In an article about the Olympics I observed that it would be fairly simple to create a “game” or “sport” which showcased the talents of gymnasts.   Several people have asked me to ‘splain what I had in mind, and, despite my fear that I am writing too many articles that consist essentially of “here is another way that the world could be different than it is,” I have decided to outline my thoughts.

            I need your help here.   I’m going to suggest how I think a gymnastic sport could be designed, but I don’t really know squat about gymnastics, and I’m going to get a few things right and a lot of things wrong.   To design a game that really works, we will need you to look for options as well. . .no, no, Bill, don’t do that, do this. I know most of you are busy and don’t have time to worry about these issues, but if you do, I’d appreciate it if you would share your thoughts. 

            Our goal here is create a sport that tests and requires the skills of gymnasts.   Gymnasts, at least it seems to me, are fantastic athletes.   They may be the only athletes in the Olympics who do something that I simply could not do, at any level.   I can play basketball—not quite at an Olympic level, of course, but I can throw a basketball at a hoop and sometimes it will go through.    I can swim.   I can play volleyball.   I can jump off a board into a swimming pool. But the things that gymnasts do. . .man, I couldn’t begin to do that stuff.  

            Gymnastics in America flourishes during the Olympics and sinks out of sight twenty minutes after the closing ceremonies.   This is unfortunate, but let us ask why this happens.   The sport is very poorly designed as a spectator event.   The gymnasts are in essence asked to put on a show—like a dog show, or a fashion show, or a beauty contest.   There is nothing inherently competitive about it.   A certain number of people go to dog shows, fashion shows, beauty contests; a few people go to debate tournaments and gymnastics competitions.   A well-organized flea market will outdraw all of them.   

            A contest organized to please judges has four problems as a spectator event:

            1) It is short on dramatic and exciting moments, in which the outcome hangs obviously in the balance and both sides must perform,

            2) The public spectator has no natural rooting interest,

            3) It is inaccessible to the public, which often is unable to “see” the things that distinguish the winners from the losers, and

            4) The outcomes are often difficult to accept, since they seem somewhat arbitrary. 

            What we want instead is a contest in which a team of gymnasts, representing a school or a city, engages in an organized effort to score points by doing something that the public can watch and understand.   

            OK, what is that objective?

            It seems fairly apparent that we can’t use a ball.   We can’t use a ball because gymnasts work with their hands; they pull themselves up with their hands, swing off of rings and bars and jump in the air.   You can’t do that stuff while carrying a ball, and the options to make a ball work—carrying it in your mouth, or attaching it to your knees by a Velcro pad—have obvious problems.

            If we can’t score points with the ball, then, we have to score points by moving the athlete toward a target.   That’s our first rule for constructing the game: we move the athlete toward a target.

            Second rule:   Because gymnastics are essentially an aerial sport, the target needs to be up in the air.   We have, then, the outlines of a sport: the athlete starts on the ground, and attempts to reach a target which is somewhere up in the air, against opposition and by way of gymnastic equipment.

            Third rule: Because we want the sport to be fast-moving, we need a clock that plays a central role in the contest.    We now have a sport in which the athlete starts on the ground, and races against a clock to reach a target high up in the air. 

            Fourth rule: We want little or no physical conflict between offensive and defensive players.   At risk of stating the stupefyingly obvious, we need to minimize physical contact for three reasons:

            1) The athletes are up in the air.   Pushing and shoving one another up in the air would be dangerous.

            2) Gymnastics does not normally or historically involve wrestling elements.

            3) Allowing physical conflict in the sport gives an advantage to bigger and stronger athletes.    We don’t want a sport that advantages big, strong guys, or big, strong women with hair curling out of their armpits.   We have those sports—basketball, football, volleyball.   We want a sport that gives the advantage to small, quick, and agile athletes who are strong relative to their size, but not strong like weight lifters and not built like football players.

            Here, then, is the first outline of our sport.   There is a circular apparatus, which we will call the dome, which contains six “pathways”:

            Two rows of parallel bars (180 degrees apart) that go higher and higher working towards a center,

            Two rows of hanging rings that go higher and higher, and

            Two rows of overhead bars—bars that one hangs from and walks with one’s hands--ascending toward the center.

            A team consists of nine players, all of whom must compete in the contest at some point, but five of whom are involved at any moment.   

            There are four large clocks, positioned so that they can be seen from every angle.  The clock starts at 30 seconds and counts down.   A referee drops a flag or sounds an air horn, signaling the start of the set, and the clock starts.

            There are, at any time, three players on defense and five players on offense. 

            When the flag drops, the defensive players get a five-second head start, giving them time to take up positions on the dome.

            After five seconds—when the clock reaches 25—the offense jumps into action, and begins racing for the platform at the top.

            Any offensive player who is touched by a defender is immediately stopped, or “tagged out”.   A referee will blow a whistle and point to the offensive player, who must immediately dismount the apparatus.

            If the defenders are able to stop all five offensive players, no points are scored.

            If the clock reaches zero before any player reaches the platform, no points are scored.

            If any offensive player is able to reach the platform within 25 seconds, the clock stops at that moment, and the offense is credited with a number of points equal to the number of seconds showing on the clock.  

            A “set” is one scoring opportunity for each team.

            An “inning” is five sets.

            A game is five innings.

            Thus, twenty-five scoring chances for each team in each game.  

            Let’s expand a little on those rules.

            There is a circular apparatus, which we will call the dome, which contains six “pathways”.   In addition to the six pathways there are also two levels of pommel bars, a net, a mat, and the platform.  

            The platform is the target; the player scores by planting his or her feet on the target.   The platform should be 28 feet off the ground, and in the center of the dome.

            The net is suspended under the platform at a height of twenty feet, to limit the distance that athletes might fall. 

            The mat covers the floor of the dome, to cushion falls and prevent injuries.

            The pommel bars consist of five bars, like pommel horses, arranged in a hexagonal pattern to unite the six pathways, and to allow the athletes to move from one pathway to another.

            The lower pommel bar is ten feet off the ground.

            The higher pommel bar is twenty feet off the ground.

            The defensive players are not allowed to get onto the pathways above the level of the higher pommel bar.     In other words, the defenders cannot defend the target by taking up positions near or on the platform.   They can go as high the second pommel bar, and they can “tag out” offensive players who are on the higher equipment if they can reach them, but they can’t go on up toward the platform.  

            This is done because we’re trying to emphasize quickness.   If the defenders can go near the target, they can sit on the platform and wait for the offense to come to them.   We don’t want that. By keeping them away from the target, we are requiring the defenders to race around the pommel bar—presumably the high pommel bar most of the time—in an effort to tag out all of the attackers. 

            A team consists of nine players, all of whom must compete in the contest at some point, but five of whom are in the game for each inning of each set.   No substitutions are allowed within an inning.     Only three players compete in each defensive set, but the players are listed A, B, C, D and E.  

            A, B and C play defense in the first set of the inning.

            D, E and A play defense in the second set.

            B, C and D play defense in the third set.

            E, A and B play defense in the fourth set.

            C, D and E play defense in the fifth set.

            Thus, each player plays defense in three of the five sets in an inning.

            The reason for this rule is that we want to require all the athletes to play offense and defense.    We don’t want platooning, like football, where half the players play offense and half play defense; we want the players tested on a full range of skills.

            A roster consists of eleven players—nine active, and two injury substitutes who are ineligible to play unless there is an injury. 

            After the inning you can re-set the lineup, and all nine active players must play at least one inning of the contest.  

            The reason for this rule is to build fan interest in the roster.   We don’t want teams to consist of one or two stars; we want teams.    One of the weaknesses of gymnastics, as a sport, is that everything revolves around a very few stars.   Somewhere in America is a really cute sixteen-year-old gymnast who is 95% as good as Shawn Johnson, and you never heard of her because there is only room in the sport for a very limited number of superstars—unlike baseball or basketball or football, which produce and sustain hundreds of recognizable names.   We’re trying to make gymnastics into a sport, like these others, that produces and sustains a large number of recognizable athletes.  

            When the flag drops, the defensive players get a five-second head start, giving them time to take up positions on the dome.

            I assume that the defensive players, given a five-second head start, will rush to take positions on the higher pommel bar, which is the highest position they are allowed to reach.

            My thinking is that with five defensive players against five offensive players and the defenders given the high ground, the defenders could block all of the pathways, which would cause 80 or 90% of the sets to end with no score.   This would exaggerate the importance of those few sets on which there was a score, which basically makes it a game of mistakes, rather than a give-and-take game of quickness. 

            Since we can’t have combat as an element of the game, we have to have a no-contact rule.   But the rule that one touch disables the attacking player gives the defense a huge advantage.   With four-on-five the defense would, in my best guess, still have an excellent chance of getting a defensive stop on each possession.   All they have to do is quickly touch one player, and it becomes four-on-four, with the defense in control of the high ground. 

            With three against five, it is difficult for the defense to block all of the pathways to the platform.    You will have some defensive stops, when a defender is able to slap one player and quickly chase down another one, but most of the time at least one of the attackers is going to break through.

            Generally the defenders will choose to defend from the higher pommel ring, but (I would hope) not always.    I assume that some pathways toward the platform will be quicker than others.   I assume that some gymnasts will be quicker and more talented than others. 

            I would assume, therefore, that the defense sometimes would have to try other things in order to control a particularly dangerous attacker.    My thinking is that an attacker, left unimpeded, could perhaps race to the target in as little as seven seconds, thus scoring 18 points.   Every second you can slow the attacker down is one point.  

            It was my intention, then, that the defense would have two viable options—to focus on trying to get a defensive stop, by touching all five attackers, or to focus instead on slowing down the fastest opponents and the fastest pathways to the platform.   The defensive combinations change on every set.   On some sets, I assume, the defense would say “We can’t stop all of these guys, but we can stop Shawn Johnson.  We’ll focus on stopping Shawn Johnson, and then we’ll take our chances with the other attackers.  If we can hold them under ten points and score twelve , we’re OK.”  

            Thus, I assume that the defense would sometimes do other things, such as putting one defender on the lower pommel bar or having one defender or multiple defenders positioned on the rings in an effort to stop or slow down the opposition’s star player.   It is difficult to foresee in one’s mind exactly how things will play out, but that was my intention. 

            Another reason to prohibit the defenders from getting near the platform is that stretching out the distance creates moments of anticipation in the game.   You have probably heard announcers, in baseball, comment on the fact that when a hometown fielder other than the catcher makes an outstanding defensive play, the crowd erupts in applause, but when a catcher makes a difficult save on a ball in the dirt, nothing happens and nobody applauds. Why is that?

            It happens that way because there is no moment of anticipation before the play.   When a batter hits the ball and it is unclear whether or not it can be fielded, that creates a moment of anticipation, a moment of tension in the game.   You hope he can catch it or you hope it will fall in, but you don’t knowt.  When the catcher stops a ball from going back to the screen there is no moment of tension leading up to that, and thus no response to it when it happens.

            The design of this game is such that you will see that an attacker has broken through the defense for two or three seconds before he or she reaches the platform.  That is the moment of tension.   You see that the attacker is in position to score, you glance at the clock, 9, 8. . ..the attacker reaches the target at 6.   It becomes really visibly important that the attacker move as swiftly as possible toward the target, because you’re trying to get as many points as possible out of the opportunity. 

            That’s the game as I see it.   A couple of small rules.   If an attacker commits a foul, the attack ends at that point with no score.  If a defender commits a foul, the clock stops at that point and the offense gets the points on the clock.

            But what is a foul?

            From an offensive standpoint, it is a foul if you fail to immediately dismount after being tagged out.   This has to be the case, because if it isn’t it creates confusion in the defenders about whether or not an attacker is “live”, which is not the intention of the game, to allow the offense to confuse the defense by making them think that dead attackers are still alive.  

            From a defensive standpoint, it is a foul if the defender makes any use whatsoever of a part of the apparatus above the high pommel bar.  

            Other than that, fouls probably would evolve to prohibit dangerous approaches such as diving at an attacker or leaping over portions of the apparatus that are not protected by the net.   I would prefer that fouls be as infrequent as possible.   We don’t want the game in the hands of the referees, and we don’t want the game to revolve around mistakes.

            As a practical matter, I think that

a)      the offense will score on most sets, but

b)      very rarely will they score more than 10-12 points on the set.

I think the defenders generally will be able to slow the attack down so that it takes at least 13-15 seconds for a gymnast to reach the platform.

If those things are true, then you have a lot of 5- to 10-point sets, and what matters is how many points you score on the set—thus, how quickly you can reach the platform.   But if you start calling a lot of fouls, that’s going to add a lot of zeroes and 18s into the mix—zeroes when the offense fouls, 18s when the defense fouls—and those few fouls will dominate the outcome in a game in which teams normally trade advantages of just a few points on a set.   We don’t want the game to be played that way, because we want many tense and exciting moments in the game, rather than a few. 

            There are six pathways to the platform, and there are five attackers.  I would assume that offensive players would tend to specialize in certain types of equipment, and it is possible that these “specializations” would evolve into “positions”.   In other words, it might be that an announcer, broadcasting a GymMax contest, would say “it will be Lisa Hardy and Claire Robinson on the Overhead Bars, Mary Santos and Linda Graves on the Parallel Bars, and Brandi Nelson on the Rings.”   I don’t think that would happen, but it might.

            But anyway, there are six pathways, and there are five attackers.   It seems obvious that the five attackers would normally use five different pathways, because doubling up on a pathway gives an easy out to the defender.  So, assuming that we have six pathways with five attackers covered by three defenders, what I would guess would happen is that the defenders would try to break the five challenged pathways down into a 2-1-2 pattern.   The “outside” defenders would position themselves on the higher pommel bar halfway between the two pathways, prepared to go either way, while the one-on-one defender in the middle would make ready to help out on either side as best he could.

            This leads to a game of feints and timing.    One strategy would simply be to attack all-out, to have all five attackers simply rush upward as fast as they can, leaving the defenders scrambling to tag out all five attackers.   A jail break.

            But the all-out attack probably won’t work well, because the three different types of pathways would have different time patterns.  It either would take longer to swing upward on the parallel bars or it would take longer to swing upward on the rings, one or the other, I don’t know which.    But assuming that’s true, then if you attack all-out, the defender can simply go first to the faster pathway, get the out there, and then worry about the slower pathway.   That’s generally not what the offense is going to want to happen.

            What the offense would generally do, I would guess, is more like this.   First, they would try to “time” their attack so that most or all of the attackers reach the 20-foot mark—the high pommel bar—at about the same time.   At the last moment, one or two of the five would break ahead of the others, forcing the defenders to make a choice—and creating a brief window of opportunity the other attackers.

            The offense in general, I would guess, would “plan out” a line of attack. . .OK, we’ll rush the left side, draw off the middle defender on the left side, make the right side defender go after Lisa and try to break through Mary Santos on the rings.   Something like that.  

            Of course, the defense has a game plan, too, and at least half the time the attack plan will break down and force the offense to improvise, but that’s what makes it a sport, rather than an exhibition.   My thinking was that if we create opportunities for strategy, then strategies will develop. 

            The score of a typical game would be, I would guess, about 187-174.   I wanted a score something like that, because I wanted scores that were not in the range of any other sport.   In other words, if you see the score is San Diego 3, Houston 2, you can guess that is baseball.   If you see the score is Cleveland 28, Kansas City 17, you know that’s football.   If you see the score is Detroit 93, Sacramento 88, you know that’s basketball. If you see that the score is Pittsburgh 192, Jacksonville 184, it’s Gym Max.  

            That’s a guess.   A game consists of 25 scoring chances for each team.   Let’s assume that 15 to 20% of scoring chances will come up empty and that the average score in the other 20-22 sets is a little less than points a set, that gets you into the range of 170-200 points per team per game.

            Time:   the clock time is 60 seconds per set—30 seconds for each team—and I would assume that the “re-set” time would be about twice the clock time.   Each set takes about three minutes.   With five sets in an inning; each inning takes about fifteen minutes.   Five sets in a game.   With breaks between innings, perhaps a “halftime” after three sets, a game would last a little less than two hours.

            Stats.   Well, first of all, of course, you have points scored; each athlete would score a certain number of points, and I would assume that the central stat for most players would be their scoring average.

            In addition, you have a count of how many “sets” each player has played, and how many points the team scores on those sets.     You have the same information on defense—sets played, and the points allowed on those sets.   Thus, each player has an easily understandable “offensive” and “defensive” average.

            In addition, obviously you would count how many times each player was tagged out, and you would count how many tag-outs were recorded by each defender.   Probably you would count, from an offensive standpoint, how many times each defender used each pathway.   Thus you would have a “stat line” for each player that would look something like this:

                                  Offense                                                                        Defense

G    Sets    OB     PB   R       Points  Avg    Outs   Team  Avg              Sets  Tags   Let    Avg.

41   825     704    94   17      1472    35.9    418    5682   6.88          495   542    3178   6.42

            This player played 825 sets (offensively) in 41 games, meaning that he was in the lineup about 80% of the time (41 games consisting of 1025 potential sets, plus overtime).   In the 825 sets he used the Overhead Bars (OB) 704 times, the Parallel Bars (PB) 94 times, the Rings 17 times.   He scored 1,472 points, or 35.9 points per game—a high average, but probably not a league-leading type of figure.   He was tagged out 418 times.   His team scored 5,682 points on his offensive sets, or 6.88 points per set.  

            Defensively, he was in the game for 495 sets (which has to be 3/5 of his offensive sets.)   He tagged out 542 opponents, meaning that he tagged out others far more often then he was tagged out himself, suggesting that he was a good player.   His team allowed 3,178 points on his defensive sets, or 6.42 per set.  

            Or maybe averages would be figured per inning (per five sets), rather than per set, I don’t know, and then there would probably be a place in the stats for fouls, and of course there would be the team’s won-lost record.    Presumably, as strategies developed, stats would develop consistent with the strategies.   For example, a player might be used as the faker a certain number of times—the player intended to draw the defense—and he might be used a certain number of time as the player intended to attack the platform.   Stats might develop to keep track of how often he was used to draw the defense, and how often he was intended to be the scorer, the “shooter”, if you will.   I can’t anticipate exactly how all of that would evolve. 

            One might find, in practice, that some of this doesn’t work out at all the way I had expected.   One might find, for example, that three defenders simply cannot stop five attackers, even with a five-second head start to gain control of the high ground, so that the offense scores virtually 100% of the time within ten seconds.   If so, we’d need to adjust the rules to use four defenders, rather than three.   One might find the opposite:  that three defenders are too many.

            One might find that the clock constantly runs out just as an athlete gets close to scoring.   If so, we’d start the clock at 35, rather than 30.   One might find the opposite, that the clock needs to be shortened to 25 seconds.  

One might find that the games move too slowly, requiring fewer innings, or that they move too quickly, requiring more innings.    Those things could be worked out by trial and error.

            The real question is, have we created a sport that people would pay money to watch?    That’s the acid test:  Is it exciting enough, is it enjoyable enough, is it engrossing enough as a human drama, that people will give you ten dollars and two hours?  

            It seems to me that it would work.   Gymnasts—male and female—are beautiful creatures, and they’re fun to watch.    Our game offers the spectator the chance to focus, the chance to see what is about to happen, the opportunity to applaud when it does.   It creates moments to relax and watch replays, it creates opportunities for strategy.   It is much easier to create these things in the mind than it is to build them up in real life, but everything starts as an idea, and this is my idea.

Addendum

Bill, I just read the article.  I think you've re-invented American Gladiators.  Your gymnastics game is just like one of their sports, without the extended physical contact.  In fact, you invented Touch American Gladiators.  Like Touch Football.  A touch ends the play instead of a tackle.

I think you've missed the entire essence of gymnastics.  For example, the most amazing elements on the rings are the strength elements.  That Chinese guy who won was clearly so much better than the others because he could position his body on the rings in ways that the other guys couldn't come close to.  It required so much strength that the other guys didn't have. What he did to win, and what I think was the most impressive things about rings, is totally missing from your game.

Unless I misread your game, you've made it a speed game.  In gymnastics, it's not a race, it's the ability to perform difficult maneuvers.  In your race, none of those maneuvers are necessary.  They are a hindrance.

While your game has interest, I think it's a mistake to say it's a gymnastics event.

Maybe that's your entire point.  Get more people to watch.  But I dare say that more people watch Olympics gymnastics than American Gladiators.

By the way, Jason did gymnastics when he was younger.  I went to competitions and they compete in a similar fashion as the Olympics.  The difference was that in these competitions, the better skilled and practiced athletes were much more obvious than they are in the Olympics.  Jason's strength was rings.  He could actually pull himself up.  Half the kids couldn't.  In floor, they all did the same routine and it was absolutely clear who the best kids were. 

I agree with you that judging gymnastics in the Olympics is crazy.  But it's still THE most popular spectator sport at the Olympics.  And figure skating, with goofy judges, is the most popular Winter Olympics sport.

If you'd like, I'll post this as a response on the website.

Thanks.

John Dewan

            Well, we probably should be having this discussion in public, but. . .whatever. 
 
            Yes, of course more people watch the Olympics than watch American Gladiators. The Olympics are funded by billions of dollars of government and NGO money from all over the world. The fact is that when you take the Olympic imprimatur away from gymnastics, it becomes a total economic zero. Nobody watches, nobody pays attention--and nobody earns ANY money. It is absurd to argue that gymnastics are reaching their potential because they do well within the Olympics. They do well within the Olympics because the sport is stunning and the athletes are beautiful. The real question is, why are they such a complete economic zero outside of the Olympics? =2 
0And what could be done about it? 
 
            I was aware of the very vague similarity between the game I was outlining and American Gladiators, and I debated with myself whether I should discuss this. I decided that getting into it was dragging the discussion off course, and it was better not to. But. ..since you insist. 
 
            Many people speak derisively about American Gladiators, as you did. . .suggesting somehow that it was a fair comparison to contrast their TV ratings with the Olympics. The fact is that what the American Gladiators creators did was absolutely amazing. Whenever anybody talks about launching a new sporting league, they get bogged down in conversations about "attracting the top quality athletes" and "competing for the entertainment dollar." These people took a made-up sport 

  a) with NO fan base whatsoever, 
  b) with no history, 
  c) with no athletes with ANY name recognition whatsoever, 
  d) with no coaches with any name recognition, 
  e) with no natural rooting interest for the fans, 

            and they made a game that was SO entertaining, so exciting, so much fun to watch, that they were able to pump a couple of hundred million dollars out of it before it ran its course. 
 
            That's not a failure; that's a fantastic accomplishment. 
 
            That said. . ..there are four or five things that you could point to that are similar between American Gladiators and GymMax, and there are 50 or 100 things I could point to that are different. This always happens whenever I write one of these air-castle articles; somebody always says that it is "just like" something else. It drives me crazy. This spring, when I wrote an article outlining 12 or 15 things that you needed to do to launch a new league, somebody says "This is exactly what Vince McMahon did with the XFL." If you look at it, McMahon did maybe two or three of these things, and obviously did NOT do the other 9 or 12. . . 
 
            And it's the same thing here. I haven't actually watched enough of American Gladiators to be sure exactly what the game had and what it did not have, but. . ..to say that I have "re-invented American Gladiators" is fairly preposterous. The games AREN'T actually very similar, and American Gladiators was not trying to do any of the things that I am arguing could be done with this sport. 
 
            This sport is based on a league structure. American Gladiators had no league structure. 
 
            This is a TEAM sport, requiring highly co-ordinated, pre-practiced co-operation between teammates like basketball or football. American Gladiators had nothing remotely similar. 
 
            This sport is designed to build up a roster of a hundred or more recognizable athletes with names like "Shirley Jackson" and "Emily McHale" and "Hunter Sanders". American Gladiators was designed to build a small up a very small cadre of athletes, hiding behind silly guises like "Lazer" and "Dragon Eyes" or whatever the hell, and opposed by rotating anonymous citizens. 
 
            GymMax was designed to give the viewer a clear rooting interest parallel to the rooting interest of a fan of any other team sport. American Gladiators had no such natural rooting position. 
 
            GymMax is designed as a series of innings, divided into sets, making up games. . .50 sets in a contest (25 offensive and 25 defense.)   American Gladiators was a one-shot deal; you had one chance to get there in time to push the button, or on to the next solo competitor. 
 
            GymMax is designed to require players to play offense AND defense. American Gladiators featured a solo athlete on offense, against a professional defender who never played offense. 
 
            GymMax has a scoring system designed to accrue points over the course of the contest. American Gladiators as I recall was an elimination game with no scoring system. 
 
            GymMax features a TEAM playing offense against a TEAM playing defense. American Gladiators featured an individual trying to move through a series of contrived obstacles, based on a US Army obstacle course. I tried to AVOID contrived obstacles; I created pathways20to the goal, but the only OBSTACLE is the opposition. 
 
            GymMax features multiple pathways to the goal, which the competitors will move between. American Gladiators forced competitors through a specified course. 
 
            GymMax envisions athletes competing across a sustained schedule, and outlines a statistical record to evaluate their skills. American Gladiators has nothing remotely similar. 
 
            And on and on. .there's really NOT very much similarity between the sports. 
 
            On the issue of strength vs. speed. .yes, this is a speed game. If you can see ways that strength elements could be embodied in it without turning it into a aerial wrestling match, that would be a constructive suggestion, which is what I was trying to ask for. 
 
            But  
            a) The sport DOES require tremendous strength. . .so much so that your average baseball player would be hopeless at it. The sport requires you to grab hold of a series of overhead bars and pull yourself up, with your arms, rung by rung, 30 feet in the air. That requires a great deal of strength. ..in fact, it requires EXACTLY the the skills that are required by the rings. It simply adds a speed requirement to the activity. 
 
            b) The "show of strength" gymnastics are mostly MEN'S gymnastics.  I was primarily concerned with designing a sport for women. 

It is my view that it is inevitable and it is desirable that, eventually, 50 years in the future, there will be women's team sports that have much of the same power in the culture as men's team sports.  The world is very different than it was when you and I grew up, and there is a place there for women that wasn't there 50 years ago. 
 
            But I don't think basketball--or any sport designed for men--is going to be successfully adapted to be a popular women's team sport. Let's face it: 6-foot-6 inch women are not something that we want to watch. I don't think that any sport that emphasizes Muscle is going to produce women athletes that men want to watch. 
 
            I was trying to design a sport in which a small, quick athlete--a 5-foot-1 inch woman--could thrive. I think it works as a men's sport, but I think it would be a mistake to make it into a strength-based competition. 
 
Bill 
 

Bill,

Don't get me wrong.  I really like American Gladiators. Even Sue enjoys it a lot.  I've watched a fair amount of it and they have events that get closer to GymMax than you realize.  But certainly most of the things you say are true about the differences.  One of the keys is the team concept, as you suggest.

I'm not saying your game is a bad game.  And it could very well be a highly viewed sport if it were ever created. It's just not gymnastics.

The biggest problem is still that you haven't captured the essence of gymnastics.  I only used strength as an example.  Let's use floor exercise as another example.  The most impressive thing about floor are the tumbling runs with various difficult elements included. The difficult elements are the essence.  In your game, there are no tumbling runs, and if there were, it would be best to avoid the difficult elements.  How about balance beam?  The most impressive things are the flips and turns.  And even tumbling runs.  The best performers are now doing what amounts to tumbling runs on the balance beam.  In your game, all the flips, turns and tumbling runs on the balance beam are best avoided.  Those things are the essence of gymnastics that you are missing.

John Dewan

John—

I agree that there are elements of gymnastics that are not well captured in the game that I outlined. I basically was asking the readership for suggestions about how that could be done. 
 
            On the other hand. .. the design of my game is such that the people who would be best able to perform these tasks would be gymnasts.   If you took Michael Jordan, David Ortiz, Jermaine Dye, Bobby Jenks, Peyton and Eli Manning, Yao Ming, Michael Phelps and Shaun Johnson and put them competing at the sport that I designed, Shaun Johnson would absolutely annihilate them. She would be vastly better suited to the sport than would any athlete from any other sport. 
 
            And if you had the sport, you would see athletes swinging from ring to ring, leaping from bar to bar, vaulting from one place to another at fantastic speeds, and it would LOOK very much like gymnastics. Only involving multiple competitors at the same time. 
 
 

Bill