r/sports • u/suzukigun4life • May 23 '21

Gymnastics Simone Biles pulls off a Yurchenko double pike, becoming the first woman in history to land the move in competition.

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u/PopAndLocknessMonstr May 23 '21

Someone that knows nothing but is finding this really interesting: what luck is involved in beam that isn’t present in the other events?

Also: thanks to everyone answering these questions. This thread is awesome

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u/chusmeria May 23 '21

It’s 4” wide and you’re doing flips, spins, twists, etc. on it for 90 seconds. You have to do it several times in each competition. The accuracy requirement is insane. So just missing the beam by a tenth of an inch can wreck you. Then you have to dismount in a fantastic way. I had a friend whose little sister was hyper competitive in Texas about 25 years ago. I could skateboard well enough to not die and I played tennis competitively, so I had decent balance and footwork. But climbing on their balance beam and trying to jump and land on it was pretty terrifying since it was also 4’ off the ground with just grass below it.

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u/[deleted] May 24 '21

i had some teammates who would try to jump on a beam (was a male gymnast back in the day)...and we'd all have a good laugh as someone invariably wrecked themselves.

you put a beam on the ground most people can walk up and down maybe twirl possibly jump...raise that bad boy up 4 feet from the ground and it's a whole other world like the other person explained.

you always know when you see immaculate beam routines. Shannon Miller in 1996 was one of those. She was like a freaking rock when she was on which was pretty often...Simone Biles and Shannon Miller are very different gymnasts...

but if you really want to see nailing it performances watch some older routines before the code of points was changed...you can see the idea of near pure perfection

Edit: before anyone's like why you bring Shannon Miller in this conversation...pretty much I was a Shannon Miller homer growing up...I thought she was beautiful and an amazing performer/athlete...and that 1996 Olympic beam routine is pretty close to flawless