Top 10: Beam routines

I appreciate a lot of different styles on beam. Beautiful Soviet and Chinese routines are always a joy to watch, but I enjoy difficult, powerful and innovative routines equally as much if not more. Watching Elena Produnova stomp a beam is just as good as watching Aurelia Dobre float along it. Anyway, here's my top 10 favourite routines.

10.  Fan Ye, CHN, 2003 Worlds EF

This is perfect, everything is done to the highest level with no tiny wobble or adjustment. Leaves no room for doubt on any connection or leap- GORGEOUS Yang Bo leap! and stuck the dismount. This deserves to be a lot higher because there's nothing to take away from it..but I find it slightly dull as there's nothing 'new' or daring about it. Amazing though.


9. Elvire Teza, FRA, 1997 Worlds EF

Elvire lacked the polish most of her competitors had but she blew them out of the water as far as an exciting and original routine was concerned. I'll watch this over Gina Gogean's winning routine any day. So refreshing to see transverse elements- Elvire does two, both of which are her own and also a ruflova, another favourite beam element of mine. Just fabulous to watch.


8.  Yang Yun, CHN, 2000 Olympics TF

A lesson in glorious elegance from Yang Yun. Love her finesse and polish..such beautiful lines. Great ruflova and dismount.


7. Chen Cuiting, CHN 1989 Worlds EF

The beauty of this routine, aside from the perfect form, was that she had a sprightliness often absent from Chinese routines. Beautiful movement and fluidity. I am in LOVE with her tucked Korbut too.


6. Irina Baraksanova, USSR 1985 Worlds QUAL

Irina stood out as being particularly graceful, flexible and having perfect extension at a time when USSR was bursting with this style of gymnastics. Just a great routine, everything is beautiful. Love her crazy back flexibility move, right into a Yurchenko loop.

5. Aleftina Priakhina, 1987 Europeans AA

This routine contains an original mount which happens to be my favourite, and also the gainer ruflova and the standing full, more innovation. No prizes for extension, but this is one of the most exciting routines ever, for which a lot can be overlooked. A trajedy she was too inconsistent to make a major team and get some of her (SIX!) original skills named after her.

4.  Olessia Dudnik, 1989 Worlds TF

Known as one of the greatest beam workers, with good reason. A very exciting routine, from the mount to the full twisting layout to the triple full. Just great, so much daring and so ahead of her time.

3. Yang Bo, 1990 World Cup AA

Yang Bo had a lot of chances to take major titles, but usually tanked. This routine was one of the few where everything came together for her- everything is textbook. She has more fluidity and confidence in her movements than other great Chinese beam workers, and fabulous choreography. The fact that she never got anywhere but is so well known attests to her enormous talent on beam. This is a total masterpiece.


2. Li Li

Another perfect routine, the originality of the mount and her incredible back spin drive it right up to the top. Gorgeous, aside from her leo. Of all the difficult elements done on beam, the back spin is just in a world of its own..amazing. Perfect extension, form and fluidity.

1.  Tatiana Groshkova

Ahh...words can't describe how unbelievably amazing this routine is. 9.95 was a disgrace. I promise she won't top vault and bars lists!


Honourable mentions: Lilia Podkopayeva, Alexandra Marinescu, Hollie Vise, Shawn Johnson, Dina Kochetkova, Kui Yuanyuan, Elena Produnova, Elena Zamolodchikova, Danusia Francis, Mariya Livchikova, Olga Roschupkina, Aurelia Dobre, Mo Huilan, Shannon Miller, Sanne Wevers, Ana Porgras, Tatiana Gutsu, Tatiana Lyssenko, Qiao Ya, Zhang Nan, Teodora Ungureanu, Nadia Comaneci, Natalia Shaposhnikova, Natalia Yurchenko, Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs, Peng Peng Lee, Elena Abrashitova

Overrated gymnasts

I'm not one to be nasty about gymnasts. This is more about overblown hype. These girls are talented, but not as much as the hype allows for.

Nastia Liukin

..invented gymnastics if the hype around her is anything to go by. She was the well deserving 2008 AA champion. Nastia is of course famed for her beautiful long lines and extremely difficult uneven bars. Her beam and bars in particular were amazing to watch, especially skills like her Onodi, Ono and Healys which were so well executed. She was not, however, flawless. On bars her cowboyed dismount and bent legs on her giants are obvious, and her artistry is characterised by an uptight upper body and head throw-backs. She's regarded as an excellent dancer by most but her lines carried her and her choreography was dull, empty and stiff. I will also echo the excellent Spanny Tampson in deploring her stupid flexed wrists, which ruined lines. Butt shelves also are not valid choreography but she is of course far from the only culprit there. Nastia DOES deserve her success and was an excellent gymnast still showing several signs of that brilliance today. However her hype detracts from other gymnasts, exhibited by NBC cameras focusing on her face and her dad/coach instead of other routines performed by other gymnasts. Her hype alone got her to Trials, ahead of other gymnasts who performed much better than her. The crazies in the Nastia camp seem to forget that there were gymnasts before Nastia came along, and many were far better, which is not a good thing for gymnastics. I won't even mention her weak vault and floor being made up by her extraordinary bars difficulty as this is the case in general these days, though only in reverse in the US.

Svetlana Khorkina

Svetlana's fame has probably been well overtaken by Nastia now, but her dominance for an entire decade was unbelievable. Known interchangeably as the diva and the Queen of the Bars, Khorkina competed in three Olympics, an amazing feat. She was a great gymnast, especially given her height and it is sad that she never clinched the AA gold, especially in 2000 when she was well ahead of her contenders and the vault controversy and the upset of that causing her to fall from bars were the only reasons why she didn't. However, she competed against extremely difficult uneven bar routines like Mo Huilan's and Bi Wenjing's and won every single time, their added difficulty appeared not to matter. Bi did snatch the gold from her, but only in a World Cup. She was also blatantly overscored in the 2004 Olympics to try to get het to win, in order to 'make up' for 2000. This is such BS. 'Making up' to a gymnast score-wise is just ridiculous and I am glad it did not succeed. Khorkina in 2004 was gaunt and emaciated and her gymnastics had deteriorated- Carly well deserved that win. Khorkina's diva attitude and comments such as implying Carly's win was a fix are extremely annoying, I do not like rudeness and egos in any sport. However she clearly had a good side to her, I absolutely loved that she gave up her vault EF place to Zamo- her reaction to Zamo's perfect vault is priceless! She was a strong all-arounder even with her beam and vault getting worse over time, and she did make an impact on gymnastics by altering it to fit her height (especially bars) but I still think her fame in the gymnastics world is a bit over the top.

Mary-Lou Retton

Mary-Lou would never have won the AA had the Olympics been attended by the Soviets. In a way it seems to unfair to cloud her achievement like this but there were at least 5 Soviets who would have beaten her- Olga Mostepanova who achieved 12 perfect 10's at the friendship games that year was a given, but Baraksanova, Shushunova, Illienko, Yurchenko and Frolova would all been frontrunners too, if that many were allowed qualify. Mary-Lou was highly talented, I have no issue with her body-type, it's moreso her form, execution and presentation were wholly eclipsed by other gymnasts of the time. But it's easy to see why there was so much hype around her as the first US AA Olympic champion, it would be odd if it wasn't. The fact remains that she was not up against the best in the world and the hype often forgets that.

That's all I can think of for now. Gymnasts like Shannon Miller, Olga Korbut and Nadia Comaneci fully deserved the hype that surrounded each, all of them had amazing form, artistry and difficulty. It's harder to think of those that didn't fully deserve all of the hype.

Overlooked and underrated Soviet greats

As we all know, the Soviets had an unbelievable depth of talent in the 1980's and early 1990's. Inevitably, plenty were overlooked and never made it to a major international competition and even those that did failed to make an impact. Talent was not a factor- these gymnasts have incredible form, artistry, skill and often extremely high difficulty. Silly mistakes and inconsistency kept them out of the medals and off the radar internationally. Politics also meant that not all received the chance to shine.

Tatiana Lysenko

Tatiana DID make it to several international competitions and she did medal at the 1992 Olympics. Unfortunately silly mistakes kept her from fully realising her potential. She had the potential to take the all-around, and didn't even medal. Her difficulty was astounding, particularly vault where she performed a DTY when everyone else was only doing FTY's. Because they had the same difficulty, Tatian's low landing failed to impress and she was underscored. She could have scored much higher on all of her apparatus if she had kept her difficulty down in favour of stuck landings, but she kept at it. Respect! She was great on all four, even bars which she is not particularly known for. She is certainly known, but definitely underappreciated.

Tatiana Groshkova

Tatiana Groshkova was never chosen to be a part of a major team because of her inconsistency. When she hit, it was incredible. Her beam routine at the 1989 Chuinchi cup is my favourite of all time. Not only was it incredibly difficult with perfect form, it also contained original moves and amazing flexibility moves such as the scale above. Her floor was a work of art, beautiful choreography and dance. The tumbling was not the prettiest but that double full-in has to be seen to believed.

Aleftina Priakhina

Aleftina made it to a Euros, so she was doing better than many of the fantastic unknown Soviets at this time. She had incredible difficulty and was the first to compete a standing full twist on beam AND a double-double on floor, but never made it to a worlds or olympics so neither bear her name. Her beam and bars mount were both very daring, and more associated with Olessia Dudnik. Although her skills and technique were astounding, her form and artistry paled in comparison to others and just like Groshkova, she was lost in the pool of talent.

Irina Baraksanova

Irina was a victim not so much  of inconsistency but of politics. Along with Mostepanova and others who had already had a raw deal over USSR boycotting the 1984 Olympics, Irina was pulled from the 1985 Worlds all-around to make way for the big names of Elena Shushunova and Oksana Omelianchik. Her fabulous floor alone, the most balletic I have ever seen and with such gorgeous lines and expression, means she deserves recognition but her other routines are worth a look too, especially her magnificent beam.

I might make a part two of this at a later date, but it is very difficult to find information on some. Some of the gymnasts above might as well have been world-famous compared to some competely unknown but brilliant Soviets!