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Sunday 18 November 2012

Massilia Elite News and videos

Russia won the team event by quite a margin, helped by the fact that China only submitted 2/3 bars routines and consequently placed last. The reason for this was that the visa for the lovely Mei Jie was not received in time. You would imagine Lou Nina could jump up and do an extremely basic routine but obviously not.

Evgeniya Shelgunova won the AA, a nice boost for her entering her senior year shortly. When I think of her I think of the proverb 'Slow and steady wins the race'. I do see her possibly taking AA spots from the more fragile and headcase type gymnasts Russia have at the moment, not to mention how many injuries they are dealing with. We'll see. She really needs work on her form though, and she did fall in event finals. Hmmm.

Chen Siyi won bars. She and several others including Viktoria Kuzmina and Evgeniya Shelgunova fell on beam, whose title went to Gabriella Douglas of Canada. Floor was won by Maria Kharenkova, and vault by Emma Larson of Sweden. Sabrina Gill of Canada placed third on vault and Heaven Latimer also of Canada placed second on floor. Viktoria Kuzmina salvaged bronze on beam with her fall and second on bars.

Victoria Moors unleashed a new floor routine. Either she is pacing herself for the upcoming world cup events or maybe nursing a small injury since she had trouble with her double double in warmup and watered down. Watered down means a double layout opening pass and a double twist, so still very impressive. The choreo is really nice, she has tons of expression. There was dissapointment with Maria Kharenkova who seemed lacklustre, has gotten weaker on bars which she already needed to improve on and did not perform her signature turn on beam. Again, possibly injured slightly or just dealing with growth. Viktoria Kuzmina certainly stepped up to the plate and performed strongly however. There was great excitement over the bar routine of Ida Gustaffson of Swededn, though she fell on her Jaeger in bars finals. Gabriella Douglas also impressed, with an attempted quad turn into double turn combo on floor (which was a triple to double in the end- still awesome) and some lovely work on beam.

I can't embed videos because it takes blogger a while to catch up with recent uploads. But the channel is here. I recommend watching the Chinese routines after the Russian ones. Shelgunova's Pak, double layout and shap are very poor form-wise, but Kuzmina's and Kharenkova's routines need huge amounts of work too.


11 comments:

  1. OMGOMGOMG Just found out via TCG: http://www.dtbpokal.de/nationenteilnehmer.html

    ONE INTERNATIONAL ASSIGNMENT FOR MAI!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

    Oh and Mustafina will be there, too. :)

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    1. Someone mentioned this a while ago, but I waited to hear about the rest of the participants. Excellent though!

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    2. Haha sorry! I know you're way more on top of these things than I ever will be (even if you're too busy to post about it), but I didn't know where else to unleash my excitement. Apologies. :)

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    3. Ha no need to apologise! I KNOW I wasn't expecting such a magical combination until worlds.

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  2. I don't find these Russians impressive in the slightest. One thing to have form problems but they have nothing on Mustafina, Komova or even Grishina. They just appear really average and their lack of vault ability is concerning too. Actually all countries look poor on vault expect for the Americans.

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    1. I'm not really enamoured either. Though I do think Kharenkova may have been injured. Shelgunova is coming off an injury and her bars screams new additions and skills, in which case let's hope a lot of form work is done in the meantime. Kharenkova's bars are probably more worrying.

      There are plenty of Russian juniors who are great on floor, some with a lovely lightness. Need a lot more difficulty though. Beam is still a nemesis, bars are hit and miss and vault..let's not go there.

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  3. "You would imagine Lou Nina could jump up and do an extremely basic routine but obviously not."

    So true! There's something VERY wrong with a Chinese gymnast who doesn't have decent (or, at the very minimal, BASIC) bars! Unless her name is Cheng Fei. Any clue why?

    Also, Liu's beam wasn't as difficult but I thought it was much more artistic :) :) I think her wolf jump-aerial got more fame than anything else out of this competition. And Kharenkova's floor was still very enjoyable compared to her competition. Thank god for Russia!

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    1. Apparently Cheng Fei was afraid of heights is what I think I remember from somewhere. Amazing how she could vault though ;)

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    2. Yeah that's what I've heard from the very few youtube videos of Cheng Fei's bars, as well. Was that Asac's fear as well? You're right though- it's still kind of odd to me because vaulting requires a lot of amplitude as well.

      I'm seriously pretty heartbroken every time I find out my favorite beamworkers (from China, at least) can't do bars, e.g. Sui Lu. Is it bad that I expect those to be givens? Freaking Lou Nina- her bars from 2009 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBZtV6He7BM) don't look TERRIBLE for a new junior! Okay, it was only a kip-cast, some giants and dismount, but still, in terms of lines and toe point and overall form.. well, I would have guessed that she had the potential all right there..

      Fast forward to 2011 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xYGZKWjTv8) and it's like.. she never touched the apparatus during training!! I'm as confused as hell.
      So, I'm putting my bets on Zeng Siqi; unless Lou Nina becomes the next Sui Lu, I don't see her going anywhere.

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    3. I just noticed that I ended my first 3 sentences with "as well." That disgusts me.

      Clearly I'm going to have a word with my crack dealer.

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    4. I like Lou Nina and I think if she's ace on floor, good beam and has a decent vault, she's still going to have shot in China, since China has never lacked bars workers. Strategically it probably makes more sense for Nina to just focus and be a three-event specialist rather than waste time training on an apparatus which probably isn't great on and where China has endless depth of talent. Might have been a coaching decision as well.. she's getting quite a bit of international exposure so it looks quite promising for her if she can fill the 'holes' China always has!

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