Never Thought I'd Miss the East German Judge

Hmm, Olympic competition has changed. I used to love watching the gymnastics. The All-Around was fun, but back in the days of the Cold War, the team competition was the one I liked. Not that the United States ever had much success. We just couldn't compete with a system that took promising young athletes and offered (okay - offered is probably not the right word, but you get the picture) them state-sponsored training. Of course, we in the decadent West spread rumors that their families would be harmed if they didn't do well - that's (probably) an exaggeration, but I'm pretty sure there were plenty of real incentives for them to do well.

Anyway, when the Wall came down, many of the successful coaches and athletes from the sport emigrated to the West, to the benefit of our gymnasts.

All of that aside, though, watching gymnastics today is a completely different animal. The sport has completely changed, and though I love watching them do those big tricks, I miss the days of artistry and expression in the dance, especially on the floor. Too many times these days, it appears that they're just waving their arms around in between tumbling passes and none of it has anything at all to do with the music they've selected. I mean when I'm pretty sure I could dance better, something's wrong.

And then there's the move from team to specialists. So you now have a gymnast who is only really good on one event on the team. I don't know - just doesn't seem to meet the spirit of a team competition. In the good old days, you had six team members and ALL SIX performed on every piece of apparatus. Sure, you dropped the lowest score, but that still meant that five of the six had to hit and do it well to win. As a spectator, I understood what was going on, what was good and what was bad. They even had to do compulsory exercises. That was a true measure of the mastery of basic skills. Everyone did the same routine, and it counted toward the overall team score.

Nowadays, you have only five girls, not all of whom are required to perform on all events. And one day, they drop a score, the next they all count. I don't like it. I feel completely disconnected with the new scoring system. I understand it, I just don't like it. I know they felt the need to distinguish more difficult skills from those doing simpler routines, but frankly, I miss the artistry of a simpler, very clean routine. Heck, I can't even follow some of the moves now. I sit there thinking was that two twists or three? And how many times did they flip?

Now that I've bashed the sport itself, it's time for the coverage. In the 2012 Olympic All Around, the last American went and they showed the team waiting ... waiting ... and waiting. I'm there holding my breath along with the girls. Finally, they announce that the Americans won the gold, but they NEVER showed Alexandra Raisman's score! We actually had to go look it up on-line.

So, why do I miss the East German judge? Because I'm sorry to say I miss Soviet era competition. The perfection of the Communist gymnasts was amazing. Of course, I'm sure that the East Germans knew that beating the Soviets would probably result in the leveling of East Berlin or something, but they tried to beat everyone else (as witnessed by an East German judge getting a half point taken off the American's score in the '88 Olympics, costing them the bronze medal).

I'm still amazed at the effect the Communist Bloc had on everything. I can't help but think that a twenty-year old who watches When Harry Met Sally these days won't have a clue as to what Harry is talking about when he shares his dream in which the East German judge gave him poor marks on his performance based on his dismount (if I'm remembering the dialog correctly).

I also loved reading Cold War novels: LeCarre, Buckley and Deighton ... awesome. And let's not forget one of my favorite movies of all time: Gotcha. If you've never seen it, I highly recommend it. I especially love the civil service workers on both sides of the Wall.

So, gymnastics these days? I can't quite rate it cool beans. Maybe frigid beans, but those are still cold, which is similar to cool. Tell you what, I'll give it cool beans, and we'll add frigid beans to show all of the difficulty, but then there are tons of hot beans for things such as, not allowing us to see all of the top gymnasts in the all-around competition because of limit per country rules, for a scoring system that you need an advanced degree or years of experience to understand, for stealing a silver medal from the British team and for horrible media coverage that makes it nearly impossible to follow what's really going on.

Oh yeah, and someone tell the media to stop televising the agonized faces of athletes that have experienced an injury, a mistake, a lost race, a fall ... whatever. Give them some privacy!