Subdiv 2 Beam curse

This subdivision saw Italy and Australia face off directly, both major contenders for TF. Notable individuals were Marta Pihan-Kulesza POL, Tina Erceg CRO, Valeriia Maksiuta ISR, Giulia Steingruber SUI and Natalia Kononenko UKR. Unfortunately there was more heartbreak and mistakes than highlights in this subdivision.

Highlights

- Marta Pihan- Kulesza on floor, brilliant presentation and great tumbling. 14.33, great for low enough difficulty
- Vanessa Ferrari on floor and beam, absolutely fierce and confident on beam where she nailed everything, floor was typically powerful, her back tuck was fast enough- though not Myzdrikova fast.
- Ashleigh Brennan on floor. Very very precise in everything, all of her landings were stuck or almost stuck and such great form
- Lauren Mitchell who has been struggling with a stomach issue (which really explains her bad PT performance) got through everything decently, great to watch on floor evem though her double arabian is very cowboyed
- Erika Fasana, the new Italian senior was very exciting to watch and performed very well, especially on floor

Not-so highlights...

Natalia Kononenko fell off bars on her release combination, she did actually catch the second jaeger but wasn't able to carry it through and came off. A major contender for bars EF, so it was just awful to watch and she was understandably gutted.

Elisabetta Preziosa fell on her beam dismount. Gutted for her, I really wanted to see her in beam EF. Her beam and Kononenko's bars are a big artistic loss for their various EF's.

Marta Pihan- Kulesza fell off beam. Not a huge disaster but obviously affects her chances of making the AA.

Tina Erceg also fell off beam. It was going so well, she is just beautiful to watch, such a pity.

Valeriia Maksiuta who had an outside chance at beam EF fell off twice and had huge wobbles, and then stumbled back and sat her dismount. She was extremely heavily taped and strapped

Rough beam rotation for Australia, who handed the lead to Italy after Georgia Banora had a scary beam-hug type of fall and Ashleigh Brennan underrotated her double pike and put her hands down. Lauren Mitchell stepped up to the plate and had the best save I have seen in a long time- good for her! She got her dismount around but it was pretty low.

Giulia Steingruber had a bad time on both of her vaults, both had bad form and huge steps on landing and she put her hands down on the second one. Her score does not look high enough for Vault EF- shocker! Plenty of vaulters to go though yet.

Final score saw Italy with a two point lead over Australia, who themselves have a five point lead over Brazil. Brazil kept it together but are just too weak difficulty wise to get anywhere. No horrifying leotards from number one offenders, Italy and Australia! Italy wore the lovely blue one which circulated last week on the gymternet, and Australia wore a very similar one to USA Worlds TF, except in their own colours of course with a cobwebby-type sleeve pattern. Marta's looked very NCAA, but full points for her hair glitter and eyeshadow co-ordination. Ferrari looks totally on and like a top 8 AA finisher. She powered her DTY around, but it looked exactly like Aly Raisman's amanar! Next up is USA, Canada, France and GB- in just less than two hours.

Italy win the leo comp here, lovely combination and such a gorgeous blue. Marta probably had my least favourite.