The start value of the Yurchenko full may have been changed to promote more variety on vault, but the most delicious byproduct of the move has been the creation of a big, fat dilemma. The new strategic twist for coaches to grapple with: does an extra .05 actually make the Yurchenko 1.5 worth it, or is it smarter to stay with the trusty full?

Preseason training videos reveal that this dilemma is even more widespread this year than last year, and over the next month or so, coaches will have to make major decisions about whether their gymnasts should actually compete that wonky 1.5 they’ve been training.

So……should they?

Thankfully, we now have a whole season of evidence to use in making that decision for them, so let’s take a look at whether competing the Yurchenko 1.5 actually ended up being worth it in 2016.

Item 1: The average vault scores from the national championship (semifinals and Super Six), separated by type of vault. The first table includes all vaults, while the second table removes the falls.

The story these tables tell is a relatively optimistic one for Team 1.5. Even with a few falls at nationals, the 1.5 still ended up being more valuable than the full on average, a good argument for its being worth the risk. When falls are not included, the margin between the vaults balloons to 0.064, greater than the 0.050 difference in start value. Continue reading Does It Pay to 1.5? →

Following up on my exploration of which skills are the most popular in US elite routines, I decided it would be interesting (to me exclusively) to compare US composition to routine composition in Russia and China to illustrate the very different approaches taken by the three countries and where they can learn from each other.

And by each other, I mean the US. Because, let’s be real, the US won by 8 points.

The US numbers are based on routines from the three major domestic competitions this summer, Russia’s are based on Russian Cup (and occasionally Russian Champs if the gymnast didn’t compete at Russian Cup), and China’s are based on the Chinese Championships. I did not include all of the seniors from Russia and China at those meets because…well, they’re not on Youtube. But also because many gymnasts attend those meets to compete for their region/province but aren’t international elites and don’t have a comparable skill level.**

So, here we go. The “winner” for each skill is highlighted.

UNEVEN BARS

• Russia and China have been much more diligent about getting rid of those trash-shoots that do nothing to boost the D score than the US has, though the toe shoot does remain popular among the bad Chinese bars workers—the non-L-grippy ones who aren’t allowed to be seen in public and have long since been given up for dead because they’re not Fan Yilin. (Yeah, I’m talking about you, Liu Jinru.)

• The toe-on Shaposh 1/2 is Russia’s compulsory bars skill, while China is more comfortable with Stalder Shaposhes than either the US or Russia. It is interesting to note how few Chinese gymnasts do any variety of Shaposh 1/2 considering how valuable it is and how high their D scores are nonetheless. The toe-on Shaposh 1/2 is absolutely essential to Russia’s high bars Ds.

• And we thought the lack of transition variety in the US was bad. While the Pak is “compulsory” in the US, it is LITERALLY COMPULSORY in Russia and China. (Which also explains the lack of shoots since the Russians and Chinese never even face that direction on the low bar.) The US is the only nation crass enough to still use outdated and obsolete bail handstands.

• It’s worth noting not only how few same-bar releases are being done, especially by Russia and China, but also how different each country’s choices are. Every US gymnast does a straddled Jaeger, every Russian does a piked Jaeger (which will suit them very well in the next code), and every Chinese gymnast does a Gienger.

Continue reading United States v. Russia v. China →

It’s that time of year. Put on your gymnerd hat, your spreadsheet suspenders, and your white orthopedic percentage-comparison socks because oops, I made some charts again.

As is annual and traditional, I have taken all the skills performed by US senior gymnasts this summer and ranked them based on the percentage of total routines in which they appeared, comparing that data to the same information from the previous four years. Which skills are wildly popular? Which skills are horrible losers? How has it changed over time? Let’s find out.

I have highlighted a few of the significant trends in bluish and reddish as a way of COLORS.

Also the usual disclaimer that I didn’t include skills like giants and back handsprings because meh. Everyone, obviously.

So, like an NCAA away team, we’ll begin on uneven bars and let everything go downhill from there.

UNEVEN BARS

• The rise of original-recipe Tkatchev. I didn’t expect this. Compared to 2015, the regular Tkatchev is more popular this year, while E releases like the piked Tkatchev and Stalder Tkatchev are less popular. It should be the other way around considering the extreme value of E releases for connection bonus. Then again, the US gymnasts racking up the D score on bars right now like Locklear and Kocian are not same-bar releasies by any means.

Continue reading American Elements 2016: The Hottest (and Frostiest) Skills in the US →