On the 2022 World Championships Rebeca Andrade gained the All-Round by a Margin of Victory (MOV) of 1.500 factors. To place that determine in perspective, it ranks because the fifth highest MOV within the historical past of girls’s gymnastics when counting all competitions from 1950-present. However being “solely” the fifth greatest MOV in historical past considerably undersells what Rebeca Andrade achieved on the 2022 World Championships.
Let’s take a look at the 4 competitions that rank larger than Andrade-2022 in MOV.
The competitors within the #1 spot and the document for the most important MOV in gymnastics historical past was Helena Rakoczy on the 1950 World Championships.
To provide a short overview to the story of Rakoczy-1950, the 1950 World Championships have the excellence of being far and away the worst attended gymnastics competitors on the Group-1 stage. All the highest groups had been both unable to, or selected to not attend. Giving this explicit competitors participation charges that rank beneath the 1984 Olympics by a major margin. However Helena Rakoczy was in attendance. She was a reliable Corridor of Fame gymnast, among the finest on this planet on the time, and this competitors was an entire mismatch between Rakoczy and everybody else.
In consequence, Helena Rakoczy was in a position to completely dominate the competitors. Helena demolished this area to such an extent that Rakoczy-1950 is available in both 1st-place or very near 1st-place in each single metric or rating used to measure dominance in a single competitors. Rakoczy’s 1950 stat line is such an outlier and unattainable to high, that previously I’ve advocated that anytime a Rakoczy-1950 stat line is available in first place, the “true” chief of that metric is whoever completed 2nd.
So, who completed in 2nd place?
It was Simone Biles, who not solely has the 2nd highest MOV, however the Third-highest and 4th-highest as effectively.
This brings us to Rebeca Andrade who sits within the #5 place after these two legends. Rebeca Andrade is the third greatest gymnast to do it. However contemplating that almost all deal with Simone Biles in a category of her personal, and Helena Rakoczy was additionally in a category of her personal in 1950, it will be correct to say that Rebeca Andrade completed the best MOV in gymnastics historical past after outlier examples are purged from the information.
This result’s historic, not simply because it demonstrates how a lot of a crowning achievement Andrade’s 2022 All-Round end result actually was, it’s a watershed second for the game. What Rebeca did was utterly change our historic interpretations of the present open-ended scoring system. An important sentence on this total article is that this:
Margin of Victory (MOV) is closely dependent upon which period a gymnast competed in.
One instance of this comes from the late Nineteen Eighties and early Nineteen Nineties. From 1985-1994 there have been eight competitions held on the World Championships and Olympic stage. Six of them are within the top-7 smallest MOV of all time.
Helena Rakoczy was in a position to dominate the MOV statistics in 1950 as a result of the opposing aggressive area was so weak, however she additionally had one other important benefit. On the 1950 World Championships ladies’s gymnastics used a 100-point scoring system. This was bigger than another scoring system used within the 72 years since. The bigger the scoring system, the extra it inflates the margin of victory. This most definitely was a contributing issue as to why Simone Biles might rank 2nd, Third, and 4th within the MOV rankings, however surpassing Rakoczy-1950 has confirmed to be difficult.
However no explicit rule change is assumed to have had a higher affect on MOV than the 2006 resolution to maneuver gymnastics from a closed scoring system, to an open ended one. In concept, this explicit scoring system meant the highest gymnasts had been not restricted by a rating ceiling and will compile a large lead over their opponents as a contest progressed.
On the 2007 World Championships Shawn Johnson proved this concept true by profitable the All-Round with an MOV of 1.250 factors. The most important such lead since Vera Caslavska’s legendary efficiency on the 1968 Olympics. However the pattern didn’t maintain elsewhere. In 2006, 2008, and 2009 the MOVs had been so small, that even when all three of them had been mixed they might nonetheless be decrease than Johnson’s 2007 MOV.
However then in 2010 Aliya Mustafina recorded a MOV of 1.034 factors and have become solely the second gymnast to compile a MOV of 1.000+ factors within the final 40 years. The pattern of large MOVs appeared to have returned. However within the following 12 months the pendulum swung but once more. On the 2011 World Championships the MOV was the eighth smallest on document.
Ladies’s gymnastics was at an deadlock and the game didn’t know what to anticipate. Was this an period the place blowout wins had been going to grow to be the anticipated norm? Or would intently contested battles proceed to rule the day? However the early returns did appear to trace that whereas historic MOVs of 1.000+ factors had been potential, the vast majority of competitions would have MOV’s at round .250 factors or much less.
However earlier than that pattern had an opportunity to determine itself, Simone Biles got here alongside and she or he would spend years skewing the information together with her historic dominance. Although open-ended scoring has been in place for 17 years, due to Simone Biles we solely have 11 years of outcomes to take a look at if one wished to measure MOV that wasn’t influenced by an outlier. Simone Biles didn’t compete within the All-Round on the 2021 Olympics and 2021 World Championships.
In Simone’s absence the MOV fell to .135 factors (Sunisa Lee) and .292 factors (Angelina Melnikova). It was as if nature had corrected itself and now gymnastics was lastly getting an image of what MOV ought to appear to be in an open ended code with out Simone Biles skewing the outcomes. If the 2021 Olympics and 2021 World Championships had been producing low MOV outcomes, it was as a result of the game was as soon as once more shifting in that route.
When Sunisa Lee gained the All-Round on the 2021 Olympics, her last rating of 57.433 factors would have positioned her twenty first out of 24 complete gymnasts through the 2008 Olympic All-Round Finals. On the 2008 Olympics the gymnast who completed in 2nd-to-last place in All-Round Finals would have positioned fifth on the 2021 Olympics.
Ever since 2008 the Code of Factors has developed to supply decrease All-Round scores, within the course of shrinking the margin of victory. The historic MOVs of 1.000+ factors that Shawn Johnson-2007 and Aliya Mustafina-2010 obtained would most definitely had been significantly smaller had they occurred solely a pair years later.
Of the final 5 All-Round Champions who weren’t named “Simone Biles,” their common MOV was simply .165 factors. If 2021 was the 12 months of Sunisa Lee and Angelina Melnikova, it additionally felt like a ringing endorsement that within the post-Simone period, small MOV outcomes had been right here to remain. It was beginning to really feel like Shawn Johnson, Aliya Mustafina, and Simone Biles had been the outliers. That their fashion of large MOV wins within the All-Round was a quickly dying pattern.
That was till Rebeca Andrade gained the 2022 All-Round by 1.500 factors and completely shattered such notions.
With Rebeca Andrade being the newest gymnast to exceed 1.000+ factors in MOV, extra gymnasts have now executed so within the 17 years from 2006-present than the 55 years from 1950-2005. However probably the most fascinating side shouldn’t be that Andrade surpassed 1.000 factors, however that she surpassed 1.400 factors.
The 1.400 threshold is related to Vera Caslavska and is one thing of a Holy Grail in ladies’s gymnastics. It is likely one of the most spectacular milestones any gymnast has ever achieved. Caslavska is the one gymnast to win a gold medal on all 5 particular person occasions on the Olympics. That may be a document unique solely to her and stays so to today. However Caslavska’s different legendary feat was her 1.400 MOV on the 1968 Olympics, the best such MOV below the 1952-2005 scoring system.
Because the many years handed Caslavska’s 1968 MOV of 1.400 factors solely appeared to develop by way of historic significance. Time and time once more it proved to be a barrier nobody might attain. This barrier was so insurmountable that it took 48 years for an additional gymnast to lastly surpass it. However even then, it took the mixture of a significant rule change (the 2006 implementation of open ended scoring) and a gymnast of probably the most extraordinary expertise (Simone Biles) to lastly surpass it.
When a historic document falls, it’s typically a “passing of the torch” second. However at the same time as Simone Biles broke Caslavska’s mark, it solely appeared to solidify Caslavska’s legacy. That Vera’s mark was so unobtainable, solely the extenuating circumstance of a brand new scoring mannequin mixed with a gymnast of unprecedented dominance might truly make breaking this document potential. Surprisingly sufficient, the dynamic between Biles and Caslavska over the MOV document solely appeared to empower the legacies of each gymnasts.
Vera Caslavska grew to become the legend of the previous who left such a robust legacy, solely Simone Biles was worthy of breaking one in all her crowning achievements. Simone Biles grew to become the legend of the fashionable period who had a profession so historic, she broke a document that gave the impression to be unbreakable. As a result of solely Simone Biles was in a position to break Caslavska’s mark, even after ten different All-Round Champions had been unable to do the identical within the new post-2005 scoring period, it actually regarded that Caslavska’s mark of 1.400 factors would proceed to face the check of time.
That Vera Caslavska’s mark can be so historic, that within the years since Simone Biles and solely Simone Biles might ever break it. The historical past of 1.400 would stay intact and it will stay probably the most ultra-exclusive milestones in ladies’s gymnastics.
Then alongside got here Rebeca Andrade.
There’s a whole lot of historical past concerned to the MOV Rebeca Andrade achieved in 2022. Rebeca Andrade simply joined Simone Biles as solely the second gymnast ever to surpass Caslavska-1968. Rebeca didn’t simply make historical past in Liverpool-2022, she modified historic narratives for the long run. That after the comparatively small MOVs from Jordyn Wieber, Gabby Douglas, Morgan Hurd, Sunisa Lee, and Angelina Melnikova, the pattern of large 1.000+ MOVs was not going to die out upon Biles’ retirement. That the historic threshold of 1.400 factors wouldn’t be unique within the post-2006 period, and being within the dialog for Best Of All Time wasn’t a prerequisite for reaching it.
There are two methods to interpret Andrade-2022.
The primary is the dismissive interpretation. To say that like Rakoczy-1950, this stat line must be taken with a grain of salt. That the dimensions of the MOV was skewed by nation limits (Jordan Chiles), the absence of Rebeca’s largest rival (Sunisa Lee), and the Russian ban taking out three main All-Arounders (Viktoria Listunova, Vladislava Urazova, & Angelina Melnikova). That in the long run, Andrade-2022 will grow to be a meaningless statistic of no historic significance. Even whether it is thought of spectacular no matter context.
However then there may be the optimistic interpretation, that to recall a specific query that has been bothering me ever since Simone Biles gained the All-Round on the 2016 Olympics. When Simone retires, how lengthy will it take earlier than gymnastics will expertise a legend of her caliber ever once more?
When Larissa Latynina retired, gymnastics didn’t have to attend very lengthy. Her heir-apparent was already competing (Caslavska). When Caslavska retired, the following nice legend (Ludmilla Turischeva) was already competing. And when Turischeva retired, as soon as once more the following nice gymnastics legend was already there to take her place (Nadia Comaneci).
It has all the time been a surprise, when Simone Biles’ retires will gymnastics need to spend many years ready to see the likes of her once more in future generations? Or will Biles discovered a brand new dynasty like Latynina had executed the place her success will probably be instantly replicated by a brand new wave of legends? When a gymnast gained the 2022 World Championships by a margin of victory of 1.500 factors, maybe this prophecy is already coming true.
That the inheritor obvious to Simone Biles and the following gymnastics legend is already right here, and her title is Rebeca Andrade.
