A random girl's random gymnastics ramblings.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

The Amanar: a Breakdown

The Amanar.  The Scamanar.  The Nabievanar.  The Maroney.  So many names, one single vault.

The vault du jour is of course, the one and only Amanar.  Without it, you're screwed.  Good thing everyone on the planet is trying one!  But who does it best?  Let's discuss.

Ha, just kidding.  Obviously Maroney does it best.

as always, click to enlarge, blah blah blah

Height, form, perfection, glory.  But who, if anyone, comes close to Maroney on vault?

Now, as of this morning, these were all currently competing gymnasts.  

*sad kaboom for Cheng Fei*


Let us reminisce about what once was.  Sigh.  They just don't make them like that anymore.  

Let's focus on Amanars that we know exist.  Our first example, world champion Jordyn Wieber.  


People give this vault a hard time, and I just don't understand why.  In one million competitions, I've seen her land wrong twice: once when she was 13, and then once last weekend.  Granted, those landings were terrifying.  Still, I don't think that puts her on the endangered Amanar list.  She doesn't get the pop off of the table that Maroney does.  That will never happen, so get over it.  I have yet to see an Amanar with tighter form.  

Next is the divine Lady Douglas.  


This was not her best outing, but it was the only time they've shown her vault from this angle, so use your imagination.  

Dougie has that special brand of Chow vaulting.  It's not my favorite.  As shown, she twists so early, which combined with her wonky round off technique adds up to one iffy vault.  THAT SAID, she is the Lady, so her vaulting automatically appears to be more acceptable to me.  Her legs stay straight, for the most part.  I like that.  I do think though that as she grows, she will need to find ways to get this vault around other than spinning really fast. 


Oh Kyla.  This vault is... interesting.  I have yet to see a non-terrifying version of it.  Fun fact: you don't get bonus points for dismounting the landing mat.  Someone should let Howie know.  Positives: she gets a good bump off of the table, and doesn't resort to tucking her body to make it around (more on that later.)  A little crossing of the legs, yet it's not egregious. 

And then we have Aly.  


It's a tucked vault, she doesn't make it all the way around, and yet she still seems to score well.  This is where the judges fail us.  Like with her Russian counterparts, the judges fail to score these deathtraps accordingly.  Aly is lucky that she's built like an ox, which is helping her stave off injury, for the time being.  But it won't last forever.  I feel the same way watching Aly that I did with Mustafina.  It is an injury waiting to happen, and instead of deducting accordingly, the judges are rewarding this risky behavior.  

And did I mention that the vault is seemingly tucked throughout?  

This is in direct comparison to former world champion, Aliya Mustafina, who famously blew out her knee doing this exact vault.  


They are almost, frame-for-frame, the same vault.  Aliya gets a little more height, which misleads people into thinking that the vault is acceptable and safe.  It is neither.  Had she ever been judged accordingly, I would see this vault for what it was, serviceable, but an injury waiting to happen.  But for whatever reason, the judges seem hell bent on scoring vaults like this one, and Aly's, as if they were Maroney-esque.  They are not.  The judges fail the gymnasts, and the sport, when they allow dangerous vaults like these to score well.  

Of course, one cannot talk about dangerous knee busting atrocities without mentioning the legendary Tatiana Nabieva.  


It's a conundrum, because I was raised in a world where Soviets, and then of course Russians, did every skill beautifully.  They were NOT chuckers, no sir.  And now... this.  It's upsetting.  

I was pleasantly surprised when we saw a relatively simple DTY from Viktoria Komova last year as opposed to her Amanar.  All reports had her chucking vault after vault, but failing to land them in training.  So she went with the well-performed DTY, and for that, I give her and her coaches credit.  Now, a year prior, Komova actually did have a lovely Amanar.  


Now, the dynamics were not the best.  I believe this vault was possible due to her size and speed.  She has since suffered a growth spurt (Suffered is the wrong word.  I wish I grew the way she did.)  It has yet to be seen whether or not her Amanar will resurface.  Russian artistry trolls would have you believe that as many as five Russians have trained and mastered the skill, and will be scoring 16.4 on all of them come London.  We have yet to see one.  One of two things will happen in London: We will see three beautiful and high scoring DTYS, or we'll see some horrifying chucked Amanars.  Of the potential Russian vaulters, Komova is the only one I would care to see perform the upgraded vault, if it is safe.  Not at the cost of her knees, however.  

So, here's to the vaulters.  Don't have an Amanar?  Sucks to be you.  Good luck surviving in gymnastics.  Unless you are Alicia Sacramone or Oksana Chusovitina, in which case you can do whatever you want. 

35 comments:

  1. Aly is so powerful, I don't understand why she can't get it around, sigh. Anyways random question. Had Carly been in the quad, do you think she would have been able to get an amanar around (regardless of having WOGA coaching on vault), or did she really just not have the power?

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    1. Interesting question. Carly had a bad back and an elbow injury so that made it harder for her to vault. She had trouble getting a double around.

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  2. Is there a good camera angle of Monica Rosu's vault from Athens? I'd be curious to see because hers was one of the better Amanars.

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    1. I looked for Rosu vaults, but couldn't find the right angle. There's high quality vids of her EF vault though, and it was wonderful. It would definitely be high on the list if she was still competing.

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  3. Simona Amanar herself said that Rosu was the best Amanar she had ever seen...

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  4. Simona Amanar herself said that Rosu was the best Amanar she had ever seen...

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  5. This is a new vault for Aly. In an interview she said that it was very difficult "such a hardball." I think that, barring injury, her form will improve significantly over the next month and a half before London. She has the power and twisting ability. More reps into the foam pit and she'll figure it out.

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    1. Sorry, it's NOT a new vault for Aly. She has been attempting it in misc competitions for over 2 years now. I think she first tried it at Classics in 2010.

      IMO the reason she's not as powerful as she should be at it is that her head is out on both her round off onto the board and bhs onto the table. This causes massive shoulder angles from which she cannot get a decent block from either place. She does the same thing on floor but can get away with it b/c she has such strong powerful legs. She has strong and powerful arms/shoulders as well but when her shoulder angles suck so badly, there's no ability to block.

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  6. Speaking of high value skills with scary landings, I would love to get your take on the Patterson beam dismount. Carly rocked it in 2004 and the two I've seen try it on the U.S. team are just waiting for injury. Bross...I don't even need to explain why on that one. Raisman...she gets it around, but it looks like it's a rough go for her. So wish people would stop doing high-level skills if they are just going to chuck them and/or if they are unable to CONSISTENTLY land them well. That is all.

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    1. Raisman is GOOD at the Patterson dismount. She almost always lands it with control and a great body position.

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    2. I am probably being unfair to Raisman with my assessment having only seen her do the dismount infrequently. I just miss the days when vaults were landed rock solid and beam dismounts were as well. There are so many high level skills now that it sometimes seems like gymnasts will throw whatever because the deductions are worth it so long as they can sort of get the skill around. Depresses me.

      Thanks for letting me know about Raisman's good Patterson!

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  7. There should be a special deduction for scariness on landing I think. In all seriousness, call it a "serious lack of control or technique- skill performed dangerously -0.5" deduction or something. The judges should be able to and be encouraged to penalise gymnasts who endanger themselves to the point where it is not worth them throwing the skill. I also think the Amanar should be down graded to a 6.2D so that beautiful DTYs score higher than scary/ ugly Amanars.
    I call Nabieva's (sometimes Musty's & Raisman's) flying spaghetti monsters. They just look like flying muck in the air.

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  8. Aly Raisman has done it much better than that. At American Cup for instance, not tucked. You picked a picture of one of her worst ones ever. Gabby has done it much worse than the picture you picked of her.

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    1. Gabby has done the Amanar in compition four times. One of those times her hand sliped, one (the one that is shown) was ok but the landing and the other two were great.

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  9. Kyla usually can't control her landing. But she gets big height & so much distance!! Her best ever one was at 2011 Visas.

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  10. I think Aly would do better with a Rudi like Alicia a different style of vault may help her to get of the table better to get the vault around

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  11. Jordyn is super consistent on her Amanar. She always had good leg form, that has gotten even better! She lands two locked leg vaults, out of the ton she has competeted. While really scary. One was when she was 13 in her first major meet. Stop blowing it out of proportion people. I don't know why people have a problem with it. Someone on YouTube used to try to convince me, Aliya Mustafina had a better Amanar & TWISTING form than Jordyn! LOLOLOL..... She thought Jordyn alway
    landed out of control. With a big step to the side. Which is funny because she normally lands dead center with a small step. She also use to say, the Russians in general had much better Amanars. Because they got more height of the table. I guess she missed the horrid form & short tucked landings. Komova was the only one who had a nice one. I guess that argument is dead now with Mckayla, Jordyn, Elizabeth, & Simone.

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  12. "Russian artistry trolls would have you believe that as many as five Russians have trained and mastered the skill, and will be scoring 16.4 on all of them come London."

    Lol, it's hard to keep remembering you always exaggerate everything but doesn't matter it sells XD

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  13. What do you mean with "Unless you are Alicia Sacramone or Oksana Chusovitina, in which case you can do whatever you want"? Sorry I don't get your point :-)

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    1. I think she was pointing to the fact that they are both strong vaulters that frequently place on vault in world cups, worlds, etc, but neither do an amanar.

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    2. Thanks! btw, Chuso is going for the AA at German Nationals this weekend!

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  14. I totally agree with you as far as the judges' responsibility is involved. I like the Amanar, it's a great vault, but I miss the variety and creativity...

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  15. As someone who follows both MAG and WAG, womans vaulting is pretty boring. Whilst the men do a huge range of different vaults, WAG seems to be almost entirely restricted to either Yurchencko 2 or 2.5. WAG EF vts at least forces them to do something different, but then they always seem to perform a significantlty easier vault for their second one whilst the mens second vault is generally of a similar or the same start value.

    Interesting that the Yurchenko was invented by a female and the females also started doing the 2.5 at the same time as the men. But since then, mens vaulting has progressed onto far harder vaults [and more variety] with 7+ dv vaults the norm whilst WAG hasn't really changed at all apart from having a handlful more Amanars being performed with slightly better execution.

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    1. Yes but the amanar is so hard (and clearly difficult even for powerful gymnasts to get it around) that it cannot really progress much further without the injury count tripling. Maroney, Price and Biles are most likely very capable of a TTY..anybody else, very doubtful. It's value is so high as it stands that it makes more sense to do a bad one than learn an entirely different vault-family like Tsukuhara etc. Until the amanar is devalued (6.3 next code I think) you won't get much variety. It would be fairly impossible for women to pull out the same vaults as men..the Dragulescu and even the easier ones.

      Great post Spanny!

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    2. +9001

      MAG vault is my favorite event to watch MAG or WAG.

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  16. Semenova's old 1 1/2 looked surprisingly similar to Raisman's 2 1/2. They both do the full twists with a minor bend at the knee then really tuck in for the last half. It never made sense why the judges never seemed to deduct very hard for that.

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  17. Aly's amanar scared the hell out of me. It was great at Scam, sure but every other attempt looks like an injury waiting to happen

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  18. Aly and Aliya have the exact same form, yikes! I never really understood the swooning over Aliya. She's lovely on bars and beam, but her form on vault and floor tumbling is so sloppy. Svetlana Khorkina should give her some tips!

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  19. Marta had Kyle go for the DTY and it (beautifully) scored close to the Amanars. <3 Kyla and her form!

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  20. Can you grab screenshots of Alicia's Rudi. While a lot of gymnasts seem to be opposed to the FHS vaults. In the proposed new code the Rudi is only .1 less than the Amanar. Makes you wonder if we'll see more of those popping up. The Rudi would seem to have less potential of knee catastrophe (or maybe just cause we rarely see it, and those who do it tend to do it well.)

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  21. Better than Maroney: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2P4ciEGFV0

    P.s. I wrote a Wiki article on the Amanar vault. Check it out...

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    1. Pretty sure this article was just focusing on women's gymnastics.

      That is an awesome vault, though. I'm trying to figure out why it is 0.1 higher in difficulty for men than for women...

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    2. While I'm no expert, this is just my MAG fan's observation:

      Men's vaulting tariffs are different from women's partly because it's not like 99% of all men do the same type of vault (like the yurchenko), and there's more body types suited to the 6 different apparatus for men (also part of why there are always more specialists in men's than women's). While the Shewfelt/Amanar is worth 0.1 more (at least until the new code), the Roche/Produnova is worth 0.5 more for the women than the men. Most people think of it as men are larger and bulkier and can generate the power needed for bigger vaults, but might not be as versatile and technically precise for vaults such as yurchenkos (DTY is 6.2 for men vs 5.8 for women, for instance).

      At the same time, tariffs in men's vault are even across the different families, except for the RO-half one vaults which are 0.2 more than their similar FHS family as they also are in women's. They separate extra half twists or tuck vs pike by 0.4 (i.e. rudi/tsuk 2/1/DTY all 6.2 in men's vs 6.3 (6.2 2013?)/6.0/5.8 for the same vaults in women's), this way the different preferences for vaulting in men's (again, because different body types for the men all causes them to choose different vaults) all have an equal chance to score high.

      What happens today though is that since most vault specialists in men are muscular and bulky, most seem to choose the same two double somersault vaults worth 7.0, only a few are better at twisting (such as two of the three medalists from the 2011 worlds on vault), while even fewer are perfectly fine at doing both (Dragulescu, Abylazin, Du W., Zhang Z.). In this case, the "multiple body types" theory I went over earlier is easier noticed across competitors doing 1 vault only.

      So yeah, a little TL;DR but this is just what I think; I haven't seen anything like what I wrote anywhere else, maybe a real expert can shed some light on it...

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  22. "Russian artistry trolls would have you believe that as many as five Russians have trained and mastered the skill, and will be scoring 16.4 on all of them come London."

    Good one. Who are these "Russian artistry trolls" that you speak of? ...You keep right on deflecting, love.

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  23. I saw you wrote something about the vault angles, but you really picked one of Cheng Fei's worst ever amanars, haha, her 2005 and 2008 EF one are actually on par with Maroneys... Her TF Amanar was one of her worst between 05-08.

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