GYMN-L Digest - 25 Jul 1996 - Special issue

There are 18 messages totalling 610 lines in this issue.

Topics in this special issue:

1. Men's AA comment (Spoiler)
2. MAG AA finals comments
3. Tousek Qualifies
4. News coverage of NBC's Olympic coverage (2)
5. <No subject given>
6. Men's AA finals--SPOILERS
7. NBC Again (2)
8. Misutin not in AA??
9. MAG EF Qualifiers request (again)
10. Apparatus Rotation?? (2)
11. Biggest supporter of Dawes!
12. Russians
13. Nemov
14. URGENT REQUEST
15. Good old BBC

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Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 14:56:05 -0400
From: ***@GRFN.ORG
Subject: Re: Men's AA comment (Spoiler)

Wanting to slap Beth is not a big surprise. I wanted
to the other night when she was elbowing in to talk
to Kerri after the awards ceremonies.

NBC needs to get its act together tonight. SHOW SCORES SHOW SCORES
SHOW SCORES SHOW SCORE!!!! OK OK OK???? David, are you
GETTING THIS??!!! Please?? *pleads* And no dumb questions.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 15:09:20 -0400
From: ***@KENT.NET
Subject: MAG AA finals comments

I was really impressed with the results of the Mens All Around Final. The
three best gymnasts in the world earned the medals and that's the way it
should be. I just hope that the same happens in the Women's
competition tonight!

I did think that some of the scoring was a little bit fishy at times. Does
anybody else agree? I happened to catch John R's high bar routine
which was rather mediocre but had no mistakes except a hop (step?) on
the landing. He got a 9.75. Kasimir Dounev's HB routine was televised
immediately before (after?) this. His routine was much more difficult, with
six release moves in a row, and he had better execution (faster and
smoother than Rothlesberger) and a similar mistake on the dismount.
He scored a 9.712. I thought that
Dounev should have been at least a tenth or two higher than
Rothlesberger. I also thought that some of Vitali Scherbo's scores
were a little bit low compared to those earned by Nemov and Li X.
I don't think that these discrepencies made any real difference in the
results but if the same thing happens in the Women's competition
it will be a different story. I didn't catch all of Rothlesberger's routines
(I can only take so much Tesh), were all of his scores like this? What
about Wilson? I'm really just curious to see if there really is a home
country advantage (which there is no good reason for IMO). I'm
not a judge, so just take this as MO (no flames, please). What
do the qualified judges out there think?

I was really impressed with the great sportsmanship shown between
Sherbo and Nemov in particular but also by many of the other gymnasts.
They didn't show much of this on CBC or NBC but the SRC coverage
often showed gymnasts slapping each other's hands on their way
to/from an apparatus. After every routine Nemov made a point to go
over to Scherbo and shake his hand. They even hugged and kissed after
the last rotation. I wish something similar would happen between
women. It really makes the competition a lot more friendly IMO and
makes you realize that the competitors don't hate each other.

- Megan

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 15:17:32 -0400
From: ***@KENT.NET
Subject: Tousek Qualifies

>>Yesterday the Montreal Gazette said Yvonne Tousek failed to qualify
>>because she placed 39th. Now at least three gymnasts finishing ahead of
>>her had to have been 4th on their team thus making room for her to make
>>it. Is she competing or not?
>>
>
>Yes she is. There was an interview with her on CBC yesterday looking
>forward to tonight's final. I can think of at least four or five girls that
>were probably ahead of her but weren't in the top three from their country
>(Moceanu, Phelps, Amanar, Grosheva, maybe a fourth Chinese or
>a fifth Romanian or Russian). Plus Strug is out so that moves
>her up another spot.
>
>Go Yvonne!! It will be really great for Canadian Gymnastics if she does
>well, but her routines are so difficult that it will be hard for her to do
that.
>
>- Megan
>

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 14:09:48 EDT
From: ***@BBN.COM
Subject: News coverage of NBC's Olympic coverage

Both the New York Times and Boston Globe today (7/25) carried articles
about the "plausibly live" coverage that NBC is offering.

A few quotes:

>From the Globe article:

"[NBC Sport vice president Ed] Markey instested that NBC is merely
giving primetime audiences what they ahve come to expect--athletics
recombined as soul-stirring entertainment--based on six years of
careful research. And tailored to a viewership, more female than
ever, that eschews traditional sports programmin and wants
heartwarming stories. Dave Michaels, who produced what amounted to
a gymnastics miniseries Tuesday [women's team final], wondered
what all the whining was about. 'We covered about every competitor
in every event,'[!!!!] Michaels said. 'Nothing was taken out of sequence.
The announcers were heard live.' Furthermore, Michaels said,
athlete profiles--timed to air as the subject is about to compete
are standard for all Olympics broadcasts in the modern era.
Michaels revealed that after an injured Kerri Strug hung on to
clinch the gold for the US team, he resisted inserting a profile
of her that was readily available. 'I thought it would have been a
little heavy-handed,' Michaels offered, acknowledging what most
viewers would deem a rare instance of restraint on NBC's part."

The Globe article also quotes the manager of a bar in Allston,
who arranged to show a feed of the CBC live coverage. "CBC
has done a much better job anyway.... We've had customers laughing
at the differences in the coverage."

The New York Times article quotes ABC sportscaster Al Michaels
on the subject of "plausibly live" coverage: "If I look at it as
a journalist, I'd say yes, they should tell you when it's taped,
but my feeling is that most people accept it and don't care.
I don't hear any viewers complaining."

Both articles note that NBC's airing of the end of the women's
team final took place about 5 hours after it actually happened.

My own thoughts on this:

1. Ratings tell a US network nothing about how much people enjoy
or resent the coverage they see. Unless you live close enough
to Canada or Mexico to get non-US coverage, or had a satellite
dish, what else are you going to watch? It's the only game in town.

2. Maybe people don't complain because they realize it wouldn't
do any good--no matter which US network covers the Olympics, we
get the same slant on the coverage.

3. Although I think it's technically fraudulent to pass off
taped coverage as live, that's not what annoys me personally.
I understand that they want to cover the most popular sports
in primetime, when they can get the biggest ratings. The things
I resent are the manipulative overdramatizing and the failure
to *take advantage* of the fact that it's not live to produce
more complete coverage. There's no excuse to spend several
minutes showing each American woman waiting for her score
when it's not live. You don't have to be a rabid gymnastics
fan to feel this way either. My roommate was surprised to
the men's compulsory coverage was all edited, so that NBC
deliberately put the piece about Li Xiaoshuang and the
Chinese team on the air right before Li's unfortunate
compulsory rings routine, and feels that it was dishonest
on NBC's part to pretend that this was just coincidence,
as well as a slap to the Chinese. If more people were aware
of this "plausibly live" business, NBC would probably get
a lot more complaints.

>>Kathy

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 13:26:24 -0600
From: ***@ECENTRAL.COM
Subject: <No subject given>

>Does anyone have complete coverage of the women's optional team competition
>including awarding of medals/playing of national anthem? If so, please
>email me privately. I would like to copy it, I will be willing to pay for
>postage.


PLEASE, count me in also. I would love to have complete coverage of the
women's optional team competition, including medal presentation ! ! ! !
I will also pay for postage. Please email me. Thanks.

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Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 14:22:57 EDT
From: ***@BBN.COM
Subject: Men's AA finals--SPOILERS

Judging by the scores published in today's paper, it was quite a
competition. Less than .5 points separated 5th (Shen Jian of
China, with 57.861) from 14th (Jesus Carballo of Spain, with 57.412).
The only man in the top 14 to have any score under 9.4 was Andreas
Wecker of Germany, with a 9.025 on pommel horse--that's a
a lot of guys having a solid competition. (On the other hand,
it seemed to me that the judges were being a bit generous to
everyone last night.)

Chechi got a 9.8 on rings, but only 9.050 on vault, to end up 18th with
57.124. That and Nemov's 2 9.8 scores (pommel horse and high bar) were
the high scores of the evening.

Roethlisberger's PB routine was his lowest score (9.475), but
he himself said that he had probably done at most one better
PB routine ever in competition. Wilson's lowest score (9.45) was
also on PB. The reason Macready finished in 29th was a 8.525 on FX;
his other scores were all between 9.487 (PB) and 9.562 (V and HB).

Sorry, no time to type in all the scores; hopefully they'll be
up on the USAG Web site soon.

>>Kathy

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 14:30:50 PDT
From: ***@POP.NET
Subject: NBC Again

I understand that NBC has to concern itself with attracting the largest
viewing audience possible given the sum of money it has paid to cover these
games and the expectations of its advertisers. I understand that its target
audience is Americans, and I understand that NBC believes Americans want to
see Americans perform, but I do not think that showing routines by gymnasts
from other countries is counter to its aims.

Real drama in the long run is more sustainable than false drama. NBC has
erred, in my opinion, on the side of creating false drama. Of course NBC
knew that the U.S. had won the gold medal without Kerri's vault. Of course,
NBC knew that the leads enjoyed by Russian men's team and the U.S. women's
team were fairly impressive and that these teams had their medals secured
barring any major accident. But rather than convey what was happening
honestly, it erred on the side of building drama. Perhaps, if NBC had shown
more routines by gymnasts from other countries, other, real dramas with no
less appeal would have become obvious. Although I have been a long standing
fan of the Russian and Romanian gymnasts, I found the footage of the Russian
and Romanian gymnasts crying to be funny. It was so incongruous to see these
gymnasts crying. Had we seen their struggles, their great routines, and
their setbacks, we would have shared these emotions and that moment with the
gymnasts. How could we empathize with these unknown athletes who had done
something we knew nothing about? Maybe we could have felt even more pride in
the U.S. team's accomplishments, if we had seen the adversaries.

Maybe NBC considers American dramas worth more than any non-U.S. drama. But
what kind of viewership would NBC have had now, if ABC had focused on the
U.S. women in 1972 and not allowed us to see Olga Korbut? Think of all the
increased attention that Nadia has brought the sport. What if we had not
seen Nadia's first Olympic compulsory bar routine because ABC had been
focusing on the U.S. team? Yes, ABC would have temporarily satisfied what it
believed the viewers wanted, but the sport, viewership (and yes, revenues)
in the long run would have suffered

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 14:31:35 PDT
From: ***@POP.NET
Subject: NBC Again

I understand that NBC has to concern itself with attracting the largest
viewing audience possible given the sum of money it has paid to cover these
games and the expectations of its advertisers. I understand that its target
audience is Americans, and I understand that NBC believes Americans want to
see Americans perform, but I do not think that showing routines by gymnasts
from other countries is counter to its aims.

Real drama in the long run is more sustainable than false drama. NBC has
erred, in my opinion, on the side of creating false drama. Of course NBC
knew that the U.S. had won the gold medal without Kerri's vault. Of course,
NBC knew that the leads enjoyed by Russian men's team and the U.S. women's
team were fairly impressive and that these teams had their medals secured
barring any major accident. But rather than convey what was happening
honestly, it erred on the side of building drama. Perhaps, if NBC had shown
more routines by gymnasts from other countries, other, real dramas with no
less appeal would have become obvious. Although I have been a long standing
fan of the Russian and Romanian gymnasts, I found the footage of the Russian
and Romanian gymnasts crying to be funny. It was so incongruous to see these
gymnasts crying. Had we seen their struggles, their great routines, and
their setbacks, we would have shared these emotions and that moment with the
gymnasts. How could we empathize with these unknown athletes who had done
something we knew nothing about? Maybe we could have felt even more pride in
the U.S. team's accomplishments, if we had seen the adversaries.

Maybe NBC considers American dramas worth more than any non-U.S. drama. But
what kind of viewership would NBC have had now, if ABC had focused on the
U.S. women in 1972 and not allowed us to see Olga Korbut? Think of all the
increased attention that Nadia has brought the sport. What if we had not
seen Nadia's first Olympic compulsory bar routine because ABC had been
focusing on the U.S. team? Yes, ABC would have temporarily satisfied what it
believed the viewers wanted, but the sport, viewership (and yes, revenues)
in the long run would have suffered

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 15:36:45 -0400
From: ***@KENT.NET
Subject: Misutin not in AA??

Does anybody know why Misutin wasn't in the AA? Did he just not
qualify? I find that hard to believe. They said something about him
on the french channel but I didn't understand.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 15:39:46 -0400
From: ***@KENT.NET
Subject: MAG EF Qualifiers request (again)

I would really like to know who has qualified for the event finals on
Sunday and Monday. Does anybody have them and/or know where
to find them? I've done a lot of surfing and still haven't had any luck.
Emal me!!!

- Megan

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 15:19:39 -0500
From: ***@PRODIGY.COM
Subject: Apparatus Rotation??

Grace wrote:

Yvonne starts on bars in the AA finals this afternoon. She goes up
last in a group that includes Alexandra Marinescu, Dina Kochetkova,
Joanna Hughes, Gina Gogean, Shannon Miller, and Dominique Dawes. This
is going to be amazing as these ladies end on vault (for Miller AGAIN!)
. What a draw! Piskun, Pod, Furnon, Mo, Tez, & Milo compete Olympic
order (start on vault). Moceanu starts 1st up on beam and is in with
Khorkina & Galieva. Chusovitina and Bogi start on floor.

My question is:

As indicated the identical rotation for Miller again, will Dawes follow
Miller's rotation the whole time, ending on vault, too? Please reply!
Thanx, JOANNE

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 15:19:37 -0500
From: ***@PRODIGY.COM
Subject: Biggest supporter of Dawes!


Steven posted a recent note Re:
The other Dominique ... Dawes!

I was going to voice my support to you, Steve, but then I realized that
I wanted everybody else to hear this, too. I agree very much w/ your
little tid-bits on Dom. As much as I wanted badly for Borden to make
the Olympic team (cuz she refused to give up after '92 Trials
experience), I happen to have the same amount of support for Dawes in
her AA competition. I know she is capable of medaling at the Olympics.
I'll be rooting the loudest cheers for her today. And I want her just
to have a lot of fun tonite as she approaches the end of her elite
career. No matter what she does over there, she's still gonna have my
respect.

GO DOM!!!!!!

Respectfully,
Joanne

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 15:54:59 -0400
From: ***@CORNELL.EDU
Subject: Re: News coverage of NBC's Olympic coverage

At 14:09 7/25/96 EDT, you wrote:
>Both the New York Times and Boston Globe today (7/25) carried articles
>about the "plausibly live" coverage that NBC is offering.
>
>A few quotes:
>
>From the Globe article:
>
>"[NBC Sport vice president Ed] Markey instested that NBC is merely
>giving primetime audiences what they ahve come to expect--athletics
>recombined as soul-stirring entertainment--based on six years of
>careful research. And tailored to a viewership, more female than
>ever, that eschews traditional sports programmin and wants
>heartwarming stories.

There was a comment in the Times article about their demographic
study which said that women would want more of the event and not care about
the score, while men would be willing to sit through the event while waiting
for the score... Fine unless you're a woman or a man who actually *wants*
to see the *athletes perform*.

Dave Michaels, who produced what amounted to
>a gymnastics miniseries Tuesday [women's team final], wondered
>what all the whining was about. 'We covered about every competitor
>in every event,'[!!!!] Michaels said.

Isn't that every *American* competitor in every event?

>The announcers were heard live.'

...Often to our dismay. I'm sure everyone in the US can recite
three or four of the factoids repeated to us about the US women's team, but
still knows little about the sport except that "the beam is four inches wide."

>1. Ratings tell a US network nothing about how much people enjoy
>or resent the coverage they see. Unless you live close enough
>to Canada or Mexico to get non-US coverage, or had a satellite
>dish, what else are you going to watch? It's the only game in town.

Absolutely. Ratings has become the bottom line for the production
of almost everything on TV.


>3. Although I think it's technically fraudulent to pass off
>taped coverage as live, that's not what annoys me personally.
>I understand that they want to cover the most popular sports
>in primetime, when they can get the biggest ratings. The things
>I resent are the manipulative overdramatizing and the failure
>to *take advantage* of the fact that it's not live to produce
>more complete coverage. There's no excuse to spend several
>minutes showing each American woman waiting for her score
>when it's not live. You don't have to be a rabid gymnastics

The rest of the media is picking up on some of the discontent now,
which might encourage a change in NBC if the flak intensifies... or the
othher networks will just notice that the Nielsens are sky-high and go for
the bottom line.
Even if people NBC's asked don't care if it's live or not, they
shouldn't NOT tell us what state the broadcast is in, live or "plausibly
live." Or not mentioning that what they're going to show has been heavily
massaged (eg equestrian and the women's road race). The fluff can be
interesting, but it shouldn't substitute for someone's routine. No need to
leave Shannon's non-reaction to her score in after the event's finished and
editing of everything else has been done.
(Aside: I wonder how much of tonight's audience will be befuddled
by Pods, Dina K. :) , etc. and their high scores going into AA... not that
we saw much of them in team. Then again, they might get their shot at
fluffdom.)
And hopefully the commentating will be more sensitive (the questions
to Scherbo).

Well, I've slaughtered some electrons to again reiterate everyone's
arguments...

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 15:58:52 -0400
From: ***@GRFN.ORG
Subject: Re: Apparatus Rotation??

If Dawes follows Miller again, and sits the vault down again,
I'm going to sob. REALLY sob. No piddly stuff.

And a note to NBC. Since Yvonne Tousek is in the group with
Shannon and co., and if we have to get some lesser competitors (HINT HINT)
can we PLEASE see this floor routine everyone is raving about?

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 16:08:37 -0400
From: ***@KENT.NET
Subject: Re: Russians

>To tell the truth, I'm sick of the Russians whining about the screaming
>Americans hurting their performance. I'm almost positive that when I
>watched coverage of the 1994 Goodwill Games in Russia, Steve Nunno wasn't
>complaining about all the screaming Russians. Some people do say, however,
>that the Russians won in '94 because of the homefield advantage, but to
>tell the truth, I think they just did better than everyone else. Just my
>opinion.
>
> Allie
>
Did you even *see* the Goodwill games? For one, the place was nearly
empty during the competition. The applause was no where near that
of the Georgia Dome, and most of all, no one was chanting "Russia
Russia Russia" every two minutes.

The Russians won there because they had the four best gymnasts at
that meet :Grosheva, Khorkina, Kotchetkova, and Fabrichnova. The
Americans had a quite inexperienced team -- Miller, Jenny Thompson,
Soni Meduna, and Marianna Webster.

Jordynn

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 16:12:28 -0400
From: ***@KENT.NET
Subject: Nemov

I have SO much respect for Nemov ( and all the other men)
after last night's all around comp. Nemov proved he was
one of the classiest athletes in the world by congratulating
Scherbo, and all the others in his group after every event!
What a guy!!!

Jordynn

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 16:13:00 EDT
From: ***@PSUVM.PSU.EDU
Subject: URGENT REQUEST

Help! I'm having serious mental block here...

What is the term for the skill on rings where the man does kind of an
upside-down iron cross? Where the guy's head is on the bottom, and legs
are above and his arms are doing a cross in the middle. I can think of
so many names but I don't know which it is. I can't believe this!!!
It's driving me nuts!

Please write back ASAP if you can help, and I'm sure all of you can,
since this isn't a hard question! I could just hit myself!

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 16:16:17 -0400
From: ***@ARGONET.CO.UK
Subject: Re: Good old BBC

Hello all from the UK,


I don't believe it ! We are getting hours, yes hours of live gymnastics
coverage over here ! :)


What a team competition, and what a team to win it ! The last time I saw
Shannon Miller and Dominique Dawes was at the Worlds in Birmingham, England.
>From their performances they are getting better and better. I have been on the
Gymn forum for some time and have only really learned about the American
gymnasts from the posts. Now I can put the gymnasts to the names ( by
courtesy of the Beeb )

What impressed me as well was the team spirit and the very high self esteem of
all the the American team, which I'm sure very nearly was blown away if poor
old Kerri hadn't stuck her last landing ! My heart, and I am sure millions of
others around the world, went out to her as she collasped on the mat.


Well done USA, what a show !!

Must go now as the LIVE optional coverage is about to start !

John

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End of GYMN-L Digest - 25 Jul 1996 - Special issue
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