.......... I understand WHY the vault table changed, but what I don't understand is:
1)WHY you all allowed girls to perform Yurchenko vaults before the table change when you (as you indicated) understood how dangerous the vault was on that equipment;
2)and most especially, whether the same applies today----that girls (or boys, whatever) will be performing skills that their coaches know are obviously too dangerous for the current equipment before FIG makes changes to the equipment or rules?
3)OR, will we just reach that current-equipment-plateau and stop there for some reason? If yes, then why?
I think you're asking the wrong question, or perhaps the right question the wrong way...........
The process of a new skill emerging has not, to my knowledge, been laid out in a specific sequence that includes a stop at an official "what can go wrong" department for a yea or nay vote. Maybe that's changed since I last cared to notice, so if anyone knows, just jump right in. At the very least I can tell you what was going on in the years leading up to the yurchenko's introduction.
It takes just one athlete who has a special gift, perhaps a very specific ability on a particular apparatus, who's good fortune pairs her with a coach who is knowledge goes beyond the norm in a specific movement type or event. Some coaches seem to "have it" when it comes to, let's say twisting, while other coaches "get it" when it comes to swing motion and rhythm.
So when the gymnast and coach both have the same inherent specific ability, they sometimes work on a skill that has long been imagined, but yet to be done. In that context there's no specific knowledge of the possible hazards associated with the athlete's ability to perform the skill, nor the equipment's suitability to the skill. The two, or should I include the equipment..... so the three components of this pipe dream skill work together very carefully to avoid hazards, and the progress on the skill inches forward until it's ready to be done in competition. Geeez! I can't remember if it had to be reviewed for the purpose of assigning a difficulty value, or assumed a 'D' element until a review/evaluation took place.
So that's the process in a nutshell. The effects the new skill has aren't well suited to a nutshell, so read patiently and try to "get it"..........
So Suzie goes to a big international competition, does her special skill made possible by the combination of her gift and the coach's ability to figure out the skill. The other Suzies and coaches at the meet see her warm up, and successfully compete the skill, and simply shrug their shoulders. Some of the other Suzies, who really can do that darn kip, are thinking
while others are thinking I *want* one of those.
The coaches? Most of them "get" that the process took as long as it did, but figure they can glean the nuances of the skill by watching video of the original Suzie, and can reasonably teach their gymnast to mimic the body shapes and timing sequences to cautiously work on the skill. This very sophisticated see it-believe it-do it process gets repeated a handful of times over the following year, and suddenly it's realized 1 in 20 kids have learned it (sort of), so it must be safe........ at least to work on.
That may work in a perfect world where every coach has the experience and knowledge base of an elite level coach, but they don't. What's worse is they don't even know how limited they are with respect to this level of difficulty, as they've never trained a kid capable of this skill, or those of similar magnitude. All they know, is that they think they got it figured out.
At this stage of the skill's travels through the gymnastics community we begin to hear about kids in age group programs getting hurt. Some of the injuries happen in ways the top coaches had never imagined, as their kids are well trained and consistently repeat the same motion hundreds of times within a very narrow range of deviation. These are the coaches that know what *they* are doing, and they police themselves very well.....with very few exceptions.
At this point it's darn near impossible to stuff the genie back in the bottle. Suzies all over the world are working the new skill, so it's pretty clear the skill can be done, but not with the equipment design used by the first kid and her coach. The FIG has few choices when it gets to this point...... change the equipment, regulate who can teach and perform the skill, or ban the skill all together.
I think they chose to change the table for what it brings to the entire spectrum of vaults. In a way, the vaulting thing just crept up from behind them, tapped them on the shoulder, and announced that the original pommel horse for vaulting simply had to go, and it was the yurchenko that had the sorrowful honor of being "the tap". The "good old days" vault apparatus is a very good example of how skills creep up on us. Dunno's story of seeing the Japanese contingent blowing everyone's mind with simple handspring type vaults is a great example of how a piece of equipment can be very suitable for a very long time, until something changes.
So think this over for a bit, and you'll be able to figure the answers from all that's been written
