Viktoria Komova: Russian mercurial temperament or justified disappointment?
The 2011 World Championships at Tokyo saw Russian gymnast Viktoria Komova making no attempt to hide her emotions as she walked off the podium without congratulating her fellow competition winners.
Sportsmanship is a requisite of any sport in the world. It is an ethical and a civil requirement which is aimed at maintaining a friendly social climate at these emotionally charged events.
Lack of civility and courteousness is not viewed favourably by anyone, as it disrespects the opponents.
Moreover, the deed only gives rise to controversy and may end up maligning an athlete’s career by stamping their personality as an unpleasant one. So everyone loses.
Gymnastics, being a sport of elegance, beauty and strength, strikes greater contrast with such instances. Competitors are required to show the same grace and strength of character which they display in their performances.
Komova’s disregard for the judges’ decision was apparent in her actions at the awards ceremony at the worlds.
Komova was obviously unhappy with her all-round silver, and did not congratulate the gold and bronze medallists. Instead, she walked off in silence and could not even bear to keep wearing the medal, taking it off as soon as she stepped down from the winners’
stand.
Even as she accepted the medal, Komova remained sullen.
Now we know from Coach Gennady Elfimov’s diplomatically engineered answers, that Komova is not exactly the most agreeable trainee in the house.
In an interview following the Tokyo World Championships, Elfimov was asked if Komova was ‘easy to work with’. To this the coach replied, “You know, it depends.” (Depends? On what exactly?)
“She is far from being sweet and easy to work with, but she is very determined. If she wants something badly, she works very single-mindedly to achieve it. Sometimes she quarrels with me and it is difficult to convince her,” Elfimov continued.
So we can assume that convincing Komova to lower her difficulty level on the vault must have been pretty tough and easily regrettable when the results were announced.
The coaches were forced to take this step in the light of the ankle injury Komova had just recovered from.
We had already seen Aliya Mustafina collapse and withdraw in Stuttgart following a misjudgement of her recovery. Coaches, understandably, did not want to take the same risk with Komova.
As it played out, the Amanar vault was all that America’s Jordyn Wieber really held over Komova’s DTY to take a lead on 0.033 points on her and finish as the world all-round champion.
Working on the assumption that the judges’ decision was fair, the difficulty level is the only shortcoming to be blamed. But being the informed folk belonging to the generation that is not afraid to question, we will not settle with that assumption.
When the results’ announcement leaves the winner in ecstatic shock, the loser in shocked disappointment, and the air rife with the audience’s uproarious protest, it is safe to conclude a controversy is ready to surface.
This is exactly what happened at the World Championships Tokyo.
I do not intend to challenge the judges’ decision, the glaring discrepancies do.
In the qualifiers for the event, Komova had come in first. In the championships, she performed the same seamless routine on the uneven bars that had contributed to her qualifying win.
However, her score in the championship was 0.173 points less than her qualifiers’ score, which obviously made a huge difference in an event of this scale.
Given Wieber’s impermissible errors on the uneven bars, the athlete’s 13.800 was still a good enough score.
While Komova’s minor errors on the beam earned her strict deductions and the judges granted her only 14.600 points, Wieber’s major mistakes during floor exercise were completely overlooked.
Komova merely lacked a few connections in the second part of her balance beam routine. Wieber, on the other hand, had less than perfect landings and stepped out of the bounds too. But she did not get the 0.010 deduction like she should have for the latter
error.
There was a reason why the final rotation triggered expectations of the Russian gymnast’s win. The event commentary, social media and audiences, all predicted and expected Komova’s name to flash next to the gold.
Wieber herself was aware that her glaring mistakes on the uneven bars and floor exercise will bar the gold for her.
It was not a modest recalibration of her scores, because she was still expecting a sure silver win. Her coach was prepared for the same.
“I told her I was proud of her no matter what,” Coach Geddart said. “She was mad because that mistake on bars was going to cost her and she knew it.”
Any other day, any other circumstances may have deemed Komova deserving of some unforgiving criticism, but this one time she only gained sympathies and outrage to her credit.
Nonetheless, what the judges decide to do should not take away from Wieber’s or any other athlete’s integrity.
As members of the international gymnastics community, the athletes need to recognize and appreciate each other’s achievements without losing heart. We hope to see a greater level of maturity from Komova in the future.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
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