The Olympic Hopes meet was held recently in Penza for girls born in 2001 and 2002. Varvara Zubova, who is 10 and won't be senior until 2018 stands out. She came third in the AA and won beam, floor and bars in the event finals. Scores not much above 11...but she is incredibly young to begin with. Anyway, she has an awesome beam and I can't wait to see more of her. Loving the Chuso style hair too. I can't embed it but here it is.
Elizabeth Price has stormed her second world cup, her AA total gave her the gold by just over 5 points. Her beam is still below the standard she would need to destroy proper international competition, but even so- extremely impressive performance, even with the two out of bounds on floor. Full results can be found here.
Rebecca Tunney would have been second had she not fallen off beam. She screams potential, I'd love to see her sharpen up her form and upgrade. With her long lines, her little form errors seem glaring. She could be exquisite! I'm happy to see she is looking slightly less waif like than in London and that her bars are seriously impressive and so fast. I do think she was lowballed on vault though, she got a very low d-score in comparison to Ebee, who also had some issues with her vault but was not deducted near as harshly. (8.566 Vs 9.4). Lesser vaults should not have different execution scoring systems.
My favourite routine of the day though was Wakana Inoue's bars. Glorious form and swing and perfect tension in her turns. Beautiful work.
All other videos are here.
McKayla Maroney has had her last surgery, which was to remove screws. We can expect to see her in rehab before the new year, and then gym. Certainly worlds next year are not out of the question for her, especially if she ditches bars and beam.Though her beam still has potential.
The roster for the Voronin Cup taking place soon is still not confirmed. There is a farce of a list floating around with Amanda Jetter on it, who is not even on the National Team so can't be picked. It would be great if there was an American contingent though. The Russian crew have been confirmed by Ksenia Semenova to be Aliya Mustafina, Tatiana Nabieva and Anna Dementyeva which would be fantastic. For their juniors I would like to see some of the girls who aren't getting many assignments, like Ekaterina Baturina or Daria Spiridonova. UPDATE: Tatiana Nabieva has said she is not competing. The lineup remains most mysterious.
Congratulations to Anna Dementyeva and Evgeniya Shelgunova who have won the senior and junior AA at Voronin respectively. Anna Pavlova and Daria Elizarova completed the senior podium and Maria Kharenkova and Mariana de Oliveira of Brazil the junior. No need to worry over why Komova and Mustafina did not place, as I highly doubt either strayed beyond bars/beam.
What did you think of Mai Murakami's performance at Stuttgart? I thought she seemed sluggish and tired. Definitely not the vibrant,bouncy performances we're used to from her.
ReplyDeleteVery up and down! She certainly improved from prelims to team finals. I think that is a monster growth spurt she is dealing with, but she still has her previous big skills and she was sharp on floor in team finals, as she was at Japanese Nationals a few weeks back. I liked her beam, the triple needs a bit of work. Her acro line is great, the same as Deng Linlin's I think and she has a nice turn combo in there too, though she did not do it both days. Vault looks like they are deliberately playing it safe there. Her bars will probably never be used in a worlds team situation BUT they have improved an awful lot, so good for her.
DeleteIt's such an off-peak time I can't bring myself to worry really. I don't expect to see her throwing her mental skills from training until it really matters- like Nationals and hopefully worlds. I doubt we'll see all of them, but I'd be deliriously happy with one.
True. She was very good at National despite her growth spurt. I'm just hoping she makes the Worlds team. I'd love to see her there and maybe win a medal.
DeleteYes, that is the dream. Along with Mustafina and Iordache.
DeleteWatching Wakana's bars, I just kept thinking, this is the way it's supposed to be. She swings easily. It seems that so many gymnasts these days fight with the bars, like they don't know how to move WITH them.
ReplyDeleteYes! Jordyn and Aly come to mind, there's no swing in Jordyn's routine for one thing but both of them are fighting the whole way through. I'd love if Wakana had some monster uogrades planned, that routine deserves recognition.
DeleteI just wanted to say that I'm Lis (I post on GTT sometimes). And, yes, I agree. I know that Jordyn has a high start value but she looks like she's working against the bars. It's rare to see someone like Wakana who truly flows.
DeleteYes, though her routine is still fairly impressive that she can rack up the start value that high. The main problem is that a tiny tiny mistake offsets the whole thing. Welcome! I'm not posting on GTT as much as I did (especially when politics comes up as I am not American) but I still read it all the time.
DeleteAnd it seems that Jordyn always has some tiny mistake that just seems to make it look icky. I like that your blog is just gymnastics. I don't like mixing my politics with my gymnastics ;)
DeleteThe little Russian is a cutie pie!
ReplyDeleteI have been checking out a few of your stories and i can state pretty good stuff. I will definitely bookmark your blog
ReplyDeletesewer jetter