Here it is in slow mo so you can see it better. Incredible! pic.twitter.com/xopqrUDdPl
— pitifulplayer (@perfectly_erika) May 24, 2021
It’s not bragging when she can actually DO it!
Simone Biles makes the extraordinary look routine in her first competition since 2019 https://t.co/H57bRuyw4I
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 23, 2021
Actual sportwriter, for the Washington Post:
Before Simone Biles begins her routines, the arena quiets in anticipation. Her excellence demands your full attention, and her history-making skills are worthy of the excitement they provoke. Biles hadn’t performed in a competitive environment since 2019, a hiatus prompted by the coronavirus pandemic, but even as elite meets disappeared from the calendar, her greatness only grew.
In her return to the competitive stage Saturday, Biles became the first woman to perform a Yurchenko double pike — a vault that requires her to flip twice in a piked position after pushing off the table with her hands. She executed the skill with ease all weekend as she prepared to unveil the new vault at the U.S. Classic. When the moment arrived, the 24-year-old landed the vault with a bouncing step backward, a product of having a bit too much power on a skill so difficult that none of her peers have attempted it in competition.
The difficulty value awarded to the skill gives the vault a maximum score of 16.600, and that’s not much higher than Biles’s other vaults, so why compete the new skill? “Because I can do it!” she said. “And it will still be named after me. … I know it’s not the correct value that we want, but I can still do it, so why not just show off my ability and athleticism?”
Biles’s performance wasn’t error-free, but she cruised to the all-around title with a score of 58.400, more than a full point ahead of the runner-up. Her leotard featured a goat on the back, emblematic of her status in this sport because of the gulf that exists between her and the competition — even when she makes mistakes. Biles has won the all-around title in every meet she has entered since 2013. At the U.S. Classic, she had the top scores on the vault, beam and floor, and she still has time to reach her peak form as the delayed Tokyo Olympics approach…
Simone Biles. Surya Bonaly. Serena Williams.
All strong. All powerful. All who changed the game.
Strong black women are often feared. Be strong anyway! ?? pic.twitter.com/dqAuTbsDhM
— Anne Boleyn (Sussex Supporter) (@TudorChick1501) May 24, 2021
The NYTimes: Some people say...
Simone Biles, the most decorated gymnast in history, is renowned for performing moves so difficult, and so distinctive, that several have been named after her.
On Saturday, she executed a new one considered so dangerous that no other women even attempt it…
The judges scoring her, however, were not so impressed. Despite the move’s difficulty, they gave it a provisional scoring value of 6.6, close to what Biles’s other vaults have received. That limited the points available for performing it successfully, a point that a frustrated Biles suggested was unfair to her.
“I feel like now we just have to get what we get because there’s no point in putting up a fight because they’re not going to reward it,” she said of judges and, ultimately, the International Gymnastics Federation, which has the final word on starting values for new vaults done in competition. “So we just have to take it and be quiet.”…
Part of the reason for that might be a concern for the safety of gymnasts not nearly as skilled as Biles — by assigning a dangerous move a low start value, the federation quietly discourages others from risking it. But there also may be a fear that Biles is so good that she might run away with any competition she enters simply by doing a handful of moves that her rivals cannot, or dare not, attempt…
The IOC gymnastic experts, as far back as I can remember, have been notorious for *not* protecting young female gymnasts — just off the top of my head, there were abuse allegations going back to the mid-1970s, involving the use of steroids on children & young adolescents; promoting eating disorders because ‘only tiny little bodies are flexible enough, and besides, the judges prefer them’; scoring ‘cute’ white performers higher than those of color; and, of course, letting Larry Nassar sexually abuse hundreds of gymnasts (of *both* sexes) because “winning”. So, it’s certainly plausible, at the intersection of racism and misogyny, that Biles is being genteelly Jim Thorpe’d.
And yet, the NYTimes wants credit for its bold truth-telling here… but not so much that they actually try pinning names to quotes, mind you. Because Why try, when They won’t let you win anyway? has been one of the most insidious weapons used against ‘uppity’ minority strivers since, well, forever.
This happens in figure-skating, too. There's a stigma against the rare women who have the physicality to do feats that haven't traditionally been part of the women's program. And of course there's racism. https://t.co/xYFpQukWIt
— Lindsay Beyerstein (@beyerstein) May 24, 2021
It's also worth pointing out that the Times story "reports" this entirely in passive voice, with no attribution. It's not even clear if this was told to them by anyone or if it's just speculation. https://t.co/HCjZco7GSJ
— Brien Jackson (@Brien_Jackson) May 24, 2021
Qongresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene Puts Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy In His Place
Chetan Murthy
I think it’s impossible for mere mortals to appreciate the superhuman ability required to pull off that vault, except by watching it in slow motion. You watch at real speed, and it’s just “she’s taken flight”.
Ken
Sounds a bit like Harrison Bergeron. Perhaps, in a similar spirit of fairness, the fastest runners should have to carry a twenty-pound sack of lead pellets…
jl
I heard about the scoring dispute on the news.
I’m curious to hear from any commenters who know about gymnastics: what is so potentially dangerous about her move?
I expected something far freakier than what I saw. Is it the backflip launch?
Or that she does two two rotations on the way down?
Everyone can see what she’s doing, in ultra slow motion if you want, so should be able to get a detailed explanation for why it’s dangerous versus BS.
Chetan Murthy
@jl: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/02/06/simone-biles-vault-video-yurchenko-double-pike/
Chetan Murthy
@jl: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/02/06/simone-biles-vault-video-yurchenko-double-pike/
Tried to excerpt the bit talking about why it was so dangerous, but got thrown into moderation. Search for “I’m not trying to die”.
Chetan Murthy
@Chetan Murthy: also: Maroney explained if a gymnast feels something is off during a twisting vault, she can decrease the number of twists midair and safely land. But “when you’re [doing a] double back,” she said, “you can’t stop.”
ProfDamatu
@jl: As I understand it, the reason that particular vault is so dangerous is that if you under-rotate it, you’re likely to land on your ankles or even on your neck – because of the piked position and the push-off from the vault table, there’s no safe “bail-out” if you make a mistake. I’ve read that very few male gymnasts attempt this vault, either, for the same reason.
Omnes Omnibus
When, for example, Jim Clark was winning everything in auto racing in the 1960s, no one said it was a problem – his competitors may have groused but they knew he was simply the best there was. I don’t see why there is a problem. If you like the sport, just watch her and appreciate the excellence. If you don’t really care about the sport, then it shouldn’t bother you either.
Chetan Murthy
@Omnes Omnibus: Well, if Clark had to travel one more time around the track than all the other racers, in order to win, he might get a little miffed. Sure, we plebes don’t care: we know she’s conquered gravity. But a competitor’s going to care, b/c they’ve lived their entire lives being judged.
John Revolta
She’s amazing.
(I saw video of her doing this in practice last week and she hit the landing cleaner. Maybe that’s why the lowish score?)
Chetan Murthy
@John Revolta: Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
Omnes Omnibus
@Chetan Murthy: I think we may somehow be talking past one another.
Adam L Silverman
@jl: My understanding is that one of the few previous women who was good enough to pull it off severely injured herself doing it. I believe she was left a quadriplegic, which contributed to her untimely death. I think there might have been a second woman who was also seriously injured attempting it.
cckids
https://www.themarysue.com/simone-biles-undervalued-again/?utm_source=mostpopular This piece makes an excellent point/comparison to Michael Phelps – he has a definite physiological edge over most male swimmers, but they don’t make him swim with ankle weights to even things out. It’s just absurd.
Edited because I cannot apparently format the link. My apologies for its nakedness.
Chetan Murthy
@Omnes Omnibus: I agreed with everything you said. What I was trying to add was that -she- cared. And that for fans, well, we’d care, b/c we’re fans. I mean, why do fans care about Britney’s being basically a ward of her father into soon-approaching middle-age?
debbie
Odd that points are awarded for degree of difficulty, but are deducted when too difficult. //
cckids
@John Revolta: No, the questions are about the level of difficulty score the move received. You get a score for how hard your routine/move is, and a second one for how well you complete it.
Adam L Silverman
@jl: @Chetan Murthy: Found it!
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-11-17-sp-1670-story.html
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1988-06-27-8801110283-story.html
mrmoshpotato
@Chetan Murthy: Yeah. At normal speed, my brain was wondering what it just saw. But the slow-mo playback… Wow!
ProfDamatu
@ProfDamatu: Having said that, I don’t really think that extremely difficult skill should be devalued solely because they’re dangerous, and the governing body is worried that gymnasts will be injured attempting skills they’re not capable of doing. This business with the Yurchenko double-pike is especially egregious, because that vault has been done on the men’s side for years – with neither the paternalistic devaluing of the skill, nor (as far as I’m aware) a rash of serious injuries. (The same thing happened with the very difficult beam dismount Biles debuted a couple of years ago; obviously there’s no men’s beam competition, so you can’t make a direct score comparison in that case.)
I’d suspect that if given truth serum, the folks who made these valuation decisions were probably more worried about Biles being too far ahead of the other gymnasts for an “exciting” competition, than they were about others hurting themselves trying those skills. I mean, I doubt you’d see many female gymnasts attempting that vault no matter how much it was worth, because the vast majority wouldn’t be strong/powerful enough to even think about it – I also wonder if height isn’t a factor here; if you generate less power (like female gymnasts do compared with male gymnasts), you better spin faster, and Biles is substantially shorter than most of her competition, which should help with that.
What they’re missing is that it’s also very exciting for gymnastics fans to watch these amazing routines, even if the outcome of the competition isn’t really in doubt. And even if that weren’t the case, well, too bad – it’s always sucked for the athletes who happen to have their peaks at a time that a completely dominant performer was active in the sport. It’s only in judged sports like gymnastics and figure skating that governing bodies can even think about putting their thumbs on the scales like this.
randy khan
The problem with judged events is that you have people, who come with their biases, making all the important decisions, including the ones about just how much credit you get for doing something nobody else can do.
Biles is obviously far ahead of her competitors, but unlike a Katie Ledecky (who is at least somewhat comparable in her best events – she has the 10 fastest times ever in the 1,500 meter freestyle and the 23(!) fastest times in the 800 freestyle), there’s no objective measurement like a clock that doesn’t depend on human frailty.
Chetan Murthy
@randy khan: And Ledecky gets all sorts of folks arguing she’s doping for her trouble.
dc
I like that she’s still the best at the ripe old age of 24, in a sport that usually burns out its champions while still in adolescence. Why do they downgrade her because she is so much better than everyone else? Let’s imagine that FIFA and the Liga decided that Messi’s goals would only count every other time.
ProfDamatu
@cckids: @John Revolta:
Right – each vault has a difficulty score (which currently goes up to, I believe, 6.6 on the women’s side) and an execution score out of 10 points. The difficulty score is the one that’s at issue; the problem is that, usually, when the governing body is deciding how to value a new, more difficult skill that’s being competed for the first time, it will be given two or three tenths of a point more than the then-current highest score in that “family.” In the case of, for instance, Biles’ new beam dismount, what normally should have been a .2 or .3 bump ended up being only .1 – and the stated rationale was, “It’s too dangerous for other gymnasts; we’re afraid if we award the usual increase, they will try it and get hurt.” Same kind of thing with the vault.
CaseyL
I honestly don’t know how Biles does what she does; the human body shouldn’t be able to do that! I figure she’s got coiled springs in her legs…
Watching her is a privilege.
Wag
@Adam L Silverman: The accidents you cite are from the 1980’s. The Yurchenko is now a “lower level” skill. My daughter, who is moving into JO Level 8-9 competitions next season, is learning the Yurchenko entry to her vault.
ProfDamatu
@Adam L Silverman: Those are really interesting! Not to be argumentative, though, but those articles are discussing the advent of the Yurchenko vault family, back in the 1980s. These days, just about all female gymnasts do at least one Yurchenko-style vault; mostly, they’ll do a single, laid-out flip with 2 or 2.5 twists (that latter is called the Amanar).
Just being a Yurchenko vault isn’t what makes Simone Biles’ vault so difficult and dangerous, it’s the fact that she’s doing a double flip in pike position. It’s very, very difficult to get enough height to get two flips all the way around…and if you don’t, you may very well land on your head.
Adam L Silverman
@Wag: All I was trying to do was provide some documentation in legitimate publication as to why the officials think it is too dangerous to back up what I put in an early comment from an article I saw last week. That’s it.
Wag
@John Revolta: The score wasn’t “lowish.” Her total score for the event was 16.100. The second place vault score was 14.950. Third was 14.350. So yeah, Simone is the GOAT. Nobody else is close.
Adam L Silverman
@ProfDamatu: Again, all I was doing was providing actual links to legit publications to back up what I recalled from reading about the vault last week that would partially explain why the officials consider it dangerous.
I’m a martial artist, not a gymnast, so I make no claims to subject matter expertise. Just providing citations for what I put in an earlier comment.
jl
@Chetan Murthy: @ProfDamatu: @Adam L Silverman:
Thanks very much. Between your responses and reading about it on wiki, to be honest, I am about where I started. My vague understanding is that the gymnast starts the vault with a backflip into that big launch pad and that is dangerous. Ammirightonthat?
But men can do it without a deduction, and I think commmenter ProfDamatu says it has an good safety record. Maybe start looking at that men’s safety record to see if it is really true, and what is it that would make it different for a woman. If Biles has enough upper body strength to do it, just means other women need to up their game on that.
OTOH, Biles won by a mile with the deduction, right? So she could just flip off the judges and smile, and say “Scores? Scores? I don’t need no stinking full scores.”
Wag
@Adam L Silverman: Understood. But as ProfDamatu pointed out more eloquently and in better detail than I did, the Yurchenko isn’t the hard part. The hard, and dangerous part, is the blind flight after the take off.
ProfDamatu
@Adam L Silverman: OK, sorry. I was just trying to provide information about why the particular vault that Biles is doing is considered so dangerous – it’s not because in the 80s, athletes were getting paralyzed doing the Yurchenko entry. I apologize for being rude and argumentative; I will try to do better in future.
jl
@ProfDamatu: OK, thanks. I guess another angle to understand what’s happening is: are the judges treating the introduction of this move, which is apparently dangerous for women, differently than they have treated previous introductions.
Edit: and in case it is not obvious, if anyone is kind enough to reply, I really have no clue about this stuff unless it is explained to me in simple English.
Adam L Silverman
I’m going to bed before I say something untoward.
ProfDamatu
@jl: Almost! A Yurchenko entry is a round-off onto the springboard (the “launch pad”) leading to a back handspring onto the vaulting table. (A round-off is kinda like a cartwheel, except that you twist at the waist halfway through and finish up facing the opposite direction as when you started, feet together.) As @Wag says, that’s actually considered a lower-level skill now – apparently, according to the links Adam provided, it was initially invented as a way to get more power onto the vault table for gymnasts who couldn’t build up enough running straight at the springboard. It’s dangerous, sure, but it’s “manageable dangerous” for most gymnasts now, male and female.
What’s really dangerous about what Biles is doing is the two backflips off the table; it’s difficult enough that not all male gymnasts generate enough power to get it all the way around.
And thanks for the compliment! :-)
Chetan Murthy
@jl:
I believe it’s two consecutive backflips in “pike position”. Per Mikayla Maroney (one of the quotes I appended) [you might remember her from the pic with her and President Obama doing the “dissatisfied smile”] the problem is that once you go for two backflips, you’re committed, and you can’t do an early exit if you’re not going to make it.
ETA: what ProfDamatu said, just above. Clearly knowledgeable, whereas I’m just quoting from that WaPo article.
jl
@ProfDamatu: OK, so I was wrong? It’s too many rotations on the way down, not starting out with a backward launch? Or is it both?
But don’t a lot of landings have two rotations? I’m all lost again. Sorry. Thanks for trying to help.
@Chetan Murthy: Thanks. I guess this is something for expert fans. I can’t even count those rotation things. I was wowed by the backward launch. I’m a rube and a boor and just fell off the turnip truck on this stuff.
John Revolta
Blimey! This
redistribution of wealthgymnastic scoring business is trickier than I thought!Chetan Murthy
@jl: You’re not alone. You asked the question, and it piqued my interest, so I dug up that WaPo article with quotes from Maroney and (esp.) Biles. But ‘m about where you are: she just seemed to fly, is all. Even in slo-mo, I can’t appreciate the technical issues — just more appreciation of all the stuff she’d doing while she’s up there.
jl
@ProfDamatu: Thanks again very much.
At this point, I figure, if the judges are treating it the same as previous innovative moves that are deemed dangerous (a thing which apparently vary by gender), then their scoring is OK with me. If not, a problem that needs to be discussed.
ProfDamatu
@jl: There does seem to be evidence that the past couple of new, difficult skills Biles has introduced have been treated differently than previous new skills. She’s got a couple of tumbling moves (floor exercise) named for her as well, and I don’t recall any controversy over how those were valued.
Having said that, from what I can recall, it seems like usually when a skill is truly dangerous, the response is more often to just ban it, rather than undervaluing it in the hopes of tipping the risk/reward calculation against it being tried.
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: I think the basics are that she is doing something that woman have not done before and that it is possible that she is the only woman currently capable of doing it. The Judges didn’t give her the credit for difficulty that normally would be given. The question becomes are the judges doing it to protect the safety of other athletes who might be tempted to try it and hurt themselves or are they handicapping Biles to artificially create a chance at a competition. Given the history of how protective gymnastics has been of the young women involved in the sport, people aren’t really buying the safety argument.
ProfDamatu
@jl: The backward launch used to be considered really difficult, to the point that it was banned in NCAA competition for awhile after elite gymnasts started trying it. But, as another commenter said, it’s now expected that all high level gymnasts will learn it.
You’re right that there are a decent amount of skills that involve two flips, but I think most of them are on floor exercise (or dismounts from apparatus like rings and high bar for the men). I believe it’s a lot harder to generate enough power for two complete flips when you’re pushing off (of the vault table) using your arms than (off of the springy floor) using your legs.
jl
@ProfDamatu: @Omnes Omnibus: Thanks.
Closest I can come to understanding the issue is how many rules they changed after the first two great modern basketball centers, Mikan and Chamberlain, threatened to run the whole game on their terms.
A lot of rule changes that just happened to cancel their strengths justified with a lot of bibble babble.
VeniceRiley
This isn’t limited to gymnastics. Recall the Olympic committee troll that said women’s ski jump is banned for … mumble mumble male rationalization reasons. It’s alwYs always a fight and a punch in the face and penalties and news stories and men being effing weird until the breaking point. Then it’s like you’re so exhausted to celebrate. That’s what they count on- that it won’t be worth it.
jl
@ProfDamatu: OH… arms…. ahhh… I’ll have to go back and watch again. Thanks. I’ve been ogling over the backwards launch.
Edit: OK, double back flip off the arms. I think I’m getting it now.
Mary G
The elephant in the living room is that Simone Biles is Black and can’t possibly be better than all the blond 14-year-olds competing against her.
jl
@VeniceRiley: IIRC correctly, the original modern Olympics included juggling clubs and tug-o-war.
Let’s go back to those for all these competitions and make the artistic stuff exhibitions.
Make gymnastics boring again! Compulsories only.
Edit: But if as commenters say new moves that Biles does are being treated differently than new moves in the past, then that’s a problem. As I think a commenter said above, truly dangerous moves in the past have been banned. So if there is a real problem, the gymnastics brass should argue that it should be banned, don’t be weasels about it. But, not sure about that either, if its considered safe for the guys… well…. women should be able to do it too.
jl
@VeniceRiley: Ban on women’s ski jump was always a joke, in my, admittedly ignorant, opinion.
Fair Economist
Another reason to devalue very difficult skills is that high value for extra-difficult skills lets athletes not at the very top “gamble” with skills they can’t land with any consistency. The very top athletes can’t counter because that would risk their spot at the podium. So the winner becomes the lucky athlete rather than the best.
jl
@Fair Economist: Yeesh. I thought I was the only economist here. What auction theory paper is that from? :)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl:
I may be short but I’m not invisible. Actually jl, there are several economists that comment here. YOU’RE NOT THAT SPECIAL.
ProfDamatu
@Fair Economist: And IMHO, you do see some of that happening in figure skating, especially since quad jumps started to be landed in competition. Although I suppose in that case it could be argued that what was going on was more that the quad jumps got such a high technical value that anyone who could land even one had a huge advantage – putting pressure on skaters to add more and more of those jumps, and focus less on execution (of easier skills as well) and artistic content. There were definitely a few years full of super sloppy routines, as established skaters tried to add the new skills – and instances where skaters won competitions with routines that were full of difficult jumps, but were messy and had crappy choreography. Now, though, skaters coming into the sport know that they’ll need a quad or two, and training takes that into account from the beginning. (And the scoring system has been revamped to be more like gymnastics, with points being awarded – or docked – for execution separately from completion of the skills.)
I suppose it’s possible that something like that could happen with some of the skills that get added in gymnastics. Heck, the Yurchenko vault entry is a great example – starts out as a high-risk, high-reward thing, but quickly becomes something that everyone is expected to be able to do
ETA – I’m less worried about the “big skill lets less talented athlete steal a win” in events other than vault. All the other events include multiple skills – getting to where you can do one super difficult thing sometimes isn’t going to help; you need several, and it’s not likely that would happen.
prostratedragon
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Lapsed.
Mallard Filmore
@Omnes Omnibus:
I have a problem with risking one’s life for the amusement of spectators.
jl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: That economist you are always lurking around ready to viciously pounce on innocent commenters is a given. I don’t have to mention it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mallard Filmore: Then you have a problem with many, many sports.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@prostratedragon: Also lapsed.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: There’s always golf, does that qualify as a sport?
Mallard Filmore
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes. It is unfortunate that I am not in charge of the world.
Amir Khalid
It’s unjust that the scoring system won’t reward Simone Biles for a rare skill only she has mastered, out of fear that lesser athletes will try it and get injured. Whether to attempt a potentially dangerous move should be up to the honest assessment of the gymnast and her coaches. There will be no one better placed to decide if she has the technique, speed, and power to do it safely. Fans need to understand that their sport, like any sport, can be dangerous because athletes are always pushing their physical limits.
Stuart Frasier
I participate in a number of activities that are routinely lethal, so I find this all a bit perplexing. Some number of us that jump out of planes, or ride high performance motorcycles, or race cars, or rock climb (or any number of other things) draw the short straw. What’s the alternative? Not live at all? Stay wrapped up in cotton wool and arrive safely at old age without having tasted life? Is that even living?
Stuart Frasier
@?BillinGlendaleCA: per Hemingway, the only sports are bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering. The rest are merely games.
pluky
@jl: The Yurchenko launch (round off to the beat board with a back handspring to the horse) is treacherous. one is reaching for the horse blind at full tilt.
Booger
Looking at that move, I don’t think I could do it in zero-g with a thruster pack, a gyroscope, and a ten-step illuminated diagram with numbers and arrows, with six months to practice.
Uncle Cosmo
Economist, n.: Someone who likes to work with numbers but isn’t personable enough to be an accountant. (Or statistician.)
“The economist has two major tasks: (1) Predict what the economy will do next year; (2) Provide explanations Cobble up alibis for why last year’s predictions were so utterly wrong.”
Not the kind of “specialness” most folks would seek. Then again, economists.
(Disclaimer: I was statistical programmer for an officeful of econometricians in the late 70s/early 80s. I know whereof I speak.)