After 7 quarterfinal races and 3 semifinal races for the 200 meter title, three Jamaican men finished first, second, and third at the London Olympics in 2012. Warren Weir took Bronze, Yohan Blake took Silver, and Usain Bolt won another Gold medal.
At the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, the women’s 100 meter saw the same thing — three competitors from Jamaica sharing the glory from one country. Shericka Jackson with Bronze, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce with Silver, and Elaine Thompson-Herah with Gold.
These were the fastest people that year. Their times qualified them to compete in the final where they ultimately displayed their dominance in a talented field, capturing all of the medals. Jamaica has had a really good sprinting program for a couple of decades and other countries are always looking for a way to edge them out. One way to prevent a sweep is to put a cap on the number of competitors who can progress to the finals from any one country. Since Jamaica always poses a threat to go 1 – 2 – 3, capping them at two runners would ensure there would be at least one runner from another country to share in the Olympic glory. That’s what sports is about after all — making sure everyone has their time to shine. Maybe someone else was more deserving of your Bronze medal, but you found yourself in medal contention because that country already had enough representation. So your Bronze medal won’t mean you’re actually one of three fastest people that year, but it will mean you were one of the three fastest other than the country with a better sprinting program.
If that sounds weird to you, if you think the fastest people should be the ones to compete, then please write a letter to the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG), because we keep having to bring this up every Olympiad when one of the best is shut out of the event simply because the other bests were from the same country.
We can focus on Simone Biles after she completes her Paris Olympics journey in Event Finals, because everybody will be excitedly recapping all of the records she’s breaking, but I just want to give a shout out to the fourth-best gymnast in the world right now, Jordan Chiles, who was not able to complete for the All Around because the FIG only allows two per country to proceed past the qualifying round.
At the Tokyo Olympics, Jordan competed in all four events during the qualifier, helping the USA secure their spot in the team final. However, she had a lot of bobbles and mistakes, failing to qualify for the All Around or any Event Finals. Because of those mistakes, Team USA scheduled her to compete only on Vault and Floor during the Team Final.
Fast forward to the day of the competition when Simone Biles had to pull out at the last minute. Enter: Jordan Chiles to save the day. Without having warmed up on Bars or Beam, Jordan was thrown in to cover Simone, where she hit both of those routines, helping the team secure a Silver medal.
That is the kind of teammate you want in a clutch, someone to step in when the pressure is on, someone who does their job when the time calls.
Between Tokyo and Paris, Jordan switched up some of her training methods and looked to Simone as a big sister mentor. Jordan upgraded her gymnastics, worked on her consistency, and decided to try for Paris. The conversation was starting to center around four gymnasts to make the team: Shilese Jones, Skye Blakely, Simone Biles, and Suni Lee. The fifth spot was a wild card that could go to any number of ladies who had been putting up good numbers during the season: Kayla DiCiello, Leanne Wong, and some chatter about Jordan Chiles, but she was a bit of a dark horse. At the Olympic Trials, Shilese, Skye, and Kayla all faced injuries, and suddenly the skies opened for Jordan Chiles to make her second Olympic Team.
So here we are in Paris where Jordan, the official cheerleader and Master of Good Vibes for Team USA, did what she needed to do during qualifiers and hit every routine, redeeming herself from Tokyo. She finished number four, the fourth-best gymnast in the world behind Simone Biles, Rebeca Andrade, and Suni Lee, but she had to watch the All-Around today from the stands, cheering her teammates on instead of competing alongside them.
Before the 1976 Olympics, this was not the case. The IOC raised concerns in 1973 that the individual finals were too often dominated by one country.
In 1973, one of the IOC’s concerns was the number of gymnasts per country in the all-around and event finals. The FIG’s solution allowed only three gymnasts per country into the all-around finals and two gymnasts per country into the apparatus finals.
Keep in mind that the apparatus finals, in particular, were heavily dominated by the top teams. For example, at the 1972 Olympics, there were four Soviet gymnasts in the women’s vault finals, four Japanese gymnasts in the men’s floor finals, and five Japanese gymnasts in the men’s high bar finals. (There were only six gymnasts per final.)
(cont. gymnastics-history.com)
And that was the beginning of the issue we see today. Only two competitors from any one country could proceed to an event final and only three for the all around. In 2000, Romania went Gold, Silver, and Bronze in the Women’s All-Around, so they changed the rule again to limit the All-Around to two competitors per country as well. This rule has kept some great competitors out of the running for an All-Around medal over the years.
At every Olympics since then, the United States has had at least one gymnast finish in the top 24 in all-around qualifying and not make the final because of the two-per-country rule. In 2016, Raisman and Douglas both missed the balance beam final despite having the seventh- and eighth-best scores in qualifying because Simone Biles and Laurie Hernandez had finished ahead of them.
And it’s not just the Americans! Russia had three of the top six in all-around qualifying in Tokyo. China could have had three in the uneven bars final in 2012.
(cont. USA Today)
Jordan Chiles made it to Paris, finished fourth in qualifiers (less than one tenth of a point behind Suni Lee), and posted some great scores in team competition to help the US secure the win. We didn’t see her competing with Simone and Suni today, but one of her goals was to make an Event Final, so we will see Jordan compete for a medal on Floor Exercise Monday night with this Beyonce-themed crowd pleaser.
Leave a Reply