The Perfect Scores before Nadia Comăneci and Nellie Kim

This is not related to perfect scores, but it is related to Comaneci and her not setting the record straight, which I already brought up in relation to her and perfect scores before her. One thing I generally don’t like is false humility. In interviews with her about the competition in 1980, she always says that Davydova was the better gymnast. But I think that regardless of whether Comaneci has false or true humility about this, the fact that she chooses the path of false humility ended up totally skirting the issue of a practically mortally wounded Elena Mukhina and how, if you look at certain details (same first name, both doing a Thomas salto skill on FX), Davydova looks to have been a proxy for Mukhina, and therefore, Davydova’s win should probably be considered at least partially symbolic. So, Mukhina was the “Elephant in the Room” at the 1980 Olympics women’s competition, probably about every bit as much as the boycott, itself.

But one thing I have wondered for a while is – among those who were actually there, who REALLY deserved to win in 1980? Well, the thing is, it is a LOT harder to establish this sort of debate for any AA competition before New Life, because you have to compare 3 times the number of routines vs what you would have to compare under new life. So, for competitions pre-New Life that included a team compulsories, team optionals, and all-around 1988 or before, which was pretty much every Worlds/Olympics that I know of back to 1972, you had to compare 12 for the women and 18 for the men. And that is a ton of work. And, really, it opens up the door. For example, if you had a true dominant champion, they could easily count a fall or maybe even two among 12 routines, if you were a woman, and you were truly the best by a significant margin. Definitely 2 falls, maybe even 3 among the men. So, that adds up a lot of subjectivity in an already-subjective sport.

So, there is no way that I am going to do a 12-12 just to argue 2 gymnasts against each other, much less a 18-18 for the men. Besides, with the Moscow Olympics, the USA and many of its allies boycotted those, so we can rely only on the partial coverage that the Eastern Bloc provided us. It’s been a while since I’ve done a survey on this, but I have done it in the past, and I seem to remember observing that a *number* of routines from the top gymnasts haven’t been released. Really, the video record we have of the 1980 Olympics is quite incomplete, even among the topmost gymnasts, and even for an Olympics during its timeframe.

If you look at the scores of the women’s competition enough, it seems like there was pretty much a Top tier of 6, and the AA reflected that pretty accurately. So, what I decided to do was a head-to-head among the top women’s AA gymnasts. So, I did it. From here on out, I provide no opinions, whatsoever, although I do point out a few observations. This is strictly a mini-deep-dive into a limited, but perhaps meaningful, data set.

Comaneci vs Davydova 6 3 3
Comaneci vs Gnauck 6 2 4
Comaneci vs Eberle 8 1 3
Comaneci vs Shaposhnikova 5 4 3
Comaneci vs Kim 9 3 –

Davydova vs Comaneci 3 6 3
Davydova vs Gnauck 3 4 5
Davydova vs Eberle 6 4 2
Davydova vs Shaposhnikova 5 5 2
Davydova vs Kim 6 2 4

Gnauck vs Davydova 4 3 5
Gnauck vs Comaneci 2 6 4
Gnauck vs Eberle 7 1 4
Gnauck vs Shaposhnikova 5 5 2
Gnauck vs Kim 7 1 4

Eberle vs Comaneci 1 8 3
Eberle vs Davydova 4 6 2
Eberle vs Gnauck 1 7 4
Eberle vs Shaposhnikova 3 7 2
Eberle vs Kim 5 4 3

Shaposhnikova vs Comaneci 4 5 3
Shaposhnikova vs Davydova 5 5 2
Shaposhnikova vs Gnauck 5 5 2
Shaposhnikova vs Eberle 7 3 2
Shaposhnikova vs Kim 8 3 1

Kim vs Davydova 2 6 4
Kim vs Comaneci 3 9 –
Kim vs Gnauck 1 7 4
Kim vs Eberle 4 5 3
Kim vs Shaposhnikova 3 1 8

Observations:

At least among head-to-heads, Comaneci is the ONLY one who comes out ahead of all the other top gymnasts – even Davydova, who beat her. So, it really seems that she was the best, overall, in Moscow. The only exception I would make to this observation is that if you consider that the team scores were halved and added to the AA, that does, yes, give more weight to the AA final, which is perhaps appropriate. But if you were to count the team scores FULLY, actually Maxi Gnauck of Germany posted the highest 12-event total (118.75 vs 118.65 for Davydova, and vs 118.6 for both Comaneci and Shaposhnikova). I think this is interesting also because I only recently discovered that, if you include the “Alternate Olympics” in 1980 and 1984, Gnauck is one of only 4 woman gymnasts EVER to tally a World/Olympic win on every individual apparatus, a distinction she shares with only Caslavska, Latynina, and Milosovici. This is something she ended up accomplishing at the 1984 “Alternate Olympics” in Olomouc, CzechoSlovakia.

Other interesting things I discovered:

Among the top 6, Nadia Comaneci and Nelli Kim are the only two who never tied each other. They each tied numerous other gymnasts numerous other times, total, but never each other. (Although this did happen, eventually, only on the last event – the FX final, where both had 9.95s which, combined with an equal preliminary score (although different compulsories and optionals for each), gave them the tie on the Floor, so they did tie THERE, just not at any point where it was relevant to the AA (including either of the 4-event totals for either compulsories on optionals).

Also, I noticed that there was an interesting relationship between Davydova, Gnauck, and Shaposhnikova, where Davydova went 5-5-2 with both of them, if you look at her head-to-head vs the top 5 others. This sort of thing also comes up with Gnauck’s head-to-head sets where she went 7-1-4 with both Eberle and Kim. So, with that sort of “meta tie”, all 5 except for Comaneci are inter-related.

Research suggests that Nadia Comaneci is honest and accurate when she says that Elena Davydova was the better gymnast in Moscow.

The United States Olympic Committee, United States Olympic book 1980, p.140-141, (On Davydova), ”There was never a doubt about her all-around abilities. Simply stated, however, it was expected that judges, by their very nature, might favour the better known and more established international stars…But the order of finish Davydova, Gnauck and Comaneci (tie), Shaposhnikova and Kim certainly accurately reflects the relative abilities of the worlds top gymnasts”.

IG, March 81, p.6, Elisa Estape, a gymnastics coach from Spain and Professor of Gymnastics at the University of Leon, who not only got to see the gymnastics live but had all the routines filmed and evaluated wrote “I was in Moscow and, after having analysed my films, I am absolutely convinced that Y.Davydova was the proper winner in the AA final…She was the gymnast who earned everyone’s heart and her dance captivated everyone in Moscow, as Olga Korbut did in Munich. For me she was the proper winner. On the other hand Nadia Comaneci was overscored on beam and vault of the compulsories. On the optionals, on bars, (she missed the bars for a 9.5), on floor she obtained 9.95, like Davydova, for a routine with no originality. N.Comaneci was in Moscow a good gymnast but not the best one” Yelena’s fx deserved, for me, more than a ten (comparing to the 9.95 given to Comaneci, Gnauck and Eberle).

Ursel Baer then secretary of the British Amateur Gymnastics Association (BAGA), was a leading British judge who had officiated at the Rome, Munich and Montreal Olympic Games and at several World Championships. She was the Scientific Technical Collaborater (STC) on beam in 1980, that is, she determined the start value of all the routines performed. In the British Gymnast magazine, September 80 p.26, she says “Davydova richly deserved to be Olympic champion”.

Paul Williams, chairman of the BAGA mens technical committee, was a judge at the mens gymnastics in Moscow. He reviewed the women’s AA final and wrote p.26, British Gymnast, Sept 80, ”Davydova fully deserved her gold medal, in a brilliant display of high quality work”.
 
Jeff Cheales, an Australian mens gymnastics judge, was a judge at the men’s gymnastics in Moscow also and added ”I can remember seeing Davydova competing and being very impressed. She was spectacular. I can also remember seeing Comaneci compete and thinking she looked ordinary. She did not have the look of the gymnast of 4 years earlier.” Cheales judged at 79 World Championships, 80 84 96 Olympics etc.

Tony Duffy and Paul Wade, Winning Women : The Changing Face Of Women in Sport, 1982, p.96, agreed “ She (Nadia) had to bow to Yelena Davydova the overall champion who showed the grace and vivacity that is an essential adjunct to skill”.

Dvora Meyers, “The End Of The Perfect 10”, 2016, p.52, “ Like Mukhina had done before her tragic injury, Davydova upped the athletic ante by bringing skills from the men’s side of the sport. On the uneven bars she performed a release move called a Tkatchev. To do this, the gymnast swings down from the handstand and then, when their body os stretched and parallel to the floor, she releases up and over the bar, regrasping by counter-rotating her hips and reaching through straddled legs. This was much harder and far more technical than Comaneci’s release move, which had been the first same bar release for a woman back in the mid-70’s. Davydova was also credited with having performed the first front tuck and side somersault on the balance beam. And on floor exercise, she performed a rollout tumbling move similar to the one that Mukhina had so grievously injured herself practicising”.

Just before the Olympics the Romanian head coach Bela Karolyi named Davydova as Nadia Comaneci’s main rival for the Olympic title (FIG World of Gymnastics, vol 3, no 1). Frank Taylor, President of the World Association of Sports Writers, went one step further and predicted Davydova to be the winner. On July 17th in conversation with Romanian journalist Horia Alexandrescu Nadia mentioned Davydova as one of her 3 main rivals. As the competition began BBC Radio reported on podium training discussing the established stars but added that on the basis of what they had seen they advised viewers to watch out for Elena Davydova and that if she performed as well in competition as she had during podium training then she would take gold as her exercises were more exciting and daring than the more well known gymnasts.

Under the present Olympic AA scoring system – New Life – Elena Davydova would not only have still won the 1980 AA title but she would have won it by a larger margin. The scores on the night of the AA final in 1980 were Davydova 39.65, Comaneci 39.55, Shaposhnikova 39.45, Gnauck 39.3.
Under this scoring system – brought in in 2003 – with only 2 gymnasts from the same nation qualifying to the AA final Nadia wouldn’t have made it as her team optional score of 39.2 (tied with Ruhn) was lower than that of Grigoras (39.3) and Eberle (39.5)

In the team competition – whose scores counted towards both AA medals and event finals – Davydova was hampered by performing 4th for her team before Kim and Shaposhnikova. Comaneci and Gnauck performed 6th for their respective teams. (To Davydova it was like beginning an 800m race 60m behind the starting line). Essentially they had a head start over Davydova in the scoring and she would have to perform better than them to achieve the same score. The superiority of Davydova is shown by her winning the AA from 4th position. A huge disadvantage. She was relegated to early positions in the line-ups which really affected some of her scores.
Several researchers – Ansorge and Scheer 1975, Ansorge, Scheer, Laub and Howard 1978, Plessner 1999, Damisch, Mussweiler and Plessner 2006, Morgan and Rotthoff 2010 – have reported sequential order bias. They documented that gymnasts appearing last within a team have a significant score advantage due to judge’s expectations that the best will appear last.
Latynina quoted In Women’s Gymnastics : A History, 1995, Minot Simons, ” The coaches knew that the order was of vital importance to the eventual winner. The last person on the team was always treated more kindly by the judges”.

In the AA Each gymnast was now on her own. Each had to build her own ladder to the top. In the team competition some gymnast’s scores had been built upon the scores their teammates had received, but they didn’t have that benefit in the AA. Gnauck’s scores were bumped by her placement in lineup. You will notice that said score total did not hold up in AA. Excluding her fall Nadia’s AA scores also did not hold up. Davydova increased her score.

Comaneci had outscored Davydova by 0.45 in compulsories but Davydova outscored her in all other stages of the competition where they met. Davydova outscored her by 0.4 in optionals, 0.1 in AA final, 0.3 in event finals.
Between compulsory and optional exercises, AA final and beam and vault event finals, Davydova, Comaneci and Gnauck faced each other 14 times. In these head-to-head events Davydova scored 138.225, Gnauck scored 137.975, Comaneci 137.875. If we take the 10 optional exercises, the more creative and artistic routines, the scores were Davydova 98.825, Gnauck 98.275, Comaneci 98.025.

In her competitive days Nadia certainly wasn’t noted for having false humility.The New York Times, Nov 12, 1978, mentioned an instance of poor behaviour, “Romania’s Nadia Comaneci, 16, won on balance beam but when she realised she was losing the uneven bars to Marcia, she stalked by and shook some chalk dust at her. “Maybe it was an accident” said Marcia Frederick “but everybody who saw it happen said it wasn’t”. A more gracious competitor was Russian Elena Mukhina the All-Around winner, who kissed Marcia after her victory”. There is a story that in Tokyo at the 1979 World Cup when Nadia realised she wasn’t going to win that she shoved Stella Zakharova (the winner) as she went by, knocking her off balance.International Gymnast magazine (IG) in 1982 criticised Nadia for “her arrogant, dismissive attitude to other gymnasts”.

1979 was a historic year for Nadia. She became the first gymnast to win 3 consecutive European AA titles. However she had to compete only 4 routines. In her next 4 routines in event finals she failed on both bars (9.45) and beam (9.35). A person’s reputation can certainly get distorted with distance, like a mirage. After Montreal falls from bars and beam were as common for Nadia as 10’s. She scored as many 10’s on beam and bars in Montreal as she would in the remaining 5 years and 3 months of her career.
In relation to the 1979 European Championships Lyn Moran wrote in her book “ The Young Gymnasts”, 1979, p.61, “ Nadia led the way for Emilia Eberle to follow in the European Championships in Denmark, but there was a lot of talk about it. Lots of people watching said that Emilia was actually better than Nadia, and that the judges had been giving Nadia extra points because they liked her. I thought that Emilia was better on the beam and on the bars, yet Nadia got a better score in the all around than did Emilia”. In Gymnastics World Magazine May/June 79 p.9 she added about Nadia “ I thought she was overscored on floor. The routine was neither innovative nor difficult”.
At the World Cup in June in Tokyo Nadia fluffed bars again and her beam exercise was under-time. She finished behind Zakharova, Kim and Eberle and barely ahead of Kraker.
In July at a competition in Romania she was beaten by the 13 year old Anca Kiss. 
The 1979 World Championships in December were the most important competition of that year but in reviewing Nadia’s career in IG, November 83, John Crumlish noted “ Comaneci led the field after compulsories although observers felt the judges favored her “. For example on beam Nadia scored 9.9 even though her exercise was recorded as 1 minute 11 seconds. This should have meant a 0.2 deduction for being short on time but this deduction wasn’t taken. There was also a question as to whether she had performed the correct dismount. The only optional exercise she performed was her brave one-handed routine on beam but it is generally regarded as being marginally overscored, the judges swayed by her courage.

In 1980 Nadia won the Romanian International Championships shortly before the Olympics. But again she faltered and on the night of the AA final itself ( routines 8-12 of 12 ) was outscored by Melita Ruhn. Compared with the other gymnasts her score dropped sharply. Nadia’s score dropped by – 0.25. Ruhn increased her score by + 0.7, Dunca +0.55, Turner + 0.45, Eberle + 0.35.

Nadia hit 12 marvellous routines in Montreal to win her AA title. To retain this title in 1980 she would have to hit 12 for 12 again. But by 1978 this was a problem for her. Bars and beam – now showed a persistent lack of consistency, a decline in performance. Nadia had difficulty maintaining a constant high competitive level over 12 routines.
Bars in particular was now an apparatus that brought more grief than glory for Nadia. In 1978 she stopped competing her trade mark Comaneci Somie. She never competed it as an adult. After controversially sharing gold with Mukhina at the May 1977 Europeans Nadia would not win a medal of any colour on bars at a major competition until the even more controversial University Games in Bucharest in October 1981. Her fall from bars at the 1980 Olympics was not a surprise but a confirmation.

At the Olympics itself Bela felt Nadia’s reputation would help her, that her name alone would leverage some scores.(Also known as Celebrity tenths). Vitably Scherbo,”If you have more titles more image you will get a higher score”.

Davydova was the only female gymnast to score in the top 5 on each piece of apparatus in the ALL-Around competition (combined score team compulsories, team optionals, AA final). Both she and Nadia were wonderful gymnasts and at this competition Davydova had the edge.