Onodi Files: Part One

Skills, Routines, and Competitions


This is the part one of the Onodi Files, covering her gymnastics skills, routines, and the competitions she participated. Many pieces of information within are obtained from the GYMN-L forum.


Contents

Her Skills
Competitions Tid Bits

Page 2: Henrietta's Routines
- descriptions of Henrietta's routines
Page 3: Henrietta's Scores
- the actual numerical scores Henni achieved in selected competitions


 

The skills named "Onodi"

There are two moves on the balance beam named after Henrietta:

the walkover(jump backward with 1/2 twist to walkover foward)- a "D" skill
the handspring(jump backward with 1/2 twist to handspring foward)- an "E" skill
(the difficulty ratings are according to the new '97 COP)

Adriana Duffy related the following tale of the two moves on GYMN-L:

(The "Onodi" has) a history as weird as the Omelianchik. Onodi submitted an arabian handspring at Stuttgart ('89 Worlds). She actually did an arabian front walkover but got credit anyway. When E's were added to the Code, it was rated an E. Recognizing that she and just about everyone else who does it does the walkover version, I'm told the new Code recognizes both the walkover as a D and the handspring as an E .... But since the handspring has been known as the "Onodi" for so long, they just kept her name on that one. To add to the confusion, Onodi didn't do it first at all -- Olga Mostepanova did this at Montreal '85 (so gymners say; I haven't seen the routine).

Note: Megan Jack has reported that Mostepanova performed this move as early as the 1983 World Championships


 

Quote on her skill variety

From the "Chalk Talk" column by Robin Catalano, IG, March 1997:

"Henrietta Onodi of Hungary has always been praised for her amazing assortment of skills, her ability to blend static poses with movement, sharp accents with smooth transitions."


 

Henni as the smallest ever competitor in AmCup

Henrietta made her first American Cup appearance in the 1987 AmCup at Fairfax, Virginia, when she was just a twelve-year-old. Her height then- all of 4 feet tall (that's the height of a balance beam, folks!)- made her the smallest competitor ever to appear in an AmCup competition


 

Why wasn't Henni in '88 Olympics

Henrietta was 6 months too young - in order to compete in Seoul a gymnast had to be at least 15 years old by the end of 1988. Henrietta was 14 years and 6 months old at that time.


 

Henrietta's AA score at the 1990 Europeans (Is she robbed a silver medal?)

The fact that a gymnast's score at each event is the average of the scores from all the judges (minus the highest and lowest scores), with any fraction after the one-thousandth place rounded down, has cost Henrietta a tie for the all-around silver medal in the 1990 European Championships. Here is the detail:

The final standing of the top three AA finishers in the 1990 Europeans: 

  
1. Svetlana Boginskaya(URS) 10.000     9.975     9.962     9.937     39.874
2. Natalia Kalinina (URS)    9.962     9.900     9.850     9.925     39.637
3. Henrietta Onodi (HUN)     9.862     9.950     9.912     9.912     39.636
And what the standing would be like if there were no rounding-down: 

1. Svetlana Boginskaya(URS) 10.0000    9.9750    9.9625    9.9375    39.8750
2. Natalia Kalinina (URS)    9.9625    9.9000    9.8500    9.9250    39.6375
2. Henrietta Onodi (HUN)     9.8625    9.9500    9.9125    9.9125    39.6375

 

Olympics FX medalists who used the same music

(From GYMN Trivia #37, June 1997)
Since 1976 only two Olympics floor exercise medalists have ever used the same piece of music:

  Julianne McNamara (USA) 1984 Olympics [Silver]
  Henrietta Onodi (HUN) 1992 Olympics [Silver]

The music is, of course, 'Hungarian Rhapsody'.


 

'92 Olympics medalists competing in Atlanta

There were twenty women's medallists at the 1992 Olympics (6 on each of the three medal-winning teams, plus Henrietta Onodi and Lu Li). Of those twenty, NINE competed in Atlanta (Boginskaya, Galieva, and Chusovitina from CIS; Milosovici and Gogean from Romania; Dawes, Miller, and Strug from the USA; and Onodi from Hungary). By comparison, only one medallist returned from Seoul '88 to Barcelona '92, and that gymnast was none other than Svetlana Boginskaya.

 
Next Page 2: Henrietta's Routines



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