Modern Gymnast - November/December 1968

rings and were very weak tumblers in FX. 1 managed to watch Ecuad or a lillI e on th e sid e horse and on the parallel bars and th e routines were just over their head s.

Their scores on th e SH were: 5.50, 4.00 and 3.50 and on the parallel bars it was 7.7, 5.5 and 5.7 and in order to score below 6.0 in Olympic co mpetition you almost have to fail to show up for th e competition. Th e East Germans aga in performed excellen t routines on the parallel bars toppin g off a good performan ce on the co mpul sory ex路 ercises. It took 12 teams almost exactly four hours to fini sh their competition, a very reasonable achievement.

General: All sessions were prompt in startin g as the general feelin g of the spectators was that th ey still had n ot recovered from the fact that the opening ceremonies had started on time and that to have everything start on time was just asking too much. In the evening session West Germany , Yugoslavia, Korea (one fine competitor ), Britain, Finland and Sweden were in the fir st group. West Germany looked good except on the side horse. Yugoslavia was overscored in floor exercise ( the only event I watch ed them closely) and had trouble on the side horse but still received 9.65, 8.95, 8.85, 8.6 and 8.35 .. Th e Korean Choung-Tai Kim could have helped almost any team there as he turned in an impressive performance. Great Britain entered only two men which must have been a difficult pill for them to swallow. Finland missed on the side horse, except for Nissenen and Laiho two of the best in the world. I did not ge t to see much of the Swedish team so cannot commen t there.

Gene ral: Th e judges were seated in a very smart manner with th eir table top at about platform level so that they essentially had a worms-eye view of the competition. An entirely satisfactory arrangement.

It just occurred to me to ask each of you how you would like to sit and judge 234 stoop vaults !!!! After watching a contest like thi s it occurs to me to ask also why it would not be bett er, even on the compulsory, to require two different va ults and allow only one try at each.

In the second group the USSR and Jap an worked side by side and everyon e else was almo st ignored. The J apanese performed the compulsories with perfection, flair, and virtousity, if I may borrow a tenn. On the still rin gs the Japanese made the event the second best event of the meet, nex t to the horizontal bar which is always best. The sin gle most outstanding aspect of this event was the manner in which the Japanese executed th eir straight body inlocates, with their shoulders as high as th e rings in much the same mann er as most gymnasts are now doing their dislocates. The scores for the first two , however , were felt to be a bit hi gh as they did have difficulties, the first man up, in spit e of swinging the rings excessively, received 9.55, the second man was on the straps too much on his press and missed his dismount for 9.45. Nex t man up for Japan had one shoulder too high on his cross, had to muscle his back up rise, which no other Japanese had to do, and had too much swing and wa s posisbly high at 9.65 although n ot necessarily. The next performer had slight difficulty on the press but little other diffi culty fo r 9.7 and the next to last perform er suffered only with a flat dislocate scoring 9.75 . The last perform er did not look especially great after what had gone before him but still deserved his 9.65.

On the vaulting all scores were low and from my vantage point it was n ot easy to determine just exactly why. On th e parallel bars the Japanese did another grea t j ob 14