Posnanski: Simone Biles and the evolution of the perfect 10 (2136 hits)

It's been ten years the iconic perfect 10 morphed into gymnastics' open-ended scoring system


If you are a casual gymnastics fan – a once-every-four-year watcher – you have probably lamented the loss of the perfect 10 in the sport. I certainly have. The perfect 10 was what introduced me to gymnastics, what gave the sport its Olympic power. Imagine – the sport seemed to be saying – being PERFECT. That’s a pretty fascinating idea.

Well, don’t weep for the perfect 10. Its destruction created this glorious and implausible athlete called Simone Biles.

Let’s talk about the perfect 10 for a moment. I was just 9 years old when Romania’s Nadia Comaneci scored the first 10 in Olympic gymnastics history, but I remember it. If you are old enough, you remember it too. It was 1976, Montreal. This 14-year-old slip of a girl with ribbons in her hair and the poise of a queen did the same routine on the uneven bar that every other gymnast did – it was the compulsory portion of the competition. But she did her routine with more grace and elegance than anyone else.

The ancient digital scoreboard did not have the bandwidth to display a 10, so instead it showed a 1.00. At first, Comaneci and her coach Bela Karolyi were confused and wondered if she had fouled somehow. Then, as everyone became aware of the perfect score, there was an overwhelming roar and the sport was fundamentally changed. At that very instant, little girls all over the world had a new dream, a bigger dream than before: To go to the Olympics and be perfect like Nadia.

One of those little girls, Mary Lou Retton, would become the first American to win an all-around gymnastics gold medal. And she would inspire a whole bunch more.


Source: http://www.nbcolympics.com/ Posted By: How May I Help You NC
Monday, August 8th 2016 at 3:36PM
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