Event finals have also taken place. Huang Huidan won bars with Tan Jiaxin in second and Wu Liufang in third. Li Yiting won vault- by a mile, her vaults are 6.0/6.3. Second place Xiang Tong's vaults are 5.2/5.3! Third place Yang Pei also had 6.0/6/.3 vaults but fell on both judging by the scores. Zeng Siqi added the beam title to her AA win, helped by a fall from Tan Sixin. Lou Nina came second and Li Shanshan (not the 2008 Olympian) came third. Shang Chungsong won floor, with Zhang Qing in second and Cui Jie in third. No 2012 Olympians performed.
Overall, a great competition for Zeng Siqi who with a DTY and some upgrades on floor (she did introduce one in this competition) would be able to rival Yao Jinnan nicely. Huang Huidan also had a strong competition and Shang Chungsong too. Very dissapointing for Tan Sixin who had a point to prove after being left off the 2012 team for inconsistency. Also for Wu Liufang who would have wanted a better outing than this, and counted a fall on day 1 from beam. All of these girls- and the 2012 Olympians- will be performing next year in the National Games, barring injury. They carry huge prestige and will be the final competition for many. It is expected that He Kexin, Sui Lu, Deng Linlin, Jiang Yuyuan and Huang Qiushuang will retire afterwards. That leaves room for new faces- and Li Yiting, Zeng Siqi, Huang Huidan and Shang Chungsong in particular should be at the forefront as well as upcoming juniors like Lou Nina. Li Yiting is an event specialist- but the most important kind, and a potential vault medallist.
I will add videos here as and when they become available. So far there is one which includes Li Yiting's DTT, starting at 0:56. Also in this video is part of Huang Huidan's bars.
And here is Wu Liufang's beam from day 1- AA, with a fall.
Part 2 of the first video, featuring an amazing tucked Barani on beam from Xiao Kangjun. Towards the end are Zeng Siqi on beam and one of Shang Chungsong's passes, she was lucky to land that punchfront. There are videos of Zeng on that channel but they are from Nationals in May, at which she was still recovering from injury so wasn't at her best.
Also some interesting insights from Lu Shanzen, Chinese head coach about the 1994-1996 team, brought on by a biography by Liu Xuan
- Not only could Mo Huilan, Bi Wenjing and Meng Fei perform the Mo Salto- so could Kui Yuanyuan, Jin Yu and Wen Jing
- Zhou Duan of the insane Gaylord II who medalled on vault at the 1997 Worlds was supposed to perform the move there too to have it named after her. Unfortunately her technique completely messed up right before Worlds so they had to hold back on it. I always wondered why she didn't do bars then!
- Guan Yujing did the counter-Kim and Liang Qiong the Gaylord in a piked position.
I really love these bars releases, amazing the talent China had at this time. Apparently the new code allows for an intermediate swing with some releases, which may mean we might see some of the above again some day!
I love your blog posts- hilarious & informative! I hope you keep writing even though it's a bit of a dry spell these days.
ReplyDeleteHow did you identify Xiao Kangjun? Her face was so blurry to me!
And just in case you didn't see them yet:
http://i.youku.com/u/UNDU4MDYwNDQ0/videos
Only the first 4 videos are from this past meet and I'm sure you don't need me to tell you who the gymnasts are. ;)
Thank you! Yes I'm looking forward to seeing them.I hear Tan Jiaxin has a Ricna-Deltchev combination and that Lou Nina's beam is gorgeous. Apparently Shang Chungsong's floor is disastrous, damn. There are some posted up on baidu I think, which I assume will not identify gymnasts in English.
DeleteShe is named on IG after a debate over who it was. Xiao has had the Barani for a while, think that was it! Unfortunately I'm no great shakes at identifying Chinese gymnasts if I haven't seen them a few times before.
I know the bars are Huang Huidan's! Really great routine.
Deletehttp://www.tudou.com/home/item_u114660322s0p1.html
I wish I understood Chinese. Here are some more!
Agreed. I can't get enough of Huang Huidan's bar transitions. As much as I love He Kexin's Li Ya release, it's all too refreshing to see a more fluid routine sans dead hangs.
DeleteBaidu? You are so brave/thorough! I can help you with Chinese names if you'd like- I'm better with listening comprehension though. :) But here are some to start:
眭禄 Sui Lu
姚金男 Yao Jinnan
黄秋爽 Huang Qiushuang
吴柳房 Wu Liufang
曾斯琪 Zeng Siqi
谭思欣 Tan Sixin
商春松 Shang Chunsong
骆佩茹 Luo Peiru
楼妮娜 Lou Nina
黄慧丹 Huang Huidan
李依婷 Li Yiting
高低杠 Uneven Bars
平衡木 balance beam
自由操 floor exercise
跳马 vault
全能 All Around
体操 gymnastics
And I wish I understood Russian & Romanian! Most of these gymnasts seem to have a great personality that the U.S. media fails to convey. (ie: Sandra Ponor's hilarious twitter response to somebody's remark that her leotard was too high cut)
Yes, that's why Yao Jinnan's bars stand out, no room for dead hangs there either. I LOVE Tan Jiaxin's too. Haha I wish I understood those languages too. I'm only really fluent in Irish which is of zero use. Thank you for the names, I remember reading an autobiography which explained the reasoning behind the characters, fascinating. However vikamustafina uploaded a lot of videos on youtube, very handy. Haha yes I saw that! She has pretty good English in interviews too.
DeleteHaha yup thank god for those good youtube people. I honestly haven't a clue as to how to convert TV footage to youtube. But I guess I meant for the next time you find yourself on baidu because there's nothing in the English-speaking world yet. ;)
DeleteWhat's the difference between Irish/Celtic/Gaelic? My ignorance stems from the fact that the only time Ireland was mentioned in my history courses were in regards to the potato famine. And so now, I basically associate Ireland with the sole producer of gorgeous redheaded people, a pub scene, St. Patrick's day/leprechauns/etc, and a love for potatoes.
On the other hand, not knowing Russian forces me to use Google translate for Musty's sprashivai, which I look at whenever I need a good laugh. :) My favorite one so far is: anon asking "You'll be the star disease" and she replies with "Time will tell."
There is a group of languages, called either Celtic languages or Gaelic languages, Gaelic would be more accurate. These include, Scots Gaelic, Welsh, Cornish and one or two others and also Irish, which is called Gaeilge. It's pretty similar to Scots Gaelic. Ireland was loosely controlled by Britain for a lot of the last millenium, and was part of the United Kingdom itself from 1801-1921. During this time, the famine occurred- from potato blight. Ireland was still producing tonnes of food during this time, which was exported to England under armed guard. Britain refused aid (laissez-faire policy it's called in order not to upset the markets) and just enforced workhouses instead which became centres of death. A country part of the extremely prosperous and wealthy United Kingdom was starving and they didn't care. There is huge bitterness over it and it is often called a genocide rather than an actual famine- as we were producing enough food to feed the people. It lasted 6 years. About 2 million, a full quarter of the population died. Another 2 million emigrated. Emigration continued after it was over. This is why there are so many people of Irish descent in America, Britain and Canada. Anyway, red haired people are actually more common in Scotland! We produce a lot of blue eyed brown haired people really. Yes a giant alcohol problem alright.
DeleteHahaha good one. My favourite is Maria Paseka becoming Maria Bee Farm and of course, 'she is good on the log'.
So Ireland produced food but it had to be exported to England because Britain didn't want to rely on outside help? That's crazy. I'm reading this on wiki now and it's saying that the Irish gov't couldn't enforce an export ban. How sad. So is there still residue animosity between the Irish and English like there is between the French and English?
ReplyDeleteAnd I think we win on the alcohol problem- I feel like the U.S. has the strictest drinking laws and still, so much drinking & driving.
Bee Farm is so great! I wonder if she knows. And the log makes sense- in Chinese, it's literally "horizontal wood" but I think google translate does a better job in not giving us the literal translation.
The food was always being produced, lots of farms and fertile land here but the people themselves lived on miniscule plots so small they could only grow potatoes for their own families. It's just that the exports continued all the way through. The convoys were attacked by mobs, so they introduced armed guards then.
DeleteYes there is, but there's a lot more than the famine- actions in the last century were fairly controversial too, like reactions to rebellions. Most people despise the history but look upon the UK nowadays without hostility. There is an element of anti-Britishness though.
We have a huge binge drinking problem. Incredibly strict licensing laws, like you can't buy drink after 10pm in off-licenses and almost every single club closes at 2:30. It means everyone's on the streets at the same time and it's chaos. It is engrained in our culture really. I think France does it right, no real strict laws, healthy attitude towards alcohol. They don't have a problem and it's something to emulate. Drink driving used to be a big issue here especially rurally, but enormous campaigns and crackdowns and checkpoints have brought it right down.
Ah how could I forget my favourite, Jordyn Wieber translates as 'Choose the Jordin'. 'Choose the had the jump advantage with the 2.5 screw' LOL. Yes it just sounds hilarious when log is being mentioned all the time.
Okay wow, nevermind. You guys win for drinking laws. I remember meeting Irish students this past summer who were studying abroad at my school and they were saying how much they loved the "freedom" here but they were super drunk so I had no clue what that meant. I guess it may have been in reference to the freedom to buy alcohol whenever and late clubs.
ReplyDeleteHaha that's really funny. I like that one a lot. Wish that were as popular as Bee Farm. Hope Maroney works up to the 3 screw soon.
And I appreciate the history lesson. Are all Irish people this informed? I can tell you most Americans don't even know the difference between the Civil and Revolutionary Wars.
ReplyDelete