The Rhythmic Gymnastics Technical Committee has started laying out targets and goals for the next Olympic cycle after 2020 at the end of January. They are focusing on making the sport more appealing and easier to follow for the audience and preventing fatigue among gymnasts, by reducing the number of competition days at the World Championships, according to the Federation Internationale de Gymnastique.
Changes will be made on the Code of Points and we wonder what this new cycle it’s going to bring us. The 2017- 2020 Code of Point it’s undoubtably the most advanced code made, especially regarding artistry, something that we have missed so much in previous cycles (We’ll talk about what artistry is and the dilema about it it in the future, we've lots to say about it). Here in Her Releve we have a few ideas we hope the committee considers for this new phase.
Music
Judges according to the current code can penalize two things when it comes to music: Lack of Character and lack of harmony with the music.
The code is quite specific and precise about character. However, they are quite subjective. Does everyone have the same impression about music? No. It’s pretty easy for judges to give away points to their favourite athletes in such a subjective area.
This broad spectrum of perceptions is what sometimes allows routines like Dina Averina’s in the Moscow Grand Prix 2019, have such high scores even if the music doesn’t make that much sense in the choreography.
Another thing about music is how harmony is deducted. A delay with the music is penalised the same way for 6 seconds and for barely a beat. This is not really fair, many times very big disharmonies are only deducted.
Dynamics
The old rule of alternating fast and slow movements makes the code confusing. Let me break it down for you….
The code want gymnasts to alternate fast and slow movements. The code wants the gymnasts to be in harmony with the music. So it’s basically the same thing. No point on specifying.
Besides pointless, it also makes gymnasts do weird stuff. Fast paced sequences with a slow music per se, can create an interesting contrast, in this case it can help create beautiful routines. On the other hand, gymnasts just change the pace of their routines without making any sense at all because of this rule too.
Connections
Dear technical committee,
Can we actually start penalizing the lack of connections between different elements? We are tired of seeing gymnasts jump from one element to another with no cohesion like robots with no deduction at all, okay?
🥰🥰😍