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Saturday 23 March 2013

Bailie and Simone sweep Jesolo

Ugh I'm really sorry but that download link I gave is useless. It has about 13 Italian channels and they all work fine but the one I thought it is on isn't correct- it doesn't have the channel Jesolo IS actually being broadcasted on.  So, no Jesolo I'm afraid. For a whole hour and a half I thought I could watch it! I'm sorry if I got anyone's hopes up and wasted their time. Quick hits and youtube it is!

Junior Competition

Bailie Key scored a huge 58.1 to dominate the Junior AA at Jesolo today. Second was the reigning Junior Euros champion Enus Mariani of Italy who scored 55.2, and in third was Amelia Hundley who scored 55.05. Amelia beat Bailie at camp immediately before they left for Italy, but this isn't exactly a surprising turn of events as Jesolo is known for harsh scoring for gymnasts who are that bit messier in their gymnastics. Aly Raisman for instance had her execution scoring slammed last year. Who knows, it may have been part of what spurred her on to improve her form for the international competition that really mattered- London.

Enus fell on beam, but it appears Amelia's problem was just execution. Her vault score was definitely in line, and her floor was not that far behind the leaders. Her beam and bars were both low 13's but that is to be expected when fair judging is applied to them. That's not to say that I don't enjoy Amelia Hundley's gymnastics, she's very dynamic and powerful and I really hope she does not join the ranks of MLT's broken gymnasts...but I am glad that Jesolo rewards clean, beautiful gymnastics. Looking at a photo of the podium highlights another issue for Amelia- she has shot up. Hopefully she can improve when she gets used to her height.

This is a great win for Bailie- and decisive too with a 3 point lead. Slow and steady wins the race, she's being paced correctly. I will add videos when they arrive- most excited for Bailie's floor and bars and Enus' floor. I have only seen a dance-through of the latter's new floor and a very far away look at it in competition where she fell- but it is obvious even from those glimpses that it's brilliant. Epic, dramatic, beautiful. Update- The excellent GymPOWER1 and piibunia are uploading already. I'm not sure if they can be embedded or if it's just that they have embedding disabled but either way it's not working. In the meantime, check out videos here. Bailie and Amelia certainly have upbeat music! I like Amelia's. I'm a bit undecided about Bailie's though..there's a lot going on with it, but I think she can own her routine more in time..this is the first competitive debut. GORGEOUS tumbling from her. I'm so glad that she's not flinging double arabians and so on. I am impressed with crazy tumbling from girls as young and younger than her I'll admit, but it's still better to see someone being developed nice and slow. Amelia can certainly improve from what she showed today. Enus was glorious to watch as usual, though she's piking down quite considerably on her DTY and her double layout bars dismount. Her floor deserves its own link (a different uploader). Stunning.

Senior Competition
I think we can expect that Kyla Ross will be similarly rewarded and Lexie Priessman will have her execution slammed. It will depend on how much of a difficulty lead Lexie has. Not forgetting Simone Biles but she's harder to pinpoint- she should be somewhere in the middle as she is not spectacularly clean but nor is she sloppy. Except her leaps, which will surely be dealt with harshly. The question is how much of a lead can she get on the others with her vault..and can she beat Kyla's bars if she has higher difficulty there? Should be extremely interesting! I'm really hoping Mai Murakami, Elisa Meneghini and Asuka Teramoto can make their mark too. And how impressive that Vanessa Ferrari has actually upgraded- adding a new tuck full. Maybe she will continue after she is done saving money..let's hope.

Not hearing a whole lot of great news from the senior competition. Vanessa Ferrari has been taken to hospital after falling off beam on the tucked full and not being able to continue. Hopefully it's very minor and this is just a precaution. Mai Murakami landed her double double on her knees and scored so low on vault that she either fell or did an FTY instead of the DTY. Dissapointing, but hopefully it won't continue to be the story of her senior career. Her bars score was 10.55 so clearly mishaps there too. Girl is such a heartbreaker. Lexie Priessman and Maggie Nichols fell off beam. In good news Simone Biles scored a whopper 15.9 for her amanar- 9.6 execution. She must have stuck that thing, can't wait to see a video. And in a surprise twist Brenna Dowell scored extremely high on bars- 14.7- which was definitely not expected. I've just gone back and read the more detailed quick hits from L'International Gymnix on facebook. It definitely appears that Brenna has improved, good for her. Sadly Peyton Ernst fell victim to beam too. She seems to be showing nice work, I hope she and Maggie can show off hit beam routines at Chemnitz. And confirmed, Simone did stick her amanar. And her bars dismount. She is leading the AA after 3 rotations and scored higher than Kyla on beam. WOW. Kyla outscored Simone on bars 15.4 to 14.85 and Simone outscored Kyla on vault by 0.7 and beam by 0.05. On to floor, a pet piece of Simone's if she can only control her landings. Interestingly, the facebook quick hits are referring to USA's layouts on beam as whips. I would tend to agree if they all look like Simone's and Bailie's. This would be a downgrade if the judges took it- there's no amplitude. Simone's second vault is the Lopez- which was Maroney's second vault in 2011. It's also known as a laidout Podkopayeva I believe. Ahhh can't wait for videos..

And Simone nails floor! Excellent. Not to mention she has actually upgraded it already, the 1 and a half to double pike became a full-in tuck and she has added a leap after the double layout. Scores a 14.9, a full point and a half above Kyla's low 13.35- she went out of bounds on two passes and did not show upgrades. Great boost for Simone after a slightly dissapointing American Cup. Her AA total breaks 60- by 0.4 to be exact, a fantastic result especially at a competition known for harsh judging.
 
Other Stuff

FIG have in fact gotten rid of their new vault scoring. R.I.P..it sure was tested well, with its only outings at LRSY and some very few national competitions. It appears that the old system now reinstated will be a bit different in that neutral deductions will be taken away from the averaged total. The 0.5 deduction is no more but this does mean that misdirection errors and steps could be equally as damaging as a nice 0.5 averaged fall. It appears that the sight of 11-12 range winning scores at LRSY was more offensive to FIG than having gymnasts who splatted a vault winning medals. Nice going.

Unfortunately, I got a little confused with British Championships livestreaming schedule. The senior AA is taking place soon but will not be livestreamed. Tomorrow's apparatus finals will be livestreamed instead. AA finals routines from today will be uploaded to youtube swiftly by the very efficient and commendable BGTV though.

Anastasia Grishina won bars finals at Cottbus! She is continuing her lucky streak of hitting. Hopefully she can get the beam title too. It's so great that her coaching change is clearly the right decision. Even if she does remain a little flaky, she looks very happy and that's the main thing. Not surprisingly, Oksana Chusovitina took the vault title.

USAG are uploading old American Cup's. I spotted 1984, 1986 and the inaugural one, 1976. Don't be fooled by the 'full broadcast' title- it's about as full as NBC's Olympic coverage. There were only 6 female gymnasts and they managed to show just 3. There is enormous Nadia Comaneci hype of course, and you get to see all of her routines. It's interesting to see her compete in great quality pre-Montreal. And how Kathy Rigby pretty much dismisses Elena Davydova after she fell off bars, 4 years before she became Olympic AA champion. Contains fluff where Nadia walks around sightseeing with Bela chewing gum and wearing flares. And a bizarre showdown which NBC would love, pitting Nadia against Olga Korbut on all four events. And a two sentence but nevertheless great interview from Nadia. 
 

20 comments:

  1. piibunina also uploading videos - Bailie's bars already up!

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  2. Thanks for the livestream info, I've downloaded but not sure I'm watching the right thing, should the competition have started by now?

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    1. Yes it has. Unfortunately even though it has a bunch of channels it doesn't have the right one- Raisport. It was written somewhere else it would be on rai 1. Sorry for the waste of time!

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    2. Don't worry, thanks for trying though.

      Great result and confidence boost for Simone and hopefully will encourage Kyla to get upgrades soon. I guess we can see now though why Lexie placed 3rd at camp. Also, it's great for Brenna to be on the podium, I'm sure she's very pleased with her result.

      Can't wait to see video of Maggie, sounds like she has improved a lot since Nationals, and we'll get to see her again tomorrow in floor finals!

      I like Bailie's new floor - well done to Kim Zmeskal for making it so unique, she always does a great job with her athletes rountines.

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    3. It sounds like Peyton, Maggie and Brenna have all improved. Can't wait to see proper videos. Hopefully P and M can stay on beam at Chemnitz to hit one of their first competitions 4/4.

      Watching it again and yeah, it's grown on me. Spanny on twitter said it contains parts of Kim's own old music, and some of Shannon's- brilliant.

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    4. It really reminded me of 90's American floor, so maybe that's why, very cool.

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  3. I believe Simone outscored Kyla on beam by .05, not .5. Simone's score was 14.75 vs. Kyla's 14.7.

    I'm disappointed that Kyla hasn't upgraded. I hope that she has upgrades in progress that aren't competition ready yet or that her coaches wanted her to adjust to her new height first before starting new skills and upgrades. Either way, she definitely needs to upgrade by Nationals or else she's at risk for not making the team for Worlds. Only four ladies per team this year, ugh! And she's contending with Simone, Katelyn Ohashi, Ebee Price, Lexie Priessman (she'll score differently in the US), Jordyn Wieber, and possible McKayla Maroney. Not to mention Sarah Finnegan (if she recovers from injury in time) and Mykayla Skinner.

    I really hate that there's no team event at Worlds this year. It makes it that much harder to make a Worlds team, giving fewer ladies a chance to attend Worlds. If there isn't going to be a team event, nations should still be able to have up to six entries for qualifications. Keep the two per country rule for the apparatus finals and AA finals (though I'd prefer returning to 3 per country & 36 competitor format), then it's no different than the qualification round for Worlds in the years with team events.

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    1. Oops, I have issues with 0's sometimes..maths not a strongpoint. Thanks, will edit.

      I thought she might have a few small upgrades, but given her lost training time and spectacular growth I knew she wouldn't have anything major. It is dissapointing all the same, she's a fabulous gymnast who risks becoming a specialist to remain relevant as her difficulty will keep her from being a top all-arounder if she doesn't upgrade significantly. Katelyn's currently crap bars are in Kyla's favour though at least.

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    2. Yeah, I knew she wouldn't have big upgrades once she lost the training time. But there certainly wasn't anything in the wind before her injury about what upgrades she was attempting. She seems to have the potential to upgrade, and with her new height, it would be lovely to see Khorkina-esque skills on her, especially on beam. Hopefully she'll have lovely new skills to show off by Nationals so she can avoid the specialist role.

      Hard to count on Katelyn's current crap bars staying crap long term though. Valeri is a sly fox, especially when it comes to working codes. This year Kyla isn't needed as a specialist at Worlds unless she's a medal contender, and I don't think she is yet. She could possibly make bars or beam finals, but her lack of difficulty would keep her off the podium. Fact is, she needs to upgrade even to be a viable specialist.

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    3. Oh absolutely, I don't think they are unfixable. But right now they are not even useful, nevermind podium worthy. I'd imagine they can be written off for this year though. I think Simone will definitely be at worlds, and Katelyn. Lexie, Kyla and the others will have to fight for their places.

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  4. To be honest I didn't really expect Kyla to have upgrades, especially with her growth and minor injuries - I'm sure there was still some wear and tear from the last Olympic cycle and with her growth, it was probably enough to try and keep her skills. I really do hope she upgrades, but I'm not sure she'll stay around for long though. She strikes me as very academic and motivated and with Olympic gold, I can see her going to college and moving on.

    I love that Simone did great, good for her! She seems like such a nice girl with great personality and her gymnastics is a nice mix of power but still clean. And her floor music doesn't give me headaches. Sounds like the upgrades may have helped her with the problem of too much power. Simone with her monster vault sounds like a real lock for Worlds this year, not sure about Lexie anymore now that Simone has really stepped up her game.

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    1. I thought she'd do a little more rearranging, or more dance skills. Certainly not tumble wise, or vault for that matter. But yeah, valid reason why she hasn't upgraded much at all yet. According to Lauren Hopkins, Kyla is waiting for test scores from Stanford before committing. I do think she'll want to stick around until at least 2014, and thinking long and hard about continuing. She could be great if her body lets her.

      I think there's room for both as they are both strong all-arounders, vault specialists and Simone herself is now valuable on bars. Certainly if they were both only good for vault and/or floor but not great all-around it would be tough to justify both in a small team. I think the team will be those two Kyla and Katelyn. They then have more than one chance in every single EF as well as 4 all-arounders.

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    2. Just saw Grishy's UB! She is looking much better though there were more form errors than I remember her making before, most notably on her Pak and leg separations on some of her releases. She's such a lovely gymnast when she can get it together, so hoping she can put London behind. Plus, Russia really needs her now with Komova out again and Musty being the only other usable AAer.

      Chuso looks very fit. It's amazing how she manages to look fitter as she gets older??

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    3. Yeah I thought the leg seperations were odd. I hate her stupid mount, I know she doesn't want to expend energy but why go right into a dead hang and incur a deduction? She could at least run into it or something and get some swing going. But it's just great to see her hit, and there's loads of time and room for upgrades and tightening of form.

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  5. So proud of Simone. She looked so much more confident this time around. Her landings on floor were better too.

    Kyla better have something new to show come classics or nationals otherwise it will be hard to make the world team.

    Lexie I see has gotten worse on beam. Is Courtney mccool the beam coach? Her floor wasn't much better.

    Bailey did great although I hate her new floor music.

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    1. Yes, especially on beam. She looked afraid of it at american cup. I like the fact that Simone is bouncing out of her landings, small bounces are fine..lots of steps and stumbles obviously not. No need to stick landings yet and it will protect her from injury.

      Yes, hopefully. Even just bars and beam. Lexie is recovering from a minor injury, she definitely seems sluggish. McCool works on dance elements, artistry and so on.

      Absolutely fantastic! Haha I've tried to sit through it a few more times. I veer between acceptance, finding it cute, and annoyance.

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    2. I know Lexie is recovering from injury but the beam was worse than her routine at visas last year. I know her and amelia will be getting an earful from MLT lol

      US classics and nationals is gonna be great. I hope everyone irons out their kinks by then. I hope to see ebee, Finnegan, Maddie and many more this summer.

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  6. brenna's bars were actually pretty! when did that happen??

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    1. She's well known as the hardest worker Fong has. Her form and lines were very nice, she has clearly worked her ass off on bars. The tiny flickers of leg seperation can probably be fixed too, they're not major. The only big thing was the total leg form break on catching her piked Tkjachev..it looked similar to some messy Def's I've seen in that regard. Textbook full twisting DLO dismount too, one of the best I've seen. Good for her. And what a front tumbler! Amazing work.

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