Pages

Friday 5 April 2013

Bits of news

China are holding a regional competition, and snippets of news are emerging though it is closed to the public. Tan Sixin, Tan Jiaxin, Jiang Yuyuan, He Kexin, Zeng Siqi, Luo Peiru and a bunch of juniors- Luo Huan, Wang Wei, Xie Wenwei, Yuan Xiaoyang, Lv Jiaqi, Fan Yilin and more all competed in qualifications today. News comes from YangYilinAAandUBGold and another very helpful person on IGF who got it via Weibo and Baidu.

- Tan Jiaxin has a DTY and it's apparently great- scored 15! And high execution scores are not given out like candy so it must at least resemble the Bailie Key and Kyla Ross school of DTY's. She did not compete bars but she did floor, where she has a big mistake, no idea what. Still, this is very promising. I don't think she's the second coming of Cheng Fei or anything but she does have a lot of power and endurance, things which are still lacking among her teammates. And speaking of Cheng Fei, she's a National Team coach. I hope she find and mould gymnasts to emulate her.

- Luo Peiru and junior Wang Wei also have DTY's. There were some others performed too which is always good to hear. Luo Peiru is lovely on bars. Wang Wei also showed a double layout on floor.

- He Kexin did her old bars routine, which is now out of 6.8. It had issues, only scoring 13.95..a large step on the dismount and a pause apparently. But it's a long time to National Games all the same so she doesn't want to peak too soon.

- One of my favourites, junior Lv Jiaqi who is stunning to watch, now has 6.0 bars and 6.2 beam. She is quite young still, though elegible for Rio, so it's great to see make strides in her difficulty.

- It looks like Li Yiting nailed vault, she qualified first with 14.75

- Sadly, Jiang Yuyuan had a meltdown on bars. So did Zeng Siqi who fell on her Tkachev, hit the low bar and crashed the dismount. ZSQ also missed a connection on beam and took a large step on her dismount. I really hope she can get it together as her work is beautiful, but wow is she fragile.

- Tan Sixin had a mixed meet. She nailed beam for a monster score of 15.15, placing first. It also appears that she hit floor, though with quite weak passes. However she had trouble on bars and only vaulted a FTY. I hope she can become more relevant again.

- Sui Lu looked a bit sluggish, and missed her leap series on beam which decimated her score. She's another like He Kexin who has to be careful not to peak too soon.

Some videos:

Luo Huan UB Beautiful, great flight on transitions and I love her release (Deltchev? I suck at recognising some). A little pirouette heavy for a code that won't reward that as much though.
Tan Sixin BB Very steady set from her, I'm in love with her layout and dismount. Some very nice leaps too and her connections looked secure.
Wang Wei FX A pity about the punchfront but the DLO and the rest of her tumbling was gorgeous. Her choreo is a little scrappy, but the quiet bit in the middle is well done. One to watch.
Tan Jiaxin FX I can't wait to see her vault! Anyway, this is her first time to compete floor in quite a while I believe, and it's a strong effort. I wouldn't really be put off by her landing deductions and fall this early in the season. I liked the dramatic music and choreo to match.

Some of the videos won't load at all for me so I'm not going to link them. There's more in IGF on the China thread. EDIT: Apparently some videos have been made private. Hopefully some others still work?

Mariya Livchikova has torn her ACL, the other one this time. She was the poster girl for the Stella Zakharova meet, and then didn't compete. The source for this is a Ukrainian video, which you can see here. Inna Korobchinskaya, a Ukrainian coach says that the results of the MRI are 'not soothing..it looks like a complete tear of the ACL'. She goes on to say that recovery time differs between athletes of course, but she is definitely out for 6 months. Mariya tore her other ACL at 2011 worlds, and consequently missed the London Olympics as she could not contend for the single spot at the Test Event. This year she will miss Euros and Worlds. Awful. There are of course gymnasts who have bounced back from tearing both ACL's, but it's still incredibly difficult and sadly Mariya is part and parcel of an underfunded and now fragmented programme.

The Tokyo World Cup takes place this weekend. Former b-list gymnast Peyton Ernst has really upped her game and is expected to take the title. It will be interesting to see Shang Chunsong and what she does though. She was definitely seen training a piked Hindorff which has not been done before, and is rumoured to have a layout full on beam. She is apparently connecting the piked Hindorff to a Pak and still has the Tkachev-Geinger combination. She has a shap variation too into another Hindorff? Sounds awesome, looking forward to a video. Sadly she fell on it today but bits of it are new and it sounds exhausting, hopefully she'll get used to it.

Peyton Ernst is leading after day 1(vault and bars) at Tokyo. Second is Asuka Teramoto who vaulted a DTY...she looks too tiny for one! Sadly Shang Chunsong is in 6th after falling off bars. Huang Qiushuang only vaulted a FTY but she got through bars without incident I think.

Old news by now, but Aliya Mustafina won the AA at the Stella Zakharova meet despite a fall on floor. Her beam looks better than ever, the connections have definitely gotten better. Enormous pause to set up her dismount but I doubt she'd do that in major competition. Similarly with floor, we'll definitely see a better version at Euros, then again at Universiade and by the time Worlds rolls around it should be magnificent. No point in pushing herself too hard right now. It looks like it will be an interesting showdown at Euros though..

There's an exciting rumour that Yao Jinnan has a Mo Salto on bars now. I would pretty much be foaming at the mouth if I saw that materialise randomly in Antwerp. Unfortunately, there is also news that she hurt her hip and is in constant pain. Hopefully that clears up fast :( If she does have a Mo Salto it's likely it was learned in winter training, pre-injury.



10 comments:

  1. Oh no Livchikova! Both ACLs? That's just devastating, to work so hard coming back back from such a bad injury, only to tear the other one? Do you know how she tore it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nope, I'm not sure if the video actually says that? It would probably have been translated by now if it did. She performed at French Nationals a few weeks back perfectly fine, I'd imagine it happened in the days leading up to the Zakharova meet and her triple full looks like a big culprit, she barely gets it around. Gutted.

      Delete
  2. I miss you! (hug)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Haha aww thanks! I was busy redecorating and then I was sick. I'll be a bit AWOL for the last two weeks of April as well, but I'll still be following gym news. So annoyed I couldn't get up early enough today to watch the Tokyo live stream! It started at 8am I think. It should suit your timezone though!

      Delete
  3. I have a question!
    Do you know what happened with Huang's FX d score at Tokyo?
    I think it's bit too low...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I thought it was very harsh. Her double l turn was downgraded, and so was one of her leaps apparently. However she missed the front salto requirement which the d panel completely missed, so she would have gotten screwed the other way with a competent panel.

      Delete
  4. I'm not one to pray, but if I was, it would be for poor Livchikova. I was really hoping for some success for her in Moscow. Here's a link to Euros livestream if you want to post it:

    http://eurovision.digotel.com/ueg/index.html

    Eight days left!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's devastating, twice at inoppurtune times when she was looking great again. Thanks, I'll be doing a pre-Euros post I think with the link included. Clocks have gone forward so I'll have to pay attention to timezones! I believe normally Moscow is GMT+5 though, which is fairly decent for me anyway..

      Delete
    2. Lucky you - Moscow is 8 hours ahead of me, so I'll be getting up bright and early! Unfortunately, I'm only going to be able to see part of quals, most of MAG AA, and the second day of apparatus finals live because I have school and then a dance competition. Hope it goes up on YouTube quickly!

      Delete
  5. How did Yuyuan do?

    ReplyDelete