings

1 Mohini Bhardwaj USA 9.737
2 Oxana Knijnik UKR 9.693
3 Ji Liya CHN 9.668
4 Alexandra Marinescu ROM 9.618
5 Liu Xuan CHN 9.606
6 Roza Galieva RUS 9.587
7 Yelena Piskoun BLR 9.525
8 Mirela Tugurlan ROM 9.518
9 Svetlana Boguinskaya BLR 9.493
10 Risa Sugawara JPN 9.487
11 Laetitia Begue FRA 9.468
12 Lyubev Sheremeta UKR 9.393
13 Mercedes Pacheco ESP 9.362
14 Elena Grosheva RUS 9.243
15 Miho Hashiguchi JPN 9.175
16 Diana Plaza ESP 9.143
17 Elvire Teza FRA 9.043
18 Katie Teft USA 8.862

Uneven bars standings

1 Yelena Piskoun BLR 9.775
2 Roza Galieva RUS 9.712
3 Alexandra Marinescu ROM 9.700
3 Liu Xuan CHN 9.700
3 Elena Grosheva RUS 9.700
3 Elvire Teza FRA 9.700
7 Svetlana Boguinskaya BLR 9.637
8 Lyubev Sheremeta UKR 9.637
9 Katie Teft USA 9.600
10 Laetitia Begue FRA 9.575
11 Oxana Knijnik UKR 9.512
12 Diana Plaza ESP 9.400
13 Mirela Tugurlan ROM 9.362
13 Risa Sugawara JPN 9.362
15 Mohini Bhardwaj USA 9.312
16 Mercedes Pacheco ESP 9.012
17 Ji Liya CHN 8.825
18 Miho Hashiguchi JPN 8.775

# # #

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Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 18:53:36 CDT
From: ***@ASNTSU.ASN.NET
Subject: peachtree Invite in Atlanta

What are the exact dates and are there tickets left?

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Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 08:57:55 -0700
From: ***@RMII.COM
Subject: Atlanta Invitational

| Subject: Atlanta Invitational
|
| 1. Liu Xuan (CHN)
| 2. Yelana Piskuin (BLR)
| 3. Oksana Knijnik (UKR)

Actually, there was a scoring problem with Marinescu's vault, which
resulted in her vault average being a 4.843, putting her in last
place. Once this was corrected, she jumped to first place and all of
these three moved down one.

Rachele

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Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 10:45:38 CDT
From: ***@ASNTSU.ASN.NET
Subject: Accepting money

From reading Aaron's posting and this is something I have talked about
earlier is I think the gymnastics governing bodies need to get with it
and not disqualify athletes for accepting money from competing at the
collegiate level on scholarship. With the extraordinary costs of competin
I think it is more than fair to be able to accept some money and use it
to finance training expenses. To those who say you get paid to compete in
college and the glory, I say glory doesnt go very far in paying the bills
Also, with women's gym being the big name ticket in women's sports, I do
not see why the NCAA can't bend a little. The men's programs seem
constantly embroiled in scandal, why can't they give the women some slack

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Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 11:30:44 -0500
From: ***@YALE.EDU
Subject: Re: Accepting money


> From reading Aaron's posting and this is something I have talked about
> earlier is I think the gymnastics governing bodies need to get with it
> and not disqualify athletes for accepting money from competing at the
> collegiate level on scholarship. With the extraordinary costs of competin
> I think it is more than fair to be able to accept some money and use it
> to finance training expenses. To those who say you get paid to compete in
> college and the glory, I say glory doesnt go very far in paying the bills
> Also, with women's gym being the big name ticket in women's sports, I do
> not see why the NCAA can't bend a little. The men's programs seem
> constantly embroiled in scandal, why can't they give the women some slack
>

I think there is some confusion here. No gymnastics governing body is
disqualifying gymnasts from competing because they have college
scholarships. The NCAA as the governing body for most college sports
disqualifies athletes in all its sports from competing in college if they
get money from otherwise participating in their sport (that would include
endorsements, not just straight prize or appearance money). When you're
on a college scholarship, you *are* getting you're bills paid. The
problem comes when you end up ineligible for taking money before entering
college (someone who knows more about this than I do, aren't there
some provisions permitting a certain amount of aid for training
expenses?), or when you're an athlete not on scholarship.

:)
Adriana

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Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 11:30:21 -0500
From: ***@EAGLE.LHUP.EDU
Subject: Re: Accepting money

All NCAA eligible athletes follow the no money acceptance rule. It is
the basis of collegiate athletics. The NCAA will allow football and
basketball players to accept money before they will probably allow a
gymnast to.

Julie

> From reading Aaron's posting and this is something I have talked about
> earlier is I think the gymnastics governing bodies need to get with it
> and not disqualify athletes for accepting money from competing at the
> collegiate level on scholarship. With the extraordinary costs of competin
> I think it is more than fair to be able to accept some money and use it
> to finance training expenses. To those who say you get paid to compete in
> college and the glory, I say glory doesnt go very far in paying the bills
> Also, with women's gym being the big name ticket in women's sports, I do
> not see why the NCAA can't bend a little. The men's programs seem
> constantly embroiled in scandal, why can't they give the women some slack
>

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Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 10:10:07 -0700
From: ***@RMII.COM
Subject: AGI - corrected pommel horse

Note: the pommel horse scores from last night were correct, however,
the rankings by the names were wrong. Here is the corrected version:

Pommel Horse standings

1 Huadong Huang CHN 9.550
2 Vitaly Rudnitski BLR 9.500
2 Oliver Walther GER 9.500
4 Eugeni Podgorni RUS 9.450
4 Alexandre Svetlichnyi UKR 9.450
4 Andrei Kan BLR 9.450
7 Masanori Suzuki JPN 9.400
8 Blaine Wilson USA 9.375
8 Alexei Bondarenko RUS 9.375
10 Jair Lynch USA 9.325
11 Jordan Jovtchev BUL 9.300
11 Kip Simons USA 9.300
13 Krasimir Dounev BUL 9.275
14 Masayoshi Maeda JPN 9.175
15 Rustam Charipov UKR 8.925
16 Mihai Bagiu USA 8.875
17 Jan-Peter Nikiferow GER 8.825
18 Hong-Chul Yeo KOR 8.500

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Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 10:55:00 MST
From: ***@RMII.COM
Subject: IBM AGI - commentary part 1

Alexandre and Alexandra currently in the lead at the IBM Atlanta Gymnastics
Invitational

A strong field of competitors demonstrated superior routines at the Georgia
Dome on Thursday night, site of the IBM Atlanta Gymnastics Invitational.
The AGI is also known as the "Pre-Olympics", and serves as a test meet for
the Olympic Games. Let's hope the wrinkles are smoothed over by then. The
meet was very slow, causing several gymnastics aficionados in the stands to
complain. Most of the crowd left during the first couple of awards
ceremonies. Scoring problems abounded, including Marinescu's vault (as I
noted earlier). The flags were facing the wrong way during the awards
ceremony.

Organizational problems aside, the crowd of 5,921 witnessed a great display
of gymnastics.

Men's
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------
Men's floor was dominated by the former Soviets, with Evgeny Podgorny (RUS),
Vitaly Rudnitsky (BLR), Alexandre Svetlichnyi (UKR), and Andrei Kan (BLR)
all scoring 9.5+. Svetlichnyi threw an outstanding front tumbling middle
pass on floor (George and I are uncertain of the first skill, but it was
followed by three front layouts to a front layout full). Rudnitsky and
Svetlichnyi both mounted with double layouts and dismounted with full-ins.
Podgorny also dismounted with a full-in, but chose a front tumbling pass for
his first run and an outstanding double twisting double back for his second.
Kan deviated from the standard set by mounting with a piked Arabian double
front and dismounting with a triple twist. Kan's routine included strong
leaps, including a surprising (to me) tour jete out of the corner.

The Asian men all faltered on this event, with Masayoshi Maeda (JPN),
Masanori Suzuki (JPN) , Yeo Hong-Chul (KOR), and Huang Huadong (CHN) all
crashing their tumbling skills, scoring in the 8's. Jair Lynch (USA), who
was the first competitor of the competition, opening and closing with double
layouts (the dismount was short), a 9.45. The USA men from The Ohio State
University, Kip Simons and Blaine Wilson, also experienced problems, with
Simons sitting down his easiest pass of punch front, front full, and Wilson
bending to his knees on his full-in dismont. Wilson did garner a round of
applause for his planche, slow press to handstand. Mihai Bagiu (USA),
competing in a different rotation than the other USA men, scored high on the
"applaus-o-meter" with his Manna and flairs. The announcer was confused by
Bagiu's routine: after his flairs, and the audience applause, the announcer
thought he was finished and so quite enthusiastically said "and that's
Mihai, Bagiu!!!" only to watch Bagiu tumble his last pass while the crowd
smirked. After Bagiu's dismount, the announcer amused the crowd by summing
up "and now... he's done!".

Elsewhere on the floor, Jan-Peter Nikiferow (GER) mounted with a full-in
laid out. Alexei Bondarenko (RUS) hit his feet twice on the mat during his
flairs (9.175). Krasimir Dounev (BUL) caught the crowd's attention with a
Thomas salto laid out (yes, 1.5 twists, I'm sure!) and a little breakdancing
in the middle, while Rustam Charipov (UKR) stuck his double layout mount cold.

Men's pommels went pretty well, for most of the gymnasts, with two out of
every three scoring 9.3 and higher. Huang recovered from his mistakes on
floor to lead pommels with a 9.55, displaying never-ending sequences on one
pommel and also a nice combination of flairs, up to handstand (but not
quite), and right back into flairs. Rudnitsky tied with Oliver Walther
(GER) for second on pommels with a 9.500. Rudnitsky was very aggressive on
this event, mounting immediately into flairs, but almost missing a hand on
his pirrouette off the horse. Podgorny, Svetlichnyi, and Kan again were
neck and neck, each scoring 9.45, a mark which surprised me for Svetlichnyi
as his legs came apart several times and he had problems with his leg form.
Charipov ran into problems on horse, including not crossing over the horse
on his handstand dismount to score only 8.925. The two Japanese men, Maeda
and Suzuki, struggled on this event (Maeda's body was very piked
throughout). Yeo was also not happy with his routine. I thought that the
two Bulgarians, Jovtchev and Dounev, both had pretty pommel sets, but since
they were only 11th and 13th in the pommel standings, I suppose they were
lacking in difficulty. Jovtchev had great flairs though. (Interestingly,
the Bulgarians had incredibly simple and generic uniforms -- a plain white
comp top with green pants on the "arm" events and red shorts on the "leg"
events.) Most of the USA men competed without major mishap on pommels,
scoring between 9.3 and 9.375, the exception being Bagiu who missed a hand,
falling off the apparatus and dropping his score to an 8.875. Wilson
steamrolled through his pommel horse in a race to the finish, scoring a 9.375.

Wilson (9.687 - best men's score of the night) and Simons (9.625), both
coached by Peter Kormann, who will be the 1996 Olympic men's head coach,
pushed to the lead on rings, outscoring Jovtchev (9.612), who was third on
rings in Sabae. Simons showed nice inverted crosses while Wilson showed off
his Malteses and double twisting double back dismount (step). Jovtchev
showed incredible strength but hopped on his double layout dismount.
Svetlichnyi showed nice inverted crossed and a very sharp double front pike
with 1/2 out dismount for a 9.6 and 4th on this event. Bondarenko showed a
nice planche, press to handstand, lower to planche sequence with a layout
full-in dismount. Podgorny threw two consecutive double backs but showed a
weak dismount (piked full-in, sorta) to score only 9.1. Walther had a
sequence that included a Maltese, L-cross pull-out, Maltese again, L-cross
pull-out again but showed poor leg form on his double layout dismount,
scoring a 9.500. Bagiu and Lynch, who have both been weak on rings in the
past, made it through their routines (Lynch's seems quite improved) for a
9.225 and 9.275 respectively. Huang had problems (8.925) but did show a
high full-twisting double layout dismount. Charipov also dismounted with a
full-twisting double layout for a 9.437. Yet another, Kan, used this
dismount and nice swing, to score a 9.4. Dounev showed some interesting
cross strap work: swing forward, full twist, swing backward with cross
straps, full-twist in the other direction. He scored a 9.35, his best score
of the night.

Some men's quotes:

Kip Simons, on the venue: "It gives you the chills. As the meet started,
you're seeing Atlanta 1996. Especially when the flag was going up, it made
me want to go home and work really hard and come back next year. It was
awesome just being out there tonight. It's definitely a motivation."

Kip Simons, on the US Men's gymnastics program: "We're making huge strides
in the right direction. The question is, do we have time to get ready for
Atlanta (next year)?"

Kip Simons, on his performance tonight: "I got such a renewed energy from
being here. It's just amazing. It seems like the people of Atlanta are
really psyched about what's about to happen (the Games)."

Jair Lynch, on his performance tonight: "Tonigh was a pretty good
performance for me. I set out to try some new skills, fine-tune some old
ones, and I think I accomplished that. I was the first victim of the floor,
the first result, I hope I'm not remember for that. Bu that's the luck of
the draw. You've got to take the good with the bad."

Jair Lynch, on the venue: "This is a great venue. But the crowd doesn't know
enough about gymnastics yet. We, and the federation, are going to have to
educate them in this next year. By next summer, we want everyone to know
what a good triple back is. There was a little aprehension tonight when to
cheer, when not to cheer."

Women's to follow in next message.

# # #

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End of GYMN-L Digest - 16 Nov 1995 to 17 Nov 1995 - Special issue
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