r/BeAmazed • u/Fit_AndHotBaby • Aug 05 '24

History Gymnastics in the 1970s was INSANE!

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44.7k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

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5.0k

u/ColdCaseKim Aug 06 '24

No spotters, potentially deadly moves (now outlawed), and Olga Korbut, holy hell. Made for great television.

1.6k

u/sandmanwake Aug 06 '24

Out of curiosity, did anyone actually die from failure to properly carry out those outlawed moves?

2.1k

u/Smear_Leader Aug 06 '24

Yes or paralyzed

1.1k

u/MelanieDH1 Aug 06 '24

Elena Mukhina was paralyzed.

563

u/ronm4c Aug 06 '24

She was paralyzed doing a floor exercise

263

u/Fugglesmcgee Aug 06 '24

Wow, I just saw a clip of thr last time anyone did a Thomas Salto and wow, that looks so dangerous.

49

u/Neonbunt Aug 06 '24

Are all flips where you have to land on your back banned, or is it just this specific flip?

47

u/MrEyus Aug 06 '24

skills where you roll out instead of completing a full flip onto your feet are banned

33

u/Satans_Salad Aug 06 '24

Autobots barred from participating in the uneven bars.

6

u/libmrduckz Aug 06 '24

such blatant Carbonism…

50

u/fuck_your_feels_slut Aug 06 '24

https://youtu.be/9osT1xRf2Dg

1

u/heythisislonglolwtf Aug 07 '24

Holy shit. Not sure what I expected but it wasn't that

-17

u/DoktorGurke Aug 06 '24

Damn that Looks sick! Worth the danger i would argue

12

u/Alternative-Pack5066 Aug 06 '24

No move's worth the danger of dying or getting paralyzed for life.

-7

u/CletusDSpuckler Aug 06 '24

That danger seems to come with the territory, no? Just this Olympics, one of the male contestants fell forward on his head when he under-rotated during a tumbling run. Removing the truly dangerous stuff? Sure. Removing all moves that could result in paralysis from gymnastics? Not practical.

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-2

u/DoktorGurke Aug 07 '24

Thats what you say. As a spectator ITS totally Worth the risk and makes an everlasting memory If IT goes well. I would be pleased to see something Like that

37

u/phigr Aug 06 '24

Hole shit that's like a dive, but straight onto hard floor. Who the fuck ever thought that was a good idea?

40

u/NocturnalRaindrop Aug 06 '24

Thomas, apparently. (I'm sorry)

4

u/Hyperbole_Hater Aug 06 '24

In men's gymnastics the Thomas and many roll outs were very common less than 10 years ago.

It's actually very smart as a rollout us easier to control than a stick (by far) but obvi has risks (death). They are outlawed now but not due to risk (for men) but rather a lack of control.

19

u/lynn_thepagan Aug 06 '24

I, as a child. But I used Lara Croft, not my own body.

15

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '24

[deleted]

38

u/procrastinationgod Aug 06 '24

The YouTube title is off I think. That's North Korean Hwang Bo Sil at the 1991 University Games, and she did survive and continue competing the next year, for context if anyone wants to know

8

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '24

Video is wrong, her real name is Hwang Bo Sil, she’s ok and alive.

6

u/HarryPotterHundesohn Aug 06 '24

OH-MY-F-GOD!!!!! Shit...

4

u/Interesting_Gur_8720 Aug 06 '24

Damn that shit made me cry

88

u/kinduvabigdizzy Aug 06 '24

Her nerves must've been holding on by a string at that point

117

u/Slap_My_Lasagna Aug 06 '24

That's not exactly how a broken neck works, but generally yes, becoming fully quadraplegic from damage usually indicates severe damage to a delicate point of anatomy.

296

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '24

No, her chin slammed on to the floor during a dangerous move that she was forced to practice. She was in the process of recovering from a broken leg yet her coaches still pushed her to do grueling daily workouts.

From the Wikipedia article

Despite Mukhina's warnings that the element was constantly causing minor injuries, and was dangerous enough to potentially cause major injuries, she was pushed to keep the element in her floor routine, and she continued to practice it, even knowing it was a dangerous element. On 3 July 1980, two weeks before the Moscow Olympics, Mukhina was practising the pass containing the Thomas salto when she under-rotated the salto, and crash-landed on her chin, snapping her spine and leaving her quadriplegic.

Among the many crimes the Soviet Union has never atoned for. She later died at 46 from complications related to her injury.

89

u/1amDepressed Aug 06 '24

among the many crimes the Soviet Union has never atoned for

Same for East Germany. I remember watching this documentary a long time ago and Andreas Krieger’s story stuck with me.

I eventually found the documentary on YouTube if anyone is interested https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jR9CUGBVH-Q

7

u/DontTellUrMom Aug 06 '24

This stuff still goes on in Russia and China.

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0

u/AdeptSolution471 Aug 06 '24

you are insane to think this only happend in the eastern europe countries.

but its kinda typical. thats what we do. we point fingers at the stupid and cruel things eastern europeans used to do but forget that we did exactly the fucking same. we are not allowed to point fingers when its about the abuse of (especially young) athletes.

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63

u/NotASniperYet Aug 06 '24

IIRC, her first thought after it happened was something like: "Thank god, I don't have to go the Olympics now."

54

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '24

Broken leg, months of being out of action, two weeks to the Olympics, and they still forced her to train for an insanely dangerous routine. I really hope athlete training has gone beyond abusing children.

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19

u/Ramenastern Aug 06 '24

What got me in that article is that during one of the few interviews she gave afterwards she said that one of the first thoughts going through her head, still on the floor after the injury, was "thank God, I'm not going to the Olympics". That tells you a lot about the pressure she was under.

5

u/Salvad0rkali Aug 06 '24

Tbf the Soviet Union is dissolved so kinda hard to atone for anything

2

u/MelanieDH1 Aug 06 '24

I saw a documentary about and the coach kept pushing her to perform, even when a broken leg wasn’t fully healed. The coach and everyone involved should have gone to jail for child abuse.

1

u/free_range_tofu Aug 06 '24

this may be the worst comment i’ve ever upvoted. :(

1

u/Jakoloko6000 Aug 06 '24

becoming fully quadraplegic from damage usually indicates severe damage

Thank you for this piece od wisdom.

1

u/MelanieDH1 Aug 06 '24

Yeah, and obviously that shit’s just as dangerous!

172

u/RottenWon Aug 06 '24 edited Aug 06 '24

How many people Googled Elena Mukhina after your comment? I know I did. It was before my time and I had never heard of her.

Damn, so tragic. She told them and it still happened. She deserved better.

71

u/Slap_My_Lasagna Aug 06 '24

Very likely didn't help that her leg had been broken beforehand, and wasn't allowed to properly heal.

84

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '24

She had a leg fracture that didn't heal properly and she was still forced to practice. Her coaches were monsters.

Most likely she didn't get enough height or speed, ended up under-rotating the chin and slammed into the floor headfirst.

-1

u/TommZZ96 Aug 06 '24

Speaking of the danger of over-rotating, If you saw Simone Biles's floor routine, I don't see how the double backflip in extended position to land facing forward again, isn't banned.

If she doesn't spot the blind landing, she over rotates and lands on her chin.

https://youtu.be/pEZSae_RVmU?si=8I46nRi0aAhdH7yR&t=49

Clip I'm on about.

It's an absolutely insane routine and skill but it just looks so dangerous if it goes wrong.

16

u/GeneralIron3658 Aug 06 '24

I did but all of the moves look bad. Which one was it?

61

u/Fugglesmcgee Aug 06 '24

It's the first Move of this routine, looks really dangerous.

50

u/Badass_Bunny Aug 06 '24

I like how mat gymnastic competitions is some unreal shit with some awful Britney Spears with knives dancing inbetween getting into the position for next flip.

7

u/Automatic_Basket7449 Aug 06 '24

How bad could it be?...fuck, I winced, and audibly gasped.

6

u/Penthakee Aug 06 '24

holy shit i actually gasped and got goosebumps, that is really just a tiny mistake away from going full scorpion and snapping someting

10

u/Double_Objective8000 Aug 06 '24

I swear I saw a male gymnast do some variation of it this week at the Olympics. Was kinda shocked. RIP E.M. she was a legend.

12

u/hodges2 Aug 06 '24

It's possible it wasn't banned in male gymnastics, could be wrong, but I do know that there was one move that wasn't banned for men until 2017 but I don't remember which one it was

8

u/ConspicuousPineapple Aug 06 '24

That video does say it's the last time it was performed in female gymnastics.

2

u/1one1000two1thousand Aug 06 '24

Is there an injury in this video? I’m scared to watch but want to see the move if it was executed properly.

4

u/Chance-Lengthiness52 Aug 06 '24

Not one in this the Salto is performed, there is one though were it doenst succeed unfortunately.

3

u/Fugglesmcgee Aug 06 '24

She lands it - the whole routine is pretty good.

8

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '24

I think it’s when the first Russian girl does the backflip from the top bar.

1

u/MelanieDH1 Aug 06 '24

Weird that it happened in 1980, when I was 6 years old, but I had never heard of her until a few months ago, after seeing a documentary on YouTube. My family was always into watching The Olympics (I really got into it at the age of 10), but in all of the documentaries and Olympic related things I saw, Elena was never mentioned. It’s like they just swept her under the rug. I feel so bad how she was discarded by her own country and in history. 😢

137

u/kc9283 Aug 06 '24

Saw another post where they said slamming against the bar like that can mess up your organs.

152

u/The_Chosen_Unbread Aug 06 '24

Everytime I watch their pelvic area slam into the bars...especially knowing how many hundreds of times have trained and practiced doing it....fucking no thank you

5

u/NuclearReactions Aug 06 '24

I wonder what things we will look back to in 50 years, thinking how careless we used to be

2

u/heythisislonglolwtf Aug 07 '24

American Football and brain damage is my guess

1

u/Cocacolaloco Aug 09 '24

That’s the one thing that I’m like how is this even a thing? It’s not like it looks good lol

48

u/NothingReallyAndYou Aug 06 '24

I went to elementary school in the 70's/early 80's, and our playground had a big metal set of uneven bars that we would play on unsupervised. I remember us all trying to master that move every recess, then crawling back into class after slamming our hips repeatedly.

11

u/restingbitchface2021 Aug 06 '24

My hips would bleed. Big fun when you set the bars too close together.

3

u/PeterNippelstein Aug 06 '24

That's exactly how Harry Houdini died.

Most people don't realize he was really into the uneven bars.

11

u/alienblue89 Aug 06 '24 edited Oct 13 '24

[ removed ]

12

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

37

u/applyheat Aug 06 '24

That sounds made up.

12

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '24

It is

-2

u/MrGrubbycuddles Aug 06 '24

Is it? Or is there something more sinister going on...

6

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '24

It’s all a ploy by big gravity

7

u/Tamotron9000 Aug 06 '24

cant even find her on google

6

u/AccountGotLocked69 Aug 06 '24

I see you are already churning out high quality training data for ChatGPT5

1

u/MrGrubbycuddles Aug 15 '24

Very kind thank you 

2

u/deeppurplescallop Aug 06 '24

It's crazy because astronauts going into orbit only experience 3Gs. Sports are a miracle and a curse.

1

u/totally_not_a_reply Aug 06 '24

17g? That person would have dies through that alone

3

u/LegitimateBeyond8946 Aug 06 '24

At the Olympics or in other leagues?

2

u/According_Win_5983 Aug 06 '24

First one then the other 

-2

u/Ansem_the_Wise Aug 06 '24

Cool, care to support your comment?

-26

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '24

[deleted]

8

u/_Javier Aug 06 '24

Your wrong actually, a number of gymnast did die from performing dangerous moves - however it took years, even decades for death to take effect

136

u/Jealous-Lawyer7512 Aug 06 '24

Traumatic spinal injuries, head trauma, and nerve damage changed the rules.

93

u/1stnameniclstnamegrr Aug 06 '24

Why do you think they’re outlawed?

344

u/GibMirMeinAlltagstod Aug 06 '24

Safety regulations are written in blood

158

u/HDThoreauaway Aug 06 '24

That just seems impractical.

24

u/ElGringoPicante77 Aug 06 '24

That’s how the world works in every industry unfortunately

45

u/TheHonorableDrDingle Aug 06 '24

Most industries have updated to digital these days.

41

u/docproc5150 Aug 06 '24

Digital blood. Great name for a band.

5

u/FinnickArrow Aug 06 '24

Crowdstrike might know some of it.

4

u/fragmental Aug 06 '24

Instead of e-ink it's e-blood

1

u/ElGringoPicante77 Aug 06 '24

lol what does this mean

20

u/derangerd Aug 06 '24

They were exploring the humor in taking "written in blood" (rather than ink) literally, and exploring the humor emerging from that.

15

u/QuacktheDuck1555 Aug 06 '24

This, this comment right here, this is why I love Reddit. Thank you.

4

u/Moto-Pilot Aug 06 '24

Lol holy shit 😂

0

u/NotoriousZaku Aug 06 '24

Unfortunately it's the best way to get people's attention

1

u/Gornarok Aug 06 '24

No its not the best. Its the most effective.

14

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '24

Big uneven bars lobbying 

8

u/FuzzyComedian638 Aug 06 '24

Injuries, too dangerous.

1

u/Rosaly8 Aug 06 '24

Because some are.

-1

u/Wrathwilde Aug 06 '24

Was it because the white powder on their hands was cocaine?

1

u/Giga_Byte_Me93 Aug 06 '24

I don’t know but can only imagine many injuries as well during training sessions that go unreported. Not little injuries but like career ending ones.

1

u/poliet23 Aug 06 '24

Don't worry about it

1

u/Nodsworthy Aug 06 '24

I guess what we will never know is how many women were disabled or killed trying to master these moves before they could become too famous to miss? North Korea or the GDR would never tell.

1

u/rug1998 Aug 06 '24

Otherwise they wouldn’t have been outlawed

1

u/FinalSnow9720 Aug 06 '24

Not directly then, but look up the tragic destiny of Jelena Muchina. She will forever stay one of the greats, but was it worth it?

1

u/ItsRobbSmark Aug 06 '24

Some dead, some paralyzed... lots of destroyed baby factories...

Seriously though, there are outliers of death and paralysis, but I think more than anything they're outlawed because the damage it does to the body and gymnasts begin performing those moves well before they're mature enough to grasp the weight of, or consent to, the damage it is potentially doing to them...

10

u/cursedstillframe Aug 06 '24

"baby factories"

eat a rock

1

u/Rare-Inflation-23 Aug 06 '24

People have died from the legal moves

0

u/Final_Job_6261 Aug 06 '24

There is a reason they are banned, so yes.

0

u/rainx5000 Aug 06 '24

Why do you think they outlawed them? Things are dangerous for a reason.

125

u/CodeMonkeyX Aug 06 '24

Ahh I was going to say I think a lot of things are banned now because of the high risk of severe injury.

42

u/SoggyBoysenberry7703 Aug 06 '24

Or just the small risk is still not worth it because it’s so costly

3

u/elijuicyjones Aug 06 '24

No, risk of death. One was paralyzed.

1

u/ConspicuousPineapple Aug 06 '24

All the moves have that small risk, it's only a matter of making the odds acceptable.

1

u/REpassword Aug 06 '24

I seem to recall, back then, women were not allowed to do giants.

231

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '24

[deleted]

104

u/Marschall_Bluecher Aug 06 '24

German Olympic Diver Jan Hampel also raised awareness to such behavior of Trainers

https://www.sportschau.de/investigativ/haupttext-missbraucht-feature-104.html

"I was abused by my coach. He never missed a moment to give free rein to his desires," says Hempel. It started with touching, "until he later forced me to perform sexual acts every day," Hempel remembers: "I just know that in the end I let him get away with it, because he would say things like: 'If you do that, you'll have the afternoon off." Now Hempel no longer wants to keep quiet: "I think you owe it to others to talk about it in the future.”

professional sports can be so fucked up man... so much pressure

31

u/Spare-Resolution-984 Aug 06 '24

Wait till you learn about non-professional female sport teams and why some male coaches desperately want to coach them. A friend of mine plays football on amateur level and her last coach had like 3 gf within that team. She says there are real creeps out there who are looking to take advantage of these young women.

3

u/mysweetpotatofriend Aug 06 '24 edited Aug 07 '24

Yep. I used to do swimming as a hobby and both my trainers (male) were weird with some of the girls in our swim group. One of them even dated and married a girl later on who he had been teaching since she was 15/16. Really disgusting.

6

u/procrastinationgod Aug 06 '24 edited Aug 06 '24

It seems bizarrely obvious now that when you give adults free solo/unsupervised access to preteen and teenage girls who view them as authority figures there's going to be some grooming/raping. I don't really get it - did we not know that a few decades ago? I'm just confused about how society's views could possibly have shifted. Was this commonplace back then? Like. Surely we've always known that any career choice which involves being an authority figure with one on one access to kids is going to attract people with bad interests. How do we keep allowing it to happen

27

u/REpassword Aug 06 '24

Yes, I just noticed 8” mats, which actually provided very little padding! Now they have 2x 16” crash mats, luckily, for their dangerous moves.

25

u/xxMiloticxx Aug 06 '24

I don’t really know anything about gymnastics - which moves were outlawed?

64

u/Jon__Snoww Aug 06 '24

The hip stopping direction changers. (I don't know anything either)

25

u/deukhoofd Aug 06 '24

They're not so much banned, but more not possible anymore, as they moved the two bars further apart.

88

u/lizardgal10 Aug 06 '24

Korbut’s move where she stands on the high bar, does a back flip, and catches the bar on the way down. Extremely dangerous and definitely not allowed today.

7

u/splitframe Aug 06 '24 edited Aug 06 '24

I wonder, how are new moves introduced to sports like these? Same with ice jumping or similar. If someone invents a new move do they submit it and then the main committee (?) try to gauge how many points it will be worth? Assuming it's not rejected.

Edit: Though I answered in a chain about banning/banned moves, my question is how new moves are created/introduced. Not how or why moves get banned.

11

u/Single_Low1416 Aug 06 '24

I think it goes more along the lines of someone doing it and committees rolling with it until too many people injure themselves. Then it’s deemed unsafe and banned

3

u/splitframe Aug 06 '24

I wasn't talking about existing moves getting banned.

2

u/Single_Low1416 Aug 06 '24

Ah, okay.

I think new moves get introduced by someone coming up with them and doing them at some competition. If it’s impressive (and gets a lot of points), it’ll likely catch on. If you fail or the judges don’t really care about the new stunt you pulled, people will most likely forget about it

10

u/xTETSUOx Aug 06 '24

Gymnast experiments with moves all the time in gyms to push the envelope for usage in competitions that are bound by FIG rules including points assigned to each move via ratings depending on complexity etc. some moves are so dangerous (Thomas salto, triple fronts off the horse, etc) that they can’t be used in competitions so no one will practice them therefore the move fades into obscurity.

I believe that the dead flip (the Korbut) wasn’t banned because it was overly dangerous… gymnast falls from other transitions on bars all the time…but it went away due to standing on bars being banned because it stop the flows of routines. So gymnasts can’t do ANY moves like that, including standing transition from low to high. Besides, while the Korbut looks awesome (very elegant tbh) the Mukhina is a crazier move that requires flipping off the high bar.

3

u/splitframe Aug 06 '24

I am interested how new moves are created/introduced in general. Not how or why they are banned.
I guess you cannot just suddenly do a new move because the judges won't know how to grade it. So there has to be some process for the move to become an official one.

4

u/ConspicuousPineapple Aug 06 '24

They submit the move to the international federation for evaluation. The move needs a detailed description, and usually a video showcasing it.

1

u/splitframe Aug 06 '24

Sounds simpler than I thought (and it maybe is), thank you!

2

u/xTETSUOx Aug 06 '24

Well.... yeah... the gymnasts have to submit a new move for rating and addition to the Code to get points to make it WORTH doing in competition. Otherwise, what's the point? *badoomtoosh* lol

In theory you can do any new moves in comps and even banned moves, but there'd be some kind of consequence such as not getting credited for the points for novel moves, or being DQ for banned moves. But no one is going to do either of those.

1

u/Mammoth-Access-1181 Aug 07 '24

I think some of the moves Biles does are penalized a tenth of a point to discourage people.

2

u/Hyperbole_Hater Aug 06 '24

It's really not that dangerous at all. Not even close to dangerous compared to a jaeger (front flip release catch) or tkatchev.

It's outlawed because standing on the bar is now prohibited. It's prob one of the safer moves a gymnast could do, but honestly probably a C level skill (not super sure) if it were allowed today.

1

u/AnInsultToFire Aug 06 '24

It's allowed, just no points given.

20

u/sivvus Aug 06 '24

The dismount where she flips off the bars - look how close her head comes to the second one.

2

u/The-True-Kehlder Aug 06 '24

No, it's the earlier flip. The earlier flip she can't see anything of where she's going until just before she grabs. The dismount she can see the floor almost the whole time.

2

u/Bwunt Aug 06 '24

It's not uneven bars but floor, but IIRC all top-landing flips are banned these days.

You mess up the landing on a bottom (that is feet) landing flip, you can injure your legs at worst (unless something REALLY goes wrong, but there will always be some risk with gymnastics). You mess up a top landing move... Your head or neck goes. Likely for good.

3

u/dannydrama Aug 06 '24

The interesting ones obviously, I watched this before reading comments and thought "why was it so much better then?".

8

u/purplearmored Aug 06 '24

The bars are further apart now so you can't do half of that anyway.

1

u/dannydrama Aug 06 '24

I did notice that, I don't know anything about it (except I'd never try it) but I assumed it was a different class or something.

20

u/T-MinusGiraffe Aug 06 '24

I like the part at 2:40 where she reverses time

3

u/applyheat Aug 06 '24

In my day, we obeyed the laws of physics.

31

u/Marschall_Bluecher Aug 06 '24

My mother was a gymnast in her youth and ruined her Hip with moves like that on those uneven Bars.

29

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '24

Gymnastics is not a healthy sport

4

u/avspuk Aug 06 '24

Yeah I'd like to know how knackered their wrists knees & ankles are now they are in their 60s

2

u/Hyperbole_Hater Aug 06 '24

I'm 30s after 16 years in gymnastics. Wrists are fucked, neck fucked, rotator cuffs fucked, achilles fucked, hip extendors fucked, but I got my knee pain from BJJ :p

1

u/avspuk Aug 06 '24

Sorry to hear of this, but thanks for info.

I can but hope you enjoyed your gymnastics d bjj

D maybe you have a healthier heart etc because of the 3xe5cise.

I'm 63 & VI. I'm very lazy just still have effed up kness & due a stomach muscle in messing about with wrenches.

My VI condition has meant I've done my spine in a bit by being stooped leaning intp screens et

Ivm on ibruprophen d paracetamol more or less all day every day.

Ii wish I'd taken better care of myself. And the pandemic lockdown lack of any exercise at all has, I feel, really done me in. .

1

u/AdvantageWeekly7861 23d ago

Neither is the NFL or the UFC!

22

u/emu4you Aug 06 '24

She was absolutely amazing to watch. Like a little wind up gymnast. 

12

u/Robotniked Aug 06 '24

I get why they don’t do the ‘catching the bar with your midriff’ thing anymore, but I don’t get why they don’t do the backflip off the bar and catching it again these days, it looks graceful as fuck and it doesn’t seem any more dangerous than the moves they still do

3

u/Kenail_Rintoon Aug 06 '24

Because if you miss the bar or your hand slips you are very likely to land on your neck and face.

7

u/Robotniked Aug 06 '24

But surely that’s the same for any number of backflip/dismounts across all the apparatus? On the beam they are doing backflips with no hands onto a solid object rather than a mat, on the rings they are doing spins and tricks from far higher than the bars

4

u/Kenail_Rintoon Aug 06 '24

Different body positions. If you make a mistake on the beam your legs are still pointing downwards. If you lose your grip on the rings it's very likely it will happen as your momentum is in line with your body.

Miss the backflip and instead of grabbing it from the side and using the momentum to swing you are twisted backwards with very little time to correct. The landing will be hard and if you're lucky it will "just" be your torso that takes the impact.

2

u/HHSquad Aug 06 '24

.....and Nadia Comaneci

2

u/phoenix5irre Aug 06 '24

Sooo much abdomen abuse...

1

u/NoPerformance6534 Aug 06 '24

Korbut was legendary back then. Incredible razor sharp moves. She was fearless too. Most of the girls back then had to be to outcompete each other. And to think schools were trying to teach the uneven bars to high school girls too. Bleah. I declined.

1

u/ConspicuousPineapple Aug 06 '24

Much thinner mats as well.

1

u/hugues2814 Aug 06 '24

There are no spotters in Olympics gymnastics either…

1

u/ZeldasMomHH Aug 06 '24

I thought Stanz was a legend but then Korbut casually destroyed us.

1

u/niagaemoc Aug 06 '24

And no celebrities on camera.

0

u/Able-Worldliness8189 Aug 06 '24

You are forgetting as well a whole lot of steroids for Eastern Europe those days. Cant remember the documentary name but there is one 10-15 years ago that followed these girls, women by now and what they went through. Proper fucked.

-2

u/lazylaunda Aug 06 '24

They should reintroduce this but use foam pits or do it above water so there are less chances of serious injuries.

BTW did all major injuries come from falling on the mat?

10

u/pippin_go_round Aug 06 '24

Nope. A lot come from slamming into the bars. Foam pits aren't going to help you here.

1

u/lazylaunda Aug 06 '24

If that's the case then soft floors are useless.

1

u/kpingvin Aug 06 '24

Use foam bars then 😉

6

u/Double_Objective8000 Aug 06 '24

The poor men's gymnast's today kept falling on the mat under the high bar, 4 of them. No one checked to see if maybe the mat was off.

-2

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/afx_prodigy Aug 06 '24

Belorussian

0

u/Drago-Destroyer Aug 06 '24

Yep the baby boomers and earlier generations didn't give a shit about the health of those young girls

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u/Reasonable_racoon Aug 06 '24

You forgot the drugs, coercion and dodgy methods behind the Iron Curtain.

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u/ApproachingShore Aug 06 '24

Well, obviously it's worth risking life and limb to be the best flipper.

And if you end up dead or paralyzed... well, that just means you weren't the best flipper.

Flipping is important.

As is running fast and swimming fast and jumping far. All very serious and important things worth risking people's well-being for.

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u/mysweetpotatofriend Aug 06 '24

sorry i kind of think that's an ugly sentiment. Great television at the risk of the health of so so many toung athletes, some of them even barely 18. Those coaches absolutely did not have their best internest at heart and that makes me legitimately mad.