A friend of mine is wondering if anyone can provide names of World Championship Team alternates for a project he is considering. Thank you.
"There is one thing that has been bothering me since 2011 and even more strongly since 2014 when the change was made in the Technical Regulations that corrected the situation, but not retroactively. It is about the status (or a lack thereof) of the official FIG-accredited alternates to the World Championships teams.
In 2014, the FIG started to award WCh team medals to the alternates as well (and to one of the team coaches), which in my opinion was completely fair, as the team format, whether 6-5-4 for preliminaries or 6-3-3, left so much room for tactical choices. A gymnast could have very well been an individual medal contender on certain event, but could have been left out, because some other gymnast, event if not a medal contender, was considered more useful for a team to cover the weaknesses. Also, there was room for tactical plays, that did not necessarily take account the best interests of individual gymnasts.
Case to the point is Wu Liufang in 2011 Tokyo. Her best events were UB and BB, the events that CHN had well covered. Despite being a legitimate contender (at least IMO) on UB, she was left out and He Kexin with international prestige was put in, hoping that in case of good performance, her reputation among the judges would increase her medal chances. She was not convincing during the trainings that I saw either, but still the team leadership decided to trust her. Did not happen. I truly feel for her, as not living up to expectations must have really hurt her. Anyhow, in the statistics, He Kexin is 2011 team bronze medal winner (despite this routine being her only appearance during the competition, the score did not count towards the team total and she was not used in the team final) and Wu Liufang's name appears only on the list of gymnasts' bib numbers. Wu Liufang has been really unfortunate, considering that she was an alternate also a year earlier, in Rotterdam 2010.
During the qualification in Tokyo, she sat maybe 2 metres away from me and was cheering wholeheartedly for her teammates, despite having every reason to be bitter about the (team leadership's) choice. At that point she became my all time favourite Chinese gymnast, because of her unselfish, big heart. (They have been brought up to accept the decisions of the leadership and have no regrets, knowing that they had done everything on their part.) In 2012 she was not as successful any more as she had been in 2010 and 2011. She also had a bad fall on the BB dismount at Chinese Nationals, where she strained her neck muscles. She did not make the cut to London 2012. In November 2012 however, she became an Asian Champion on UB, Huang Huidan taking Silver. After that she posted a comment on Chinese social media: "At least I finally won something." The sad part is, had the rules regarding alternates been different at that time, she would have had already two World Championships Team medals, which she had fully earned, not a bit less than her teammates.
Wu Liufang is not the only unfortunate one who has been the alternate two times, at the time when the alternates did not get any recognition. The same thing in Rotterdam and Tokyo happened to CHN MAG gymnast Guo Weiyang as well, but he at least made it to London 2012 and got the team gold there, whereas for Wu Liufang the Asian Championships UB gold remained her highest title.
I have for long time had in mind to write to the FIG and ask them to consider possibility to somehow give recognition to those unfortunate athletes, but I was not sure enough about the idea to make myself to gather full statistics.
Until recently, Nelli Kim gave an interview to Bolshoi Sport which has been translated to English as well, where she mentioned that a few years ago the FIG made the right decision and started to award medals to the alternates as well. This brought a new life to my idea, but first it would be good to have more or less clear picture about who are all the athletes concerned.
How far do we need to go back in time? Have there been any three time alternates? Or more two time alternates? Has becoming an alternate (without recognition in the results) been the highlight of their career or have they been actual competing members of their teams as well?
I have not much hope people would know. More so because the term alternate is ambiguous. Many do not distinguish between the alternates named by their federation and alternates as described in the FIG rules. But Perhaps someone can answer these questions".
F.I.G. accredited alternates to World Championship Teams?
