Masha Rebounds To Silver
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| her smile in a sea of russian glares |
The entire final should've been called The Simone Show; her supporters have been prophesying the long awaited gold ever since she began training the cheng, and vaulters have been upgrading to macabre levels of difficulty all because they fear they don't have the execution to beat her. Turns out they don't. Hong Un Jong had a great "TTY" but she was under rotated by a quarter and her sideways facing body couldn't sustain the force of the landing, thus she fell back (or sideways if you please). Dipa and Oksana threw the produnova but both fell, although Oksana's was scarier and didn't show the same control Dipa Karmakar had. Dipa had a smart strategy of going with the weaker vault first to get the jitters out and I think it paid off with the prod, scary as it still is. Giulia was the only one who decided not to do her most difficult vault, neglecting the tsuk 2/1 citing lack of adequate preparation. Her caution turned out to be the right choice as two "simpler," but cleaner, vaults paved the way for a podium finish. She could've beaten Paseka had she stuck the DTY but she normally has directional problems with this vault so in that sense it was still one of her best efforts. Simone Biles won the final with her standard excellent amanar and cheng, with the cheng surprisingly becoming her more consistent vault lately. She beat the field by seven tenths and now has SEVENTEEN Olympic or World medals, thirteen of them gold.
Maria was the second to last to go and started with her inconsistent vault, which I wouldn't have advised. Her cheng was staggered on landing- it actually looked rather painful, despite sticking it- and I feared she got injured. She was walking very daintily back to do her second vault so perhaps some minor ankle pain did occur, which would explain her under rotated amanar. Some people found Paseka's vaulting offensive, and those people are offensive to me. No, she did not do her best today but what were the alternatives? Half the field fell thanks to their overreaching ambition! Sure Masha could've been cleaner- I'm not blind- but this podium to me is symbolic of who's been showing excellence all quad, not chancing their medals on a lucky landing, but actually showing competence in their craft, and Maria, Simone, and Giulia are it. If there were better girls in the field they certainly didn't demonstrate it by falling today. I mean Paseka didn't demonstrate her greatest abilities either but she was dynamic, accurate, and clean in the air (if not on entry) so go figure why some people are hot & bothered. Her stability secured a silver medal, one rank up from London...will she stick around til 2020 to try for a complete set? Let's all congratulate Masha and remember how many times she came back after an injury, how much she progressed despite the insults, and how often she competed for Russia despite the pain. Thank you for keeping your country relevant in the vaulting world, I hope you realize just how much Team Russia needed you this quad.
Such a sweet , cheerful pretty girl. All the best Masha. I would not be surprised if she retires soon though. I Russia has more girls in the juniors working on vaulting
ReplyDeleteWell if she retires by choice I'm fine with that, but I don't think she should feel pressured into it just because of incoming depth. Remember there's still plenty of time for those girls to have their talent mismanaged in the transition between qauds, so you want to keep a vet like Masha on standby!
DeleteI think that she deserves her silver medal and that she should feel happy about it. Many of her critics seem to be directing their anger towards the wrong one. It is the cop that allows for people to still medal despite not having perfect execution. You'd think that after seeing two people fall and still medal at the last two Olympics, that people would learn that this is how the code work. At least Paseka stood up both her vaults. Besides, many people seem to not realize that tidy legs are not the only things the judges are to consider when scoring. Things such as height, distance, sticks and location of landing all come into play. Hence why Aly Raisman is able to receive high scores on vault despite not having the cleanest form either.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. And Masha generally does well on many of these other aspects of vaulting, especially on her Amanar. Her flight and post-flight is usually good, only her pre-flight has large form errors.
DeleteSomething else that bothers me about the criticism of Paseka is that she was deducted for every error people bring up, so it's not like the judges didn't do their jobs. Just like Aliya's AA situation, people are upset because the Russians got lower than usual scores and still medalled...but what does that say about their competitors? If Paseka is able to medal at the Olympics with a lower average than she had at World's that is a poor reflection on what the other girls did to allow that to happen. In this sport you do what you do and let the chips fall where they may; that's why so many podiums consists of less than perfect work. And while people are saying "if so and so hadn't fallen Paseka would be knocked off..." Yeah right back at you, because if Paseka had a second chance to do those vaults better her average would rise by three to five tenths!
DeleteOne thing I haven't seen mentioned is that Paseka is now one of the most-decorated Russian female Olympic gymnasts. Four medals ties her with Zamo (though Zamo has two golds). Only Aliya and Khorkina have more. So yay for Paseka! She's really had a quietly great career.
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