This takes me back...my sister and I were involved in gymnastics as kids and this was basically "our" Olympics at that age. We taped this off the TV and watched it 500 times...I remember a lot of the exact routines and even comments
silivas opening with a double twisting double tuck is amazing! People still win medals at big comps and open with this pass. Also let’s talk about her technique in the air😍
@@iliitchwieopw they did? Is it on video? I’d like to see their efforts in completing that tumble- for comparison to see who had the best form. Still crazy to think they could do that on so much less cushioning on the floor.
@@beautitudes It did until 1989... What difference does that make anyway? Don't get me wrong, I think the USA girls deserved the bronze, but the fact the east Germans were from a country that no longer exists should not be a factor here.
@QPHashSS77 Kersten was the most overscored East German. She was treated like a star when she was really past her prime and peaked in 85. Thuemler was better than her and got lower scores. Thuemler's scores were about right but Kersten's should have been brought down to the same or lower than Thuemler across the board, and of course fell on beam.. Worst was Kersten's vaulting which sucked badly and regularly got 9.90+. With their depleted team due to injury and only 5 gymnasts, and now counting some falls, Kersten's scores dropped drop them to 5th, even with the U.S bogus political deduction.
I've often wondered what Aurelia Dobre may have been capable of at this meet had she not been injured. That's one nasty looking scar. Credit to her for competing injured and I'm sure she was in a lot of discomfort. At least she got to be part of the team competition and win a silver.
@saragrant9749 She injured her knee prior to the games... she hadnt been able to train to the level she needed to due to the recovery, so she wasnt anywhere near her best.
@@mikeg8375 oh wow, ouch!! I’ve known a few people who did that and it’s such a painful healing process. My respect to her for doing all she was able to do in spite, but you’re right- what could have been.
This was the most exciting Olympics for me! Just gorgeous artistry and execution that is long gone from a sport that used to be so exciting and elegant! Silivas and Elena were just fantastic!
Yelena Shushunova,Por siempre Grandiosa ✨👌 RIP🙏🏻😔 Gracias!!! por tu Gran y Hermoso legado deportivo que nos haz dejado a la Humanidad.Es un deleite y mirarte admirarte!!! ✨👌🌹👏👏👏❤️👏👏👏🌹
It is ironic Kersten did not get a 10 for her optional bars here which was way better than her bar routine in the event finals. It also cost her the gold in the end, since she got a gift 10 in the event finals with a hop on the landing.
1988 Seoul Olympics really witnessed the pique of the Soviet and other Eastern European nations (such Romania, GDR, Bulgaria, Hungary and so on) sports.
@@stanm1977 I’m referring to the SOVIETS in this case. Since you asked however, there’s absolutely no question that Romania got plenty of gifts in the first several years after the Soviet Union was gone. Don’t think so? Look at some of the medals earned between 1996 and 2000 that did not in any way belong to a Romanian athlete. Esther Moya of Spain is a prime example- she should have gotten bronze on floor in Sydney, not Simona Amanar… WHO STEPPED OUT OF BOUNDS!!
Was there a longer broadcast? I feel like this was a just recap of some routines. The commentators silly obsession with pointing out the ‘three 15 year olds” when Kelly Garrison was one of the top three highest scoring on the team. Even as an ancient 21 year old
The commentators saying it looked like a Romanian doctor used a butter knife on a gymnasts incision was very inappropriate and I’m surprised he said that.
I've always wondered about compulsories. Did they get the routines 8n advance, before the olympics? Did they get them the day before, a month before, when they first arrived? I was too little to remember anything, but I've always been curious.
@@laob4901 I clearly stated in my comment that it was an Anerican broadcast...why do you feel the need to be so nasty and disrepectful? Your comment says a lot about you!
I prefer today because they are not forced to fit into a specific body image mold, and are instead allowed to be themselves. These poor girls in many cases were horribly abused without the ability of today to STOP IT and get undeserved coaches booted out.
i really under appreciated yelena sushonova in my youth,, i found her old and boring in my teenage mind ... but looking now at her floor routine - just amazing, her expression even beats that of svetlana bouganskia ..
Anyone else creeped out at 0:27 when Dick Enberg called them “an attractive group of young women?” Edit: This might become a trend... “great eyes” 7:05 🤢
what i want to know is, the gymnasts in these older videos, if they look at the changes in the sport - like here, the bars were so much closer - i wonder if they wish they'd been competing in todays times instead ...? if they wonder just how much more possibilities there would have been had todays equipment been in their era?
I doubt they care so much about the apparatuses, but I'm sure they probably wish they'd had the coaching of today. Coaches back then were often very abusive, mentally and emotionally, and they also pushed the girls' bodies too far, sometimes even resulting in paralysis or other permanent injury (Elena Mukhina was the saddest example of this.) Girls were weighed regularly and their meals were controlled, which led to many developing eating disorders. Not only have coaches as a whole gotten less abusive, but they've also learned many many better techniques for teaching the same skills but in a way that doesn't hurt the gymnasts bodies as much. This is why it's becoming fairly commonplace now to see gymnasts competing into their twenties, whereas back then their bodies usually couldn't take it for more than one Olympic cycle or two Olympics at most (Chusovitina was a unicorn.) The girls were usually forced to quit by the time they were 18 or 20. So if they have any regrets about competing then versus now, I'm sure the apparatus is not at the top of their list.
@@leykimayri You seem to have difficulty understanding the concept of "less". I'll try to explain, but it's really on you to try to learn what it means. One would think if you're able to write that you should already have a grasp on it, but apparently it's something you still struggle with. "Less" does not mean "no" or "none". Less is somewhere in between the former amount and "none," but in no circumstances does it mean "none." If you have 50 bananas and you eat one, you have "less" (or fewer, technically) than you had before, but you still have a lot of bananas. Does that make sense to you? If it doesn't, I'm sure there are some Sesame Street videos out there that explain it more.
@@AdeleiTeillana Yes because it is PROVEN that all coaches back then were abusive while now they are less abusive, huh….because you say so? Like you know very well what’s happening right now in Russia? Shushunova died 5 years ago and all we heard from Russia was that “she died from pneumonia”, because Russians were hiding very well alcoholic problems that Shushunova had had for years and who knows what else and we were all just amazed and so surprised about her sudden death when it was a common secret in Russia that things weren’t going well in her life…but you seem to know very well what is happening in Russian gymnastics nowadays compared to the ‘80s, right? Or you seem to know very well what happens in other countries like China, for instance, and you have proof that today’s coaches are LESS abusive than back then, based on what? On your STUΡΙDITY? Especially considering the fact that in countries like the US there has been such a major ABUSE and RAPE scandal that gymnasts who still perform today have lived and survived through it (ex Biles). So take your stupidity and stick it up in your big αss and stfυ. If such and abuse and such a scandal could have been happening FOR DECADES in the r US where there is freedom of the Press and it’s not any autocratic regime but it’s a democracy where people have rights, imagine what is happening right now in countries where people don’t have the freedoms and liberties and rights that people in western countries have. So next time you make stυρid claims make sure to USE your brain first to think, especially when those “claims” are only based on your stυpidity and on NO FACTS.
Yet it is the same in reverse today. Some routines performed by a U.S girl sometimes (I am talking about Biles on vault or floor type thing of course) would never get some of the scores they get if they were from anywhere else. It is reputation, has been part of the sport then and still is now. Or Kim never wins the 91 world AA title in 91 if it is held in any country but the U.S but I am taking a wild guess you never complained about that either.
@@mikeg4576 Yes East Germany had a thrash team this year. They only had Kersten and Tuemmler and Tuemmler was way weaker than the 87 worlds and Kersten was inconsistent and past her prime. Not only the U.S but Bulgaria should have beaten them. Bulgaria actually had a possible case for the bronze this year too.
yo I just came came from soviet memes lol I wasn't taking serious at starting but when they do their thing I fell in love with their moves they be like women version of unbitten spiderman they also gained my respect for their hardwork I dont even know how they train how many hours they train in a day but u need crayz muscle memory to do this moves I guess and muscle memory comes with lots of train
It's so annoying listening to Dick blathering on about the 0.5 technical deduction. That's not why they lost the bronze, Dick, they lost because of the falls which screwed up the momentum of scoring and the fact that virtually no one stuck their landings. That adds up to a lot more than 0.5 points.
Idk. I see your point, but you cant deny that the .5 deduction mathmatically cost them bronze. I think the real problem was the way the rule was interpreted, it was pretty obviously a political thing. If it were really about the safety of the athlete, they would have given a warning. It was a cheap shot.
The thing that cost them bronze was POLITICS. The East Germans received grossly inflated scores on beam- something a lot of people have remarked about. It’s a reflection of the eastern bloc fashion of scoring that was popular then.
