Gymnastics

[swanflake]

jadefox said:

What ever happened to Vanessa Atler? She disappeared off the face of the earth!

Do you mean why she didn't make the 2000 Olympic team? Or do you mean what she's been up to in the last few years?

There were tons of rumors out there about Vanessa Atler, and some of them were really horrible, but thankfully I think the worst ones were false.

[lyrasilver]

Anything you know would be great, SwanFlake. I watched some of those Starting Over clips and it seems like she really went through it after retiring. I hope she's doing well now.

[swanflake]

I know I've read all the stories about Atler, but now I'm having the hardest time remembering everything and putting it all together. I know a guy who was good friends with her family, so I can ask him later.

It all started to really go downhill when Atler was at the 1999 French Telecom competition and injured her ankle. She had just placed second behind Svetlana Khorkina in the all-around, but in the event finals on floor she went too far on her Double Layout and landed with her heels out-of-bounds. Apparently the kind of floor mat there didn't have enough support outside the lines, so when she hit she did something bad to the ankle. Better equipment could've prevented it. She had to deal with that injury for the rest of 1999, but by the time US Nationals came around she really did look fantastic--as polished as she ever did. But then she had to miss the World Team Trials and went on to have some disasterous performances at 1999 Worlds because of the ankle injury.

That was all clear to see, but now I'm trying to remember all of the behind-the-scenes stuff that affected her mindset so harshly. One big thing I remember was that her coaches, Beth and Steve Rybacki, were quite insistant on both Atler and Jamie Dantzscher sticking with skills that were extremely inconsistant for each of them. In Atler's case it was the Comaneci salto on bars, and for Dantzscher it was the Flic Flac + Full Twisting Salto and the Triple Twist dismount on beam. Dantzscher switched to SCATS with Don Peters at one point in 1999, but she went back to the Rybackis after the Pan-American Games that year. They kept those problematic skills on beam for the rest of 1999, but in 2000 they agreed to replace the Full and the Triple Twist in her beam routine, and she still managed to have a 10.0 start value that she could compete fairly consistantly.

Atler, on the other hand, never came back to the Rybackis after going to Valeri Liukin at WOGA. In the following years it would become clear that Evgeny Marchenko (Carly Patterson's coach) was the better coach at WOGA, but at this time WOGA was new on the elite scene, so all of the senior level elites were with Liukin. Atler was 4th at US Nationals in 2000 (just behind Dantzscher), but by the time of the Olympic Trials she was just having one blunder after another. I didn't pay much attention to her on "Starting Over", but she probably summed up what was going through her mind at the time. I think she had some disordered eating tendencies too, which I believe she addressed on "Starting Over". I remember at some point in 2000 she went to a nutritionist and "International Gymnast" magazine published her entire new diet on the internet. I remember thinking that was odd, even back then when I was only 14.

I think the Rybackis learned that they had to make some changes in their coaching. For one thing, I don't think they wanted their gymnasts having official websites like Atler did with her online diary. In the next cycle they coached Tabitha Yim and Allyse Ishino--each came very close to making the Olympic team in 2004. Now I don't think they coach elite anymore because Steve accepted some position that has to do with the National Training Camps down at the Karolyi Ranch, so elite coaching would be a conflict of interest for him.

I'll see if my friend can help me fill in the blanks*. I want to check with him first so I won't spread any inaccurate rumors since Lord knows they've been out there for years.

*ETA: I just did and he reminded me when Dantzscher returned to the Rybackis and pointed out that they didn't change her beam routine as immediately as I wrote that they did. I fixed that piece of information.

[swanflake]

YouTube links to my favorite women's floor routines of all-time. Beam and more of bars to come later

None of them are blue to save time. I'll list the music title if I know what it is.

Svetlana Boginskaia, URS/BLR -- 1988 Olympics -- "Carmen" by Bizet and Shchedrin
Svetlana Boginskaia, URS/BLR -- 1989 Worlds all-around -- "Fiesta" by Raffaela Calla
Svetlana Boginskaia, URS/BLR -- 1990 Chunichi Cup all-around
Laetitia Bégué, FRA -- 1996 French Nationals -- "On the Run" & "Alhambra" by Yello
Laetitia Bégué, FRA -- 1995 French International -- "Flight of the Bumble Bee" jazz version
Olga Strazheva, URS/UKR -- 1989 Worlds -- "Rite of Spring" by Stravinsky
Irina Baraksanova, URS -- 1984 Junior Europeans -- "My Sweet and Tender Beast" by Evgeny Doga
Aurelia Dobre, ROM -- 1987 Worlds all-around -- "Music" by John Miles
Yvonne Tousek, CAN -- 1997 Worlds all-around -- "The Underground" by Goran Bregovic
Kathy Johnson, USA -- 1978 Worlds event finals
Natalia Laschenova, URS/LAT -- 1989 Worlds all-around -- "In the Hall of the Mountain King"
Olessia Dudnik, URS/UKR -- 1989 Worlds event finals -- music by George Gershwin
Svetlana Khorkina, RUS -- 1997 Worlds all-around -- "Poeme"
Svetlana Khorkina, RUS -- 1995 World all-around -- "Carmen" by Bizet and Shchedrin
Svetlana Khorkina, RUS -- 2000 Olympics all-around -- "Pistolero"
Svetlana Khorkina, RUS -- 2003 DTB Cup -- "Notre Dame de Paris"
Svetlana Khorkina, RUS -- 2004 Olympics all-around -- "Farewell My Love"

Okay, enough for now. I can add more later if y'all want!

[Deleted]

I can't imagine how much time it took to compile all of these Swanflake but thanks! I can't wait to watch them.

[marywebgirl]

Irina Baraksanova and Kathy Johnson were just stunning! And it's nice to see Khorkina smiling in that last one.

Did they really used to just use pianists instead of recorded music?

[swanflake]

moonglow said:

I can't imagine how much time it took to compile all of these Swanflake but thanks! I can't wait to watch them.

Ahh, it's no bother, moonglow. This has been my life's greatest passion since the 5th grade. And I'm not done yet! ;D Anything I can do to bring more people to fall in love with gymnastics and/or figure skating is no problem at all.

marywebgirl said:

.
Did they really used to just use pianists instead of recorded music?

Yeah, from the 60s until... I want to say 1979... only one instrument was allowed for the floor exercise. Typically, it was the piano. In rhythmic gymnastics recorded music wasn't allowed until 1989, and typically piano was used as well, but there were a fair number of performances with drums and saxophones, etc. up until that point. Live piano music was used for the compulsory exercises up through the 1988 Olympics, though.

[lyrasilver]

Yay! More SwanFlake links! Thank you. I love watching these old routines.

[OnyxRose]

Your missing N. Frolova! I would upload something myself but I just made a mess of it.

[swanflake]

onyxrose said:

Your missing N. Frolova! I would upload something myself but I just made a mess of it.

And Oksana Omeliantchik! Don't worry, I'll get to everybody eventually.