Subdiv 4: Aliya rocks her gameface

Ooo, another very interesting subdivision. This one saw Russia square off against China, Germany and a mixed group (and against USA's mammoth team total earlier). Sadly, Yao Jinnan is very much affected by her injury recovery and newly sustained recovery..I didn't see her bars, but everything else had huge errors and falls. Such a shame. Vika brought IT to competition, seems to have had errors on floor (..not broadcast), but nailed everything else. Slightly crossed legs on her amanar, but it was good and clean and high. (Paseka's not seen..). I am impatiently waiting for footage of Afan's floor to emerge, damn you BBC! No amanar from Qiushuang and plenty of missed connections for the Russians on their upgrades, but very exciting nonetheless as they almost reached USA's total.

Highlights

- Sui Lu's beam. BEAUTIFUL. Absolutely solid, and so clean.
- Vika's bars. She has the edge over Musty here, but not by much. So precise and crisp
- He Kexin ROCKED that bars routine. She does have more SV in the bag, competed a 7.1 here. Looks like enough to really challenge for the top so maybe she'll keep it safe and stick to the 7.1. Delighted for her
- Chuso once again throwing a huge vault, for which we must forgive those form errors
- Huang Qiushuang's floor. Yes her tumbling landings weren't great but she got sooo into her choreo, fantastic expression
- Elizabeth Seitz on bars. Did a def and has really cleaned up on her form, great to see
- Grishina's floor. Lovely as always AND she really did an excellent job on the Silivas, even with the OOB

Jessica's Gil Ortiz and Lopez had pretty bad leotards, Gil ortiz gets a bonus point for her fabulous hair though. Russia's was pretty boring, bring out the fabulous elegance! Interesting that they brought a side angle for He Kexin's bars when we've been looking at dead-on angles all day. Hmm. Hope for multiple angles at TF, AA and EF! The hot pink and purple is fine..until an aerial shot when it really starts to hurt the eyes! Enjoying the slow-mo on leaps and vaults that BBC are providing, but wow did not need to see Yao Jinnan crash over and over again.

So Russia and USA are really close, both over the 180 mark. What will Romania bring??? 2 hours to go!