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Sunday 3 March 2013

American Cup- updated with more from my brain

What a weekend! I missed Russian Championships quals and AA from forgetting to set my alarm but will be catching up during the week. I blocked out English Championships due to their conflict with American Cup but there are some very interesting videos up- especially bars! Exciting stuff. But first, on to the elite debut and first post-London return of 8 fabulous gymnasts.

Highlights:

Gabby Jupp WOW! I knew she was going to be a treat on beam and floor as I've had my eye on her for quite a while now, but her bars and her confidence were unexpected. You would think she was the seasoned Vanessa Ferrari and not a brand new unknown senior at her first big assignment. She absolutely attacked her beam and bars though never sacrificing finesse or polish. Beautiful lines, fabulous toepoint, astonishing elegance. And SO underscored. The best part of the whole competition was that there were no overscores except one- Ohashi's vault- but there were underscores. Gabby's vault got nearly three tenths below the decent but quite flawed effort of Ohashi's, which was mind boggling. Certainly the dynamics of it were not brilliant; too low and too short a distance travelled. But it was truly beautiful, floaty and light with a great landing. So while it did have deductions built into it, it didn't deserve THAT much compared to vaults with other obvious problems. Her vault knocked her out of medal contention straight away but hopefully she can crank out a DTY in the future when she grows a bit. I can't get enough of her beautiful bars and her gorgeous BHS-LOSO-LOSO on beam which was fresh from the 90's and rightfully earned appreciation from the crowd. Floor was another treat, nice dance with such a lightness to her work and she already has substantial difficulty with her first two passes. She will need to work on her leaps and increase her difficulty, but it's great to see a gymnast excelling at her own pace instead of fighting to beat the code too early. Lovely elegant gymnast who is on her way to excelling outside of the Euros field, and I'm glad to see her gaining a lot of new fans.

Simone Biles I don't think we've ever seen anyone this powerful? Except Daiane Dos Santos whom she absolutely channelled on floor. It's not that we haven't seen these skills before, it's that it's very rare to see someone do them with such ease and extra power. First up, the amanar with a large extra hop. It's improved on last year's explosive effort, it's now getting more height and distance. It gets about the same height as McKayla Maroney's, but she gets more distance. I haven't seen it from enough angles yet to really examine Simone's leg form on entry etc. but I do think her legs are straighter and her hip angle is better than McKayla's, but her foot form is pretty loose with maybe a bit of crossing going on. What is obvious is that a TTY is just around the corner for this girl. Onto bars, where she surprised everyone by catching both of her difficult new releases and her Maloney with ease- skills she fell on over and over in training and warm-ups. Her form looks much better though could still be tightened up and I'm not sold on her Wieler kip. Her dismount is so high above the bar, incredible to watch. She had much less trouble with her beam in training, but it's where she came to grief in the end, on her new layout pass. In a post-meet interview she stated that she was nervous and her legs were buckling a bit. Her face was heartbreaking to see but she came back strong, nailed her incredibly hard dismount and managed to smile widely. Great recovery. And fascinating to see her land her dismount with her chest higher than everyone else with their double pikes.

Floor was where I most excited to see her- and she didn't dissapoint tumbling wise, with an enormous double double, great easy double layout, a very unusual 1 and a half into double pike and lovely twisting. Her floor music has really grown on me, and she sells it very well- nice choreography. Sadly she gave away numerous tenths with every pass on her landings, short on the second and way over on the others- just like Dos Santos who lost plenty of floor titles for the same problem. Hopefully Simone can rein in her power, or else upgrade her passes. All in all a wonderful debut for her, with what looks like a fluke fall. She has definitely made her mark as one to watch in the US.

Upgrades I'd like to see for Simone- Bars: Double double- either tucked (Fabrichnova) or laidout (Ray). Would love to see a video of her doing a triple back into a pit, the only person I would confidently say could nail that. Floor: Triple twisting double back, DLO- punchfront-stag (Atler style!), 1 and a half into full in pike and a triple full. Overkill? If she could do that it would greatly help her landing errors though..Vault: TTY Beam: Chuck the Strug, not working. I'd have her doing straddle leaps and wolf jumps since they're so achievable for her- with a much more convincing straddle split than side split- and for a more difficult one, a switch ring leap- they look much easier to achieve now. More connections, something out of her layout.

Katelyn Ohashi Great to see her hit 4/4, especially after all the doubt surrounding her last year. Her beam was another high point, her layout full was improved on what she showed in training (I'm going to harp on and still advocate it being scrapped though) and the routine flowed really well- although there's incredible difficulty present it never felt like skill-skill. She missed the connection on her lovely Onodi-aerial-aerial-sheep, but still great to watch. Always nice to see her land the more difficult vault totally safely, I'm just hoping her technique will improve on it as it's still quite messy- and undeserving of a 9.1 e-score... Nice to see her back in the hunt for AA though, she really proved herself capable. Bars were a let-down, she leaves herself open for massive deductions on every pirouette but especially the Healy, and it looked like quite a struggle for her to get through the routine. I'd advise cutting it down a bit until she has more of a hold on her skills and better form and precision. As for floor- I love it! Fabulous music, nice choreography. Her tumbling is a little untidy I think but it's solid, her Memmel turn is beautiful and she had the quick twitch reaction to water down her punchfront on the last pass. It will never be amazing or her main strength, but she has definitely improved here. A convincing win, though I would have liked to have seen more fight for it!

Victoria Moors Victoria really paced herself brilliantly for this event, she wasn't looking great at Canadian Nationals and she was having quite a few issues in training but no worries, she had a stellar meet. Decent DTY from her, and looks like something she could easily improve. I don't see her making it into an amanar but she's one who will benefit from its downgrading. Her beam was an utter delight, floaty but so confident. Lovely smooth movements, so fun to watch. There's enormous potential in the routine as she doesn't really connect anything yet, looking forward to seeing it develop this quad. Her bars too have improved, nice and precise and even though she released too early on the dismount it was still great, lovely in the air. Onto the important bit- that floor. Everybody had big expectations for it and Victoria went above and beyond. Kept it to three passes and showed off her dance. Absolutely love the dramatic bit in the middle when the music quietens, and her turn near the corner is just fabulous. I'm running out of adjectives here! She will need another pass to contend for floor medals, and some upgrades but for the moment we should just rejoice at the perfection of this routine. A really confident start for Victoria who is still only 16.

Best routines:

1. Victoria Moors- floor
2. Gabby Jupp- beam
3. Simone Biles- floor (flawed of course- but the potential!)

Boo: 

- Underscores. There was, as previously mentioned, only one overscore- a welcome change for American Cup, known for insanely high American scores. Gabby Jupp and Victoria Moors were in comparison to others, screwed a bit. I understand Gabby's vault score to an extent as she had less height than most and little distance, but it was still slightly too low- following the usual trend of scoring more difficult vaults higher in execution (not cool.) Her beam had a three tenth step, but had no business being only at 8.1- when Katelyn's had 8.533 with more errors. Similarly, Victoria's beam execution was too low. And again stories for both gymnasts on bars and floor- especially Victoria's floor, only one tenth higher than Katelyn's execution.
- Simone falling off beam. That was a real 'nooooo!' moment.
- Maegan Chant's debut, hopefully she comes away from this competition with a lot of determination and more confidence.
- The fact that Simone would not have been the leader after three rotations without the fall. Sorry, what?

More thoughts:
- Really surprised to see Vanessa Ferrari push for high difficulty on floor- great double double and full-in to back tuck- one of the fastest connections she's had on that. Amazing, and a great routine. I'd also like to add that her leotard choices are entertaining, not disgusting. She has her own style and she couldn't care less about what the fans think. Good for her.
- I am still not a fan of the new switch ring rule. In my woeful physical gymnastics ignorance it looks easier now, since it's now easier to get your back leg as high or higher than your head. I'm predicting a little surge in these.
- Katelyn Ohashi is struggling to keep up with her difficulty. Either she's at an endurance low point as far as the year goes or it needs to calm down a little- all of her routines look very hard for her, she does not portray anything as easy. This is something that struck me afresh in podium training and the actual meet confirmed it.
- Simone Biles has made a strong claim as USA's number 1 powerhouse. She doesn't have the difficulty of the others (Ebee and Lexie) yet- but more ease, height and better choreography and form.
- I'm really liking the workarounds for not pausing in the corner before passes on floor. They are still cheating the pause but it looks way better and lots of the little dance bits near the corner are pretty dainty. Asuka Teramoto had a very zippy one I thought.
- That thing Chellsie Memmel did- straddled toe-rise from floor (name..?) appeared in two routines. Loving it. Simone Biles also had interesting toe-rises- especially the beam one. It's the little things.
- I liked Jon Horton and Shannon Miller commentating on the first half. Kept it interesting, good chemistry and knowledge was imparted without snark. The summer baby twinsies thing was cute. My second half was commentated by Phillip Boy and Marie-Sophie Hindermann who may have spent the whole time viciously slandering all non-German gymnasts and I would not have noticed.
- The MAG splatfest was a bit heartbreaking. Lots of new upgrades being ambitiously added which will hopefully be smoother later on- and obviously, Danell Leyva won't be sick forever. Poor guy.
- Even with the moaning about the underscoring above, I was really impressed with its general sensibility. No crazy 9.5's handed out for Americans etc. So I will continue not calling it SCAM.

Best leotard: Gabby Jupp. It's not new (none of them were except USA) but it's a classic with great incorporation of the flag.

Video highlights:


And a bonus:


What/who was your highlight? I also really enjoyed Maegan Chant on vault, Asuka Teramoto on floor, bars and beam, Elizabeth Seitz on bars and Vanessa Ferrari on floor, bars and beam but you can't fit everything in!

Edit- Ugh, apologies for my sentence structure. It's really gone downhill, I think I'm too tired when writing posts. I was much better at formal writing such as essays but I'm still relatively new to blogging...err yeah, less than a year so that still counts.


30 comments:

  1. I LOVE your blog! I check it twice a day in order to see if you have posted anything new. this is my first time commenting bc I am usually on my iphone and for some reason it will not let me post only on my laptop. My name is Katharine also :) I think what makes this blog so great is that you are so knowledgable about the sport. My favorite routines from last night would have to be Moors floor and Ohashi's floor as well! Biles vault was great also. Im over Kyla I feel as if she has been performing the same routines without upgrades since pac rims 2010! (a little exxagerating) if she wants to contend for AA or even make another olympic team we she needs to upgrade. Its almost as if she is hesitant to upgrade.

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    1. Oh thanks! Great to hear. Haha I can't comment (or post but that's another story..grr US only phone posting) either because it brings up my full name without fail. I kind of surprise myself with how much knowledge I have amassed..it's been less than 2 years. A long way to go- I look forward to being able to code routines.

      I really enjoyed Ohashi's choreography and her tumbling was solid but it just is missing the extra factor for me as it's a tiny bit sloppy and untidy. Hoping for improvement there. Ha I just realised I forgot to mention Kyla's exhibition beam. I was a little puzzled that she trained all 4 events here but I suppose any podium training opportunity is to be grabbed at. It was a great routine. I'm thinking she has to have some upgrades, but now was not the time with her training cut into by injury recovery. Hopefully there'll be a chance to see some before Nationals. She's grown so much that she has to adjust things as well as uograde, that's tough.

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  2. It's so nice to see such great talent from up and coming countries! Moors' floor is lovely, her tumbling is smooth and looks nice and easy for her and she moves and dances so well - really sold the routine. I'm really impressed with Jupp too, amazing attack for a first major comp and she is a lot more fluid and graceful than Tunney (who would really benefit from some dance training!) but I just wish she would fix her wrists/fingers which are a bit jarring. GBR is definitely coming up, I really like Ellie Downie as well who looks like she has great potential as an all-rounder, with loads of power, good technique and plenty of room to upgrade.

    Glad Biles had a good meet overall, and a TTY is definitely well within her reach - she just has SO much power on everything. Hopefully upgrading her passes will help with the bounding way out problem. I'm still not sold on Ohashi though I'm glad she's still alive, I just feel like there's too much pressure on her to be the next WOGA star and she doesn't really deserve it all, plus she's so small that I wonder if a growth spurt is going to hit soon. I only really like Ohashi's beam anyway.

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    1. The passes I put down seem a bit too ambitious. And they probably are numbers-wise but she really blows your average power gymnast out of the park. Even if she just does the last two upgrades that would help bigtime.

      Killer line- I'm glad she's still alive! Me too, pleasantly suprised with the security of her vault. I hope she's handled correctly. Beam is the only event where she stands out on- compared to Biles, who stands out on 2 and has moments of greatness in the others. Her bars may be the biggest problem as US still need depth there.

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  3. Also I hate Ohashi's new McKayla-esqe hairstyle. It looks so messy and sloppy especially when the hair is quite long, it just bobs and flops around while she is on the beam and is so distracting!

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    1. Yeah I usually block hair out but it's so nice when it's neat. Like Jupp- and Tunney rocking their buns, love it. Victoria's hair is seriously long and she manages it fine. Aliya also had a very neat bun today. I'd find it hard since my hair is short but all of these girls have long hair- made for buns so no reason why certain offenders in the US can't follow suit.

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    2. kari lee (nastia cup) won best gym hair from me on the weekend! gorgeous and interest bun braid combo :)

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    3. I'd no access to it..I suppose I could have tried with proxies like for American Cup but NL cup started so late for me, wasn't that pushed. That sounds nice- I like when plaits are involved- like He Kexin UB EF London. I do want to see Sidney Johnson-Scharpf's floor, heard it's amazing and couldn't find it on youtube..

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    4. oh you'd love her floor. she has such flair and confidence for a youngin! dance elements are fab and she interprets the music well. a little show-offy but in the best way possible for floor. strong tumbling too!

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    5. I eventually found her qualifying floor on gymnastike! LOVE it!

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  4. Katelyn: Cute as a button. The sheepish look on her face after floor was priceless. For some reason I feel or sense Valeri is not as hard on her. I was glad she didn't fall or head case and slowly shes winning me over. Im not sold yet on her being an AA. The only thing with Katelyn is I wonder about her fire and desire to push to go to the Olympics.

    Simone: Love this kid. All she needs to do is contain that power and energy during competition. If she can do this she should have no issues with landings.
    I was so proud that she hit her bar routine and what I've seen with her form holds promise. Her beam routine was unfortunate and it broke my heart to see the look on her face after she fell. But she held it together in the end.

    Viky Moors: Agreed. She needs too uprade because to not see her in a floor final is a crime.

    Gabby Jupp: very impressed with this kid. Very confident. Her bar routine should have scored higher just on tye clean lines,pointed toes, and nailed handstands.

    Asuka: My god shes so tiny but I liked her floor routine.

    Vanessa F: Like an italian version of Chelsie memmel.

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    1. I'm not sold on her doing AA either..but she certainly improved since last year on vault, and floor I think too. I believe bars have gotten worse though.

      I was so thrilled Simone nailed bars. What a boost to win bars- an event she is absolutely not known for- in a meet containing Seitz and Ohashi. My phone rang in the middle of it and I was raging!

      Haha Asuka is 4'6. That means she's smaller then Gutsu and other such pixies. She still confidently beats Kim Gwang Suk and Bai Chunyue in the height stakes though. I hope she grows, it would help her out so much on floor and vault.

      Thrilled as I am to see a gymnast like Moors so at ease with her gymnastics- girl needs upgrades! Now! Nah, but in time for worlds.

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  5. I love Biles, am unimpressed by Ohashi. Honestly Ohashi is only really good on beam, whereas Simone is already good on floor and vault and has potential on everything. Love Victoria's floor and Asuka on beam. I am very confident that we will see the TTY from Simone at WC (the only way we won't is an injury, or her not making the team). I think that, aside from Simone, Mai Murakami has the best chance of a triple back (maybe once she grows a little?)

    I agree with Rachel, I hate the McKayla floppy bun look. It is so messy and distracting. Gymnasts should wear a tidy ponytail or bun while competing, that half-tucked in thing is hideous.

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    1. I'm very impressed that Ohashi has improved quite a bit since Nationals. In other ways she has disimproved but even so. Jury is still out on her at this stage I think. I think the best logic for the worlds team is 3 AA-ers, and everyone having potential for at least one EF medal for not more. Simone has the potential to medal in AA, and will medal in floor and vault if she cleans up/upgrades her floor landings. She has a second vault in the works and the TTY is a question of when, not if. Katelyn for her beam I think, possibly not if Kyla upgrades hers enough. It depends on whether or not Katelyn can fix her bars for them to be more valuable than Kyla's. I'd probably take all 4. I'm not sure where Mykayla, McKayla and Ebee fit in. Simone is more valuable than McKayla even if both have TTY's. She's also more valuable then Ebee and incurs less deductions than Lexie and Mykayla. Mykayla needs to improve on her other two events and have monster consistency when she's known for the opposite. If Simone gets the TTY and a decent second vault then the potential value of Mykayla having an amanar and Cheng goes down.

      Mai has trained a triple twisting double back. If you mean the bars dismount- she doesn't have spectacular height on hers. She has certainly grown though yes, maybe if she grows a little bit more she can actually compete what she trains.

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  6. I think the Chellsie thing is called a seat drop? At least that's what she called it in her GymCastic interview.

    P.S. I tend to lurk instead of comment, but I very much enjoy your blog—ran across it shortly after the Olympics and I always love reading your new posts. :-)

    —GymAnon

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    1. Ha that's odd if it is- I'd call what Lloimincia Hall does in her floor a seat 'drop'- but this is kinda the opposite in a way.

      And thanks! I enjoy comments but lurk away if that's what you prefer :)

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  7. Wonderful weekend for me as well but a bit disastrous to my slee;ing hours:P I got home about 16:30 yesterday so I didn't watch full Russian Championships and the livestream always lagged... but still fortunate to watch it :)
    Biles's bars is phenomenal and I think let will take advantages to her in US. And she still can upgrade it. Someone told me that there was a training vid that she did double twisting double layout dismount in. Her wobble from aerial proved my speculation that she has troubling sticking it. If she can improve it, then she she can build a series after aerial. if not, she should take off it. I think the success percentage of her layout acro line is only 60% especially when she is in comp... and maybe she can move it to the beginning when she still has high concentration. One thing confusing me is that why she missed those combination while she did land both leaps well and could immediately do a tuck/piked back? and yes, her dismount is incredible!
    She is still full of energy on floor but just like Nastia said she should learn to control her strength.(Yeah, unfortunately I couldn't watch livestream from DTB so I can only watch it from NBC where is filled with ads... I was satisfied though.) She still has other upgraded skills/tumbling pass can put into her routine (there was a vid that she did 540 into tuck full ) so her D score can be higher but now the most important issue is her landing definitely.
    A pity that she didn't take the title but she did make a great progress since last year. She wants to make the Rio team so she works hard.(Upgrading A LOT on all four events whinh is crazy though we didn't see Y1080 yet) She is 16 (20 in 2016) and she shows her desire and determination to Martha very well :)
    I will post other comment latter as TF of Russian Championships is starting!

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    1. I've kind of given up on the Russian livestream today. Too laggy for me even though I'm now running Linux which is way faster than the godawful Windows Vista I have. I'll give it a shot for event finals though, they'll be more simple to follow and know what's going on etc.

      Yes, she was very flaky with her new bars upgrades but she nailed it in the end. I hope she gets more toepoint as they look more valuable than Ebee's bars, if not now then shortly. The Fabrichnova is ludicrously achievable for her. Such strength in her attack! Crazy that she scored the highest- and in a way, it isn't at all since Ohashi has so.many.deductions in hers. A great boost for her and her coaches to slowly add in more upgrades and finetune it. The Weiler jars it a bit, it doesn't really work- it so rarely does.

      Of all the floor upgrades I mentioned, the last two are the most achievable- she has a crazy amount of energy in that double pike, could easily become a full-in- either tucked or piked. That's interesting, a triple full is rarely seen with a punchfront. Just like Myzdrikova's- LOVE that pass so much. It seems like it would be easy to mess up if the triple wasn't fully around but I can't see that being a problem for her.

      I love how in all of her interviews she doesn't meekly state she wants to have a good showing at nationals- she wants to be in the worlds team and that's that! And work towards Rio. Nice to see.

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    2. Oh yeah- the video of Simone training a full twisting double layout and double twisting one in on facebook, it's 3 years old. She does them from a rod floor into a pit. Both upright but the latter is very sloppy. She was only 12 though! Jon Horton said in the livestream that he's seen her training TTY's, sometimes sees her training- I think at his gym which is close.

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    3. It seems livestream has ended after mustafina's team end up their comp. some hightlight like Paseka did a decent Y900 (15.75!) and Myz and Afa both perform better than yesterday but isn't great enough.

      Delighted to see Katelyn's DTY and I can forgive that slightly overscored point but can't for her bar's as her form was as bad as that in PT and she hit the low bar before dismount. Can Valeri just give up this series and make another proper combination for her? if not and Katelyn still can't connect them,her bars won't have advantages (compared to other US gymnasts) anymore. But she really can be fantastic in this event :(
      Beam is okay but not great enough. Her D score was credited 6.8 (IIRC). Besides that missed 4D combination, where else she missed the CV or SV? Arabian into a leap? hmmmm
      Her new choreo is good! (But someone told me that I wasn't made by WOGA actually) Great to see taht she now possesses a great routine(exclusive of her current tumbling passes) which isn't WOGA-type at all expecially she said FX is her favorite in an interview recently. When Katelyn was performing her routine, Nastia said that she can do DLO in first pass and piked full-in in third pass and then D score can be 6.5(IIRC). If she can pull all difficulty together and perform the routine well, then she will be much more competitive in AA! (Katelyn said she won't use DLO this year though.) Let's wait and see:P (Yeah, again I'm doubting her as big tumbling is rare in WOGA and her height of picked full-in was ordinary which she did in her FIRST pass.) Congrats to her win in her international debut!

      Asuka seems okay after her injury except for Y540 with bent knees(?) I'm delighted to see her in this comp:) Btw, her 1080 in last pass on floor wasn't be credited which cost her a lot in D score (4.6!!!) Uhhhh, she did underrotate it but I don't think it can't be credited... Well, hope Asuka won't be less confident due to this comp.
      (I DIDN'T see Asuka from NBC which made me disappointed as I stayed up late just because I want to see her! )

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    4. Katelyn's floor is by Dominic Zito- who created Jordyn's routine! High hopes for his routines- these are very different for very different gymnasts but really excellent.

      Pirouettes aren't even very rewarding in the new code. Have you seen GB's bars- Becky Downie and Rudy Harrold?? Becky has a Maloney-Hindorff and Ruby has a Zuchold! And also either a Bhardwaj or Ezhova, I can't tell from the angle. She completely messed up but it is sooo impressive. Katelyn's bars have to be reworked completely I think to take advantage of the code, and endurance doesn't seem to be her strong point.

      Yes, she missed the Onodi-aerial connection. I'm not sure what the other missed one was. I'm worried by the list of upgrades nastia hinted at. This girl needs to finetune her routines and rework some of them, not upgrade! She is just not comfortable with her difficulty, seems very tiring for her.

      Asuka needs to grow before she can get a better vault and harder tumbling. I thought the same- that if they didn't credit her triple, they shouldn't have credited some skills of other people. Asuka did very well in London and will be at Jesolo, hopefully improved. I really like her and her bars were much better than expected- those who were at podium training noticed a big difference there too. Yes I'm impressed that USAG almost immediately uploaded non-broadcast routines. All 24..that's far too many.

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    5. Yeah, I watched them and WOW! The connection Maloney-Hindorf is great and original (those transitions are usually same as Russia and it's boring ). Hope we can see Becky Downie's upgrades and Ruby's clean routine next time. GB now is really good at UB so now we can classify UB routines into China/Russia/GB style? wow!

      Katelyn also said that she will just clean up her routines instead of learning new skills. (btw, Nastia also said that Katelyn didn't want to be a two events specialist) Judging from her sentences, I'm worrying her UB... and also her FX. I don't think she can throw a 6.5 FX routine as a AAer (tooo tired for her :/) and as a AAer, improving her UB is much more significant than upgrading her floor which she isn't really good at.

      Bars are Asuka's favorite (IIRC) so that wasn't surprising to me. Her DTY in London is decent (except for distance and height... uhh as she is too tiny to do so I think) and didn't seem to be sloppy or underrotate. (better than what Grishina did yesterday which she had good form as well but underrotated it and failed to land it.) Japan gymnasts usually have long carrier so their coach must protect them very well, so maybe they just let Asuka rest too long and put much time on UB and BB? I 'm not worried about her :) And yes, hope her growth can help her.
      Btw, your sentences remind me of Didi who is the shortest in ROM team. I found she did grow these years judging from her body line especially her legs. Maybe this will help her do vault which is her weakest event. (weaker than her bars I think) She said she had a new vault with brightening smile months ago and that made me so excited as I want her to be the second Sandra in AA :P (She really can if she has a higher SV vault)

      That's NBC and thanks to USAG but I'm willing to hear Nastia's voice as that make me less annoyed to NBC commentators :P

      Finished all vids from Russian Championships so far? I can't help but start to speculate the lineup to Euros. Hope Gri can do better in EF as I really want to see her instead of Shelgunova whose from has improved a bit but still ugly compared to ANYONE in Russia. uhh...
      I will post other commnets after you write the post about Russia Championships :)

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    6. Yeah, I'd like to see Jupp, Downie, Harrold and Tunney at Euros/Worlds. I speculated a while back that I prefer Jupp to Tunney and kind of hope she surpasses her as an all-arounder. She could, easily, more polish and better form. Should be interesting. GB are geographically closest to me and I enjoy rooting for them. I think I am most impressed with the Zuchold! I know it has been done since but so incredibly rare and obviously much harder than when Erika herself did it. A fabulous skill to resurrect. Now for the Deladdio from someone!

      I heard, and I've watched NBC commentary during Katelyn's routines and Nastia keeps hinting at upgrades. She can do a Fabrichnova, she can connect those pirouettes, she has a DLO in training etc. It was frankly worrying to hear. So I'm thrilled to hear Katelyn herself knows what she's doing.

      Did Asuka compete bars in London in TF? I remember her so well on beam and floor. And I know Rie Tanaka and Koko Tsurumi would have done so. If she did, BBC never showed it (and they did show a lot) so probably why she wasn't on the radar for bars for me. Also her bars were heavily criticised during podium training for American Cup. Grishina looks to have improved mentally if not yet fulfilling her physical potential. Very early on though. I was delighted to see her lovely and clean TF routine! And her bars have come on too. I believe she clung onto beam both days though I will have to recheck that.

      I saw that, and found myself irrationally annoyed the vault wasn't named! If it's a DTY that's great. I'd love if she could do the more valuable Mustafina vault though. There's a 2014 girl with Didi's strengths, beam and floor, Silvia Zarzu, though she hasn't been mentioned in ages so I'm worried she might be injured.

      Yes I've watched a bunch. Will be doing a roundup review of those, English routines and some other non-American Cup routines soon, maybe today.

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    7. Tunney might become a vault/floor specialist if she doesn't improve A LOT on her bars and beam IMO.

      Let's hope Valeri is pacing Katelyn like her daughter and can make her shine and HEALTHY.

      Asuka was the only to competed all four event to Japan but I didn't know what was going on (only got a 7.9E score:/) She also qualified to EF in Tokyo and executed well but D score is lower than most of the others.
      So did I!!! But Rom always tell little about their upgrades so I can just wait until Euros. I don't know which vault she can upgrade as her Y360 isn't great... but I should trust Bellu who is the best tumbling coach in the world I think. We guess the girl training the DLO in the end of that vid was Silvia Zarzu (And at the same time, in the background was Dana Andrei doing maloney 180 we guess) and she is in the list of junior lot Olympic so don't worry about her:)

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    8. I really like Tunney's swing on bars, it's so easy. Though her feet definitely jar it.

      Amazing that Asuka hasn't grown more..maybe she's done with growth until she hits 20 or so? I love the way Japan have such longevity, looking forward to seeing a lot more of her. I remember Tokyo EF and how impressed at her release between the bars.

      I'm dissapointed to not see more Romanian gymnasts for Cottbus. However, the roster seems incomplete at least for China- Huang Huidan on her own! So maybe Romania will add one or two as well. Bulimar and Iordache are slated to compete every event except vault. I want to see Andrei!

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    9. Dana is poor:( but she even can't beat injured Didi in 2011... Her ability isn't good but it's related to being ignored by the coach as well I think. It's bad for her that there isn't TF in WC this year, or maybe she can get a spot by upgrading her UB :( But I can understand why the coaches didn't pay much attention on her (so as Didi who has potential to take medal in BB/FX ) as the circumstance of AG in ROM is harder than before so those who has potential for taking GOLD medals can receive much more attention. My thought on Stefania is same as Dana but she is better I think. I hope Stefania can go to Euros but if she doesn't appear in any World Cup before Euros.... :( (No news about Chelaru as well)

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  8. Actually the commentary of Boy and Hindermann was very good. They were both funny and explained skills and stuff like that. They also were impressed whenever something was good, no matter the country, and liked it whenever something original was performed (like Moors' bars dismount) :)

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    1. Oh good! I did notice some sounds of admiration alright. I am learning the language but too conversational to follow a commentary!

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  9. im immature but the way your post title was worded in the right hand column made me laugh

    "American Cup review- updated with more from my bra..."

    haha. sorry i couldn't help myself!

    gabby jupp's beam was my favourite thing from scam. i knew you said she was good but i was still pleasantly surprised. she had such confidence, was really great to see! :)

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    1. Haha ahh it did that in dashboard but I was like..ehh nobody else can see that... Anyway, edited!

      Yes! I wasn't expecting a rerun of Rebecca Tunney last year (fell off twice, snarky NBC comments that she'd need Doctor Phil), but her confidence was just amazing.

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