Maggie AstorCompte certifié

So essentially, refusing to give Simone's dismount the difficulty value it deserves is ignoring the central purpose of the modern gymnastics scoring system. This is a fundamental thing. 11/

It's true that, as FIG (the international gymnastics governing body, which assigns difficulty values) said in its statement, Simone's dismount is the only H-rated skill on beam. But that's also not the point. 12/

One letter value above anything else on beam does not accurately reflect how *much* more difficult it is than anything else on beam, and the point of the open-ended code is to enable FIG to make those sorts of distinctions. 13/

In its statement, FIG compared Simone's dismount to the Produnova vault. Because some gymnasts were chucking that vault unsafely, knowing the difficulty value would often outweigh the execution deductions they got for doing it badly, FIG lowered the difficulty value. 14/

But the two are not actually comparable. 15/

This is getting into some pretty technical weeds, but the sky-high difficulty value alone wasn't the reason gymnasts threw the Produnova when they shouldn't have. The other reason was that the Produnova, while WILDLY difficult, is simple in terms of technique. I'll explain. 16/

Again: unbelievably difficult. The amount of power it requires is insane. But it is TECHNICALLY very simple. There are no twists or direction changes. It doesn't require any complicated technique or finesse. It's just pure power.

So some naturally powerful gymnasts from countries that don't have elite gymnastics facilities or the best coaches went after the Produnova, because it is simple. Not easy, but simple. 19/

Now, there were competitions where Peña landed the Produnova better than that. But it was always terrifying to watch her, because it was so inconsistent and you never knew if she was going to land on her neck.

I cannot emphasize this enough: THE BILES BEAM DISMOUNT IS NOT LIKE THIS.

It is not technically simple. It is goddamn bonkers complicated. Two flips AND two twists off the end of a four-inch-wide beam. It requires impeccable technique, not just power.

The idea that less prodigiously talented gymnasts would attempt it just for the difficulty value is frankly ridiculous. It's not comparable to the Produnova. It's just not.

This is a really long and rambling thread and it probably would have been better if I'd plotted it out and edited it in advance, but I didn't. So I'll just try to wrap up.

Takeaway 1: The open-ended code was specifically designed to reward a gymnast like Simone Biles, and so it's absurd not to.

Takeaway 2: Gymnasts who can't do Simone's dismount safely aren't going to. It's not like the Produnova, which was attractive to gymnasts who were talented enough to learn many difficult but safer vaults, but didn't have the resources to train something technically complex.