In Half I of this collection I mentioned probably the most historic bib numbers within the historical past of ladies’s creative gymnastics (WAG) and got here up with the next examples:
29: Natalia Yurchenko
49: Vera Caslavska
165: Elena Mukhina
253: Olga Korbut
545: Natalia Yurchenko
Now, to impress a moderately ridiculous query, if followers needed to make it so, might these bib numbers be “retired” in the identical style iconic jersey numbers are retired in different sports activities? There are a few issues with this. First, in recent times the IOC has grow to be obsessive about codifying its rules/requirements. The IOC has compelled a few of the peskiest and pickiest guidelines on numerous Olympic sports activities.
The IOC has gone so far as to drive creative gymnastics to make use of “GAR” as its three-letter identifier moderately than “GYM” as a part of an total technique to codify the outcomes sheets of each Olympic sport. For some competitions, “GAR” is required to be on each web page of each begin listing in males’s and ladies’s gymnastics. The identical change was additionally compelled on the OlyMadMen database as properly which switched to “GAR” though “GYM” has lengthy been its most well-liked alternative.
With guidelines like that current, it’s not arduous to examine a loud and resounding “NO” being uttered from the IOC if FIG ever tried to experiment with non-sequential bib numbers. That time alone can be sufficient to kill this concept in its tracks.
One other problem is that many of the historic bib numbers in girls’s gymnastics are both out of date, successfully banned, or solely worn by males. It’s arduous to “retire” bib numbers which have already been taken out of service and aren’t going to be worn anyhow.
Lately FIG and IOC have put larger effort into codifying bib numbers with procedures regulating how bib numbers are assigned being extra generally enforced. Whereas these procedures have been used inconsistently within the 2000s and early 2010s, they’ve dominated the factors in all Group-1 competitions (World Championships and/or Olympics) from 2015-present.
The very confusion over whether or not Nadia wore bib quantity 073 or simply “73” finally led to a change the place each bib quantity in Group-1 competitors is now a triple digit quantity. In consequence, the bib numbers begin at both 100 or 101. This process has successfully banned Nadia’s iconic “73” from being worn once more on the Olympics and different numbers prefer it similar to Yurchenko’s “29” and Caslavska’s “49.”
The bib numbers of males’s and ladies’s gymnastics are mixed, however up to now few years the lads have been assigned the decrease numbers each time. For the reason that low numbers now begin at 100, and since Group-1 competitors didn’t drop under 65 opponents per self-discipline within the 2010s, in males’s gymnastics Elena Mukhina’s iconic “165” was nonetheless capable of be worn at a Group-1 degree competitors, however it couldn’t be worn by a WAG.
There may be one extra process the place a big hole within the numerical sequence is inserted between the lads’s bib numbers and the ladies’s bib numbers. The process takes the best bib quantity from males’s gymnastics and rounds it to the subsequent hundredth. For instance, if the best bib was #187, it might be rounded to a fair “200.” From there an extra “100” can be added on prime of it, and solely then might the bib numbers for the ladies start.
On account of these procedures, on the Olympics girls can put on a quantity no decrease than “300” whereas on the World Championships they’ll’t go under “500.” This implies Olga Korbut’s iconic “253” is presently unable to be worn by a girl in any Group-1 competitors below the procedures used within the final Olympic cycle.
As for the lads, it might probably solely be worn on the World Championships as a result of the Olympics doesn’t have sufficient male opponents to achieve the 250s. The “253” which was a part of an iconic Olympic second, was successfully banned on the Olympic degree within the final two quads.
The one quantity talked about on this article that girls had been capable of put on in Group-1 competitors over the last Olympic cycle is Yurchenko’s “545” from the 1983 World Championships. However a few of these numbers do reside on in non-Olympic and non-World Championships competitors. On the 2021 Junior Pan-American Video games Rachel Rodriguez of Costa Rica wore the long-lasting “73.”
The final time girls got the low bib numbers whereas males got the excessive bib numbers got here on the World Championships in 2014, 2013, and 2009. The final time double-digit bib numbers had been assigned in Group-1 competitors got here on the World Championships in 2005 and 2009. In 2005 these low double digit bib numbers went to the lads, however in 2009 they had been assigned to WAG.
In consequence, the final WAG to put on the long-lasting “73” in a Group-1 degree competitors was Greek gymnast Evgenia Zafeiraki on the 2009 World Championships. On the 2014 World Championships Olga Korbut’s 253 (worn by Asuka Teramoto of Japan) and Elena Mukhina’s “165” (worn by Anna-Maria Kanyai of the Czech Republic) had been worn for the final time in WAG throughout Group-1 competitors. The 1996 Olympics was the final time WAGs had been assigned bibs that went below “300” and the ultimate occasion of any of those numbers being eligible for ladies to put on on the Olympic stage.
Up to now bib numbers had been way more sporadic, take the next eight numbers:
145, 592, 52, 114, 735, 88, 485, 352
The primary 4 bib numbers belong to Emilia Eberle who represented Romania in each Group-1 competitors from 1978-1981. The final 4 numbers belong to Ecaterina Szabo who attended each Group-1 competitors from 1982-1987. Whenever you mix their careers, Szabo and Eberle produce a full recounting of how Romanian gymnasts had been assigned bibs from 1978-1987. The numbers for Romanian gymnasts had been in every single place. Bib numbers are primarily assigned primarily based on nationality, solely then are they organized by the alphabetical order of the gymnasts’ title.
For Simone Biles, her profession bib numbers have been way more constant. Particularly following the codifying of bib numbers beginning in 2015. Simone wore 391 and 392 in two totally different Olympic appearances, whereas her World Championship bib numbers ranged from 746 to 778 on the World Championships from 2015 and onwards. Had Simone Biles not gone on hiatus through the 2017 World Championships, she would have worn bib #646 which was solely 100 spots off the vary in all different World Championships years. It’s a far cry from the Romanian gymnasts within the Chilly Battle carrying bibs within the 100s, 300s, 400s, 500s, 700s, and double digits.
