So the team for Japan has been named, and the elite season for the US has not even begun. Most gymnastics programmes are somewhere in between, but a picture of the main players is definitely swiftly emerging.
Teams
In America, the first elite meet, Classics, is just under a month away. Traditionally, this meet can often be a splatfest as the girls use it to test new routines in preparation for Nationals. The Olympic team plus alternates have already qualified through to Nationals and so have the girls who competed internationally so far this season- so Maroney, Ross, Biles, Price, Nichols, Priessman, Dowell and Ernst do not need to compete at Classics but more than likely will anyway. Katelyn Ohashi is presumed out as she is not training yet, Sarah Finnegan is still recovering, and the status of Peyton Ernst is not known as she too had surgery recently. We can pretty much assume that Simone Biles is a lock for Antwerp unless she's injured. Her biggest problem is consistency as she could blow everyone else out of the water for difficulty if she includes one or two upgrades this year, but not if she biffs a bar release. No, not the TTY which as we have seen is not yet ready (if you have not seen it- she gets it around enough to be credited, but it's slightly under. She does not have the height and lands in a deep squat, deeper than sitting- and then falls back. She states that it is scary because her upper body gets it around but her lower body twists slower and her feet don't get around, making it a recipe for ACL tears if she competes it before she masters it) but maybe the full-in double layout, double wolf turn on floor and/or arabian on beam. Simone is the strongest all-arounder that they have, and can potentially qualify for all 4 event finals.
With the more than probable absence of previous contenders Katelyn Ohashi and Jordyn Wieber, the composition of the rest of the team is up in the air. Kyla Ross I would call at this stage another lock, though she needs a hefty upgrade stick to beat off the challenges Brenna Dowell, Ebee Price and Lexie Priessman pose for the second all-around spot. Even if she loses out for the second AA spot in prelims, her bars and beam are definitely needed and should get her easily into both finals. Medalling is quite another matter- her bars would need to approach 6.6+ and her beam roughly the same, the latter is quite a tall order. So, spots one and two are thought to be nearly guaranteed as long as both girls stay healthy. There will be another spot going to be a vault/floor specialist, to complement Simone and potentially take home more than one medal in both finals. McKayla Maroney, Ebee Price, Lexie Priessman and Mykayla Skinner are all contenders for this spot. McKayla, as we have seen, has her amanar back and her old vault, the Lopez. She is also training a double layout which is new, and a double arabian which isn't new but hasn't featured in her routines in years. Her floor could definitely break 6.0 but the combination of her passes she plans on competing is unknown. 3.5 twist or double layout, 2.5-front layout, 1.5- double arabian (unfortunately the dance-through video appears to indicate a hurdle for a 1.5 for the third pass :( and which had so better have the 1.5 placed earlier in her run or she's sunk already) and double pike would probably be the best bet. I don't see her competing the 3.5 twist AND double layout as she was never one for killer endurance on floor, even though she has grown.
Mykayla Skinner has a 6.5 floor routine, and 6.4 and 6.3 vaults. She has trained a half-on double full (Cheng half) though it's unknown if it's something she played around with once or could actually be done this year- after all, her Cheng is explosive. All of which makes her very, very interesting. Lexie Priessman has a full potential on floor of 6.7, not yet competed, and her second vault is unknown. Ebee's second vault is supposed to be a Mustafina, so 6.3 and 6.0 difficulty. McKayla is the one with Olympics and Worlds experience of course, whereas gymnasts like Mykayla have no international experience at all. Should be a great battle. That leaves one spot left, and they don't really have any amazing specialists aside from vault and floor remaining unless Katelyn is back in time to potentially take gold on beam. If not, a solid back-up like Brenna Dowell, who MAY be able to take the second all-arounder spot is the best bet. Ebee too is another very strong contender for that spot. But we might get an unknown like Abigail Milliet, who has a very strong beam routine in training- proving herself capable of medalling at worlds. I do see a team of Biles, Ross, Dowell (insert healthy Ohashi here) and Maroney being the most likely. But I wouldn't bet on it! Nevertheless, my team consists of:
Simone Biles, AA, VT, FX and UB and BB attempts
Kyla Ross, battling for AA with Dowell, UB and BB
Brenna Dowell, battling for AA with Ross, FX and UB attempts
McKayla Maroney, VT and FX attempt.
Beam and bars are not THAT strong but not weak enough to be called a void. Vault, floor and the AA itself are bursting with potential medals.
Romania are only utilising 3 spots. This time I would put money on this team's composition of Larisa Iordache, Diana Bulimar and Sandra Izbasa. But don't be fooled by such lack of depth, as these three are fierce contenders for medals. Although Sandra placed an astonishing fifth in the London AA, it is expected she will do vault and floor only. I say 'only' but the fact is she would be a favourite to take medals on both. The other two will compete all-around. Larisa, with her swish new second vault and 6.9 beam difficulty should have no issues making a number of finals, though she could potentially be pushed out of floor finals if Sandra and Diana (with upgrades) score higher. She's the favourite for gold on beam and is expected to feature on the AA podium. Vault and floor are definitely much more uncertain, especially vault where her current difficulty is not the highest. Her biggest weakness, big surprise, is a weak and badly composed bars routine which lost her the Euros AA gold despite a huge lead after the other three events. She needs upgrades to in any way overcome the handicap her bars pose to her AA chances. Diana's bars are a little better, except for her releases, but her difficulty here is far too low. Her beam too is just 5.9. On a happier note, she is FINALLY getting a new floor routine this summer. Her best shot for a medal is floor, and even then she could get squeezed out of the final if she does not upgrade and if Sandra is back to her best on that event. Bad news for Ana Maria Ocalisan and Stefanie Stanila who once again are not being given a chance. They may not be ready to represent Romania in a major competition...because they don't get any assignments! So this team, barring injuries, will be:
Larisa Iordache AA, BB, VT and FX (battle with teammates)
Diana Bulimar AA, FX (see above)
Sandra Izbasa VT, FX (see above)
With the exception of Viktoria Komova who was injured at the start of this year, last year's Russian Olympic team have not taken a break from training. Which is just as well since this year's seniors are sadly not up to much- with the exception of steady but Sheep-pak'd Evgeniya Shelgunova who appears to be injured. Ekaterina Baturina is probably the second strongest new senior but her difficulty leaves a lot to be desired. If Viktoria Komova is healthy, then she is on this team. So too is Aliya Mustafina who has competed a few times already and will do so again at Universiade. Viktoria's AA scoring potential will be enormous if she's fully recovered, and she should quite easily qualify to bars finals, beam too. Aliya is having quite a few issues with her beam, but she did hit a completely steady routine this year and one or two others that were nearly as good. She's expected to add 0.4 to her bars to up them to 6.7, more than likely a carbon copy of her London routine as difficulty has gone down in the new code. The third spot will go to Ksenia Afanasyeva, who unlike most veterans who stay the same or go downhill, has actually improved. She added bars back to her arsenal but she won't compete them at Universiade. She also has an amanar in the works and is training a full-in double layout. Her floor difficulty is the highest yet competed (Mykayla Skinner competed hers this year in the JO code) so far this year and she stands a great chance of medalling there. If she can hit bars then she's also a very good AA backup. The fourth spot will I think go to Maria Paseka. Even if she just competes the DTY, she should qualify for finals. Anastasia Grishina on the other hand, even if she hits every routine is unlikely to qualify for any final above her teammates. If Viktoria is not ready in time, then Anastasia would take her spot. If Maria proves unable to hit her vaults then I'd take Alla Sosnitskaya instead. My Russian team is:
Aliya Mustafina AA, UB and BB and FX attempts
Viktoria Komova AA, UB, BB
Ksenia Afanasyeva FX
Maria Paseka VT
For the Chinese team, worlds falls just in between two other major competions- the first of which, National Games, is actually more important to them. There are a bunch of retirements of the Beijing and London Olympians expected right after this meet, but should any of them hit and win medals I think we can expect a little delay in their retirement plans. There is only one new senior of importance this year, Lou Nina, and she is out with an arm injury. Consequently, we can expect Yao Jinnan as a lock for this team. In particular, she needs more upgrades on floor to fulfil her AA potential. She is, however, training probably the most exciting upgrade we'll see all year- a Mo Salto! I'd also put Shang Chunsong on this team. Tiny Shang has impressive difficulty across three events, and may yet grow enough to execute a DTY. She has proven herself to be inconsistent however, though not nearly as much as gymnasts like Huang Qiushuang who made a number of important teams on the back of her difficulty. No matter who else goes on the team, they will be fighting amongst each other to make bars and beam finals. They do have a very good vaulter, Li Yiting, but her vaults are quite unpredictable and a bit scary. The third spot will I think be up for grabs between bars specialists Tan Jiaxin and veteran He Kexin, depending on who hits in September. I know Huang Huidan is the one who snatched gold earlier this year but she's very flaky and I don't expect her to hit again when it counts, sadly. Although Yao Jinnan and Shang Chunsong are top quality beamers, I'd still take a beam specialist like Sui Lu or Zeng Siqi for the last spot, due to the lack of floor/vault specialists.
Yao Jinnan AA, UB and BB attempt
Shang Chunsong AA, UB, BB and FX attempt
Tan Jiaxin/He Kexin UB attempt
Zeng Siqi/Sui Lu BB attempt
Japan's team is a bit of a no-brainer, seeing as it has already been named. Two-time Olympian Yu Minobe joins the girls long seen as locks- Asuka Teramoto, Natsumi Sasada and Mai Murakami. The question is, who will join Asuka in the AA? Mai is the obvious bet, but she has very very rarely hit 4/4. For that reason, Natsumi is the best choice. Mai will be looking to make floor and vault finals, Yu beam finals, Asuka bars, beam and floor and Natsumi beam and floor...though she's very very shaky and beam is unlikely for her. Their best hope for a medal is Mai on floor, whose difficulty ranges from 6.0 to a monster 6.7. The latter is very unlikely to ever be credited, as her tumbling and dance skills have unfortunately gone downhill compared to when she was a junior.
Asuka Teramoto AA, BB, UB and FX attempt
Natsumi Sasada AA, BB and FX attempt
Mai Murakami FX and VT attempt
Yu Minobe BB attempt
Canada have lost some of their best seniors to NCAA- Brittany Rogers, Peng Peng Lee and Kristina Vaculik which is more than a bit of a blow. Nevertheless, they do have quite a few promising seniors. Girls like Victoria Moors and Ellie Black are locks if they are healthy. Victoria, who is training a double double laidout, unfortunately had a disastrous time at Nationals as she was sick and had calf issues. Even with that, she has competed very strongly when healthy and her floor is really her ticket to the team as it has huge medal potential. Ellie is a fierce competitor and has made great strides on previously weak events, bars and beam. I'd add Gabriella Douglas and Maegan Chant to this team, the former for her spectacular floor and the latter for her vaulting- not super strong yet, but showing enormous potential there and both need the experience to improve. This team, like Japan, is fairly devoid of someone for bars but should do well anyway.
Victoria Moors AA, FX
Ellie Black AA, FX, VT and BB attempt
Gabriella Douglas FX and BB attempt
Maegan Chant VT and FX attempt
Britain are not exactly in a brilliant position, they have lost the excellent Gabby Jupp to an ACL tear, Rebecca Tunney had a disastrous comeback from injury recently, new seniors like Georgina Hockenhull and Angel Romaeo have not proven themselves yet, bars specialists Ruby Harrold and Becky Downie have fallen more times than they have hit and seriously strong gymnasts like Amy Tinkler, Tyesha Matthis, Ellie Downie and Catherine Lyons are all juniors. Beth Tweddle has refuted rumours that she is retiring but she is almost certainly not going to suddenly knock out a killer 7.0 bars routine as she's still taking a break. Rebecca and Hannah Whelan have definitely not had great competitions so far this year, but both have plenty of time to improve on what they have shown. I believe Rebecca aside from the long break with her recovery, has also grown a bit which will of course impact her routines. That said, I'd put both girls on the team to do AA. In a similar vein, despite the inconsistency of both Becky and Ruby, they are still good hopes for the bars final if they don't fall, so they'd be on the team also.
Rebecca Tunney AA, FX, UB attempt
Hannah Whelan AA, FX attempt
Becky Downie UB attempt
Ruby Harrold UB attempt
Italy's Vanessa Ferrari has made noises about retirement but she's been competing so much this year and just won the AA at Mersin so I think she'll hang on until after worlds. Her presence alone is a huge motivation and boost for the rest of the team. Along with her I think Elisa Meneghini will do the AA and then some combination of Carlotta Ferlito/Giorgia Campana/Elisabetta Preziosa for the other two spots..but I think we'll see Carlotta and Giorgia.
Vanessa Ferrari AA, FX, BB, UB attempt
Elisa Meneghini AA, FX and BB attempt
Carlotta Ferlito FX, BB attempt
Giorgia Campana FX, UB, BB attempt
The All-Around
For a Post Olympic year, I don't think we run the risk of a weak field whatsoever. (In 2005, Monette Russo won bronze and in 2009, Koko Tsurumi). The top Russian and Romanian girls have not taken a break, and while some of the Americans are only getting back to training now, there are enough that the idea of them scrambling to field two top all-arounders is ludicrous. Currently, Simone Biles is the one to beat. She boasts huge difficulty- 6.3 vault and beam, 6.2 floor and 6.1 bars. It's quite likely she'll sneak some upgrades into floor and beam also. Aliya Mustafina has 5.8 vault, 6.3 bars, 6.4 beam and 6.1 floor. Similarly, she has upgrades planned for bars and her beam difficulty may reach 6.7 or higher. The key for both girls is to stay on the beam. That won't be an issue for Larisa Iordache who could well be dragged down by her weak bars instead, but her 6.9 solid beam is a huge boost for her. Her floor is 6.2 and her vault 5.8. Her bars were in and around 5.7 but she can upgrade there. It's far from concrete how USA's second all-arounder will be but we should, from past experience, except them to be strong. China's Shang Chunsong could well be up there if she gets a DTY- her difficulty is 6.7-8 bars, 6.6 beam and 6.1 floor. Yao Jinnan could be the slow and steady threat for bronze either. We are of course, far too far out to really pick the medals but this lot plus a healthy Viktoria Komova are definitely in the forefront for medals.
Vault
Astonishingly deep, potentially much moreso than the lacklustre Olympic final. Expect Simone Biles, a second American, Phan Thi Ha Thanh, Giulia Steingruber, Ri Un Ha, Janine Berger, Oksana Chusovitina, Noel Van Klaveren, Chantysha Netteb, Alexa Moreno, Jade Barbosa, Adrian Gomes, Mai Murakami, Hong un Jong, Ellie Black, Maegan Chant, Sandra Izbasa, Maria Paseka, Yamilet Pena, Fadwa Mahmoud and Larisa Iordache to bring all they can to the (vault) table. Let us just hope the Produnova chuckers can get up afterwards..though Yamilet's coaching and injury status is unclear, so maybe she is sticking to safer vaults if possible. Last year has taught us that even the surest of sure things can crash a vault so I will not even attempt to divine a top 8 from this. I'd love to see the top 4 make the final though the latter two failed to do so last year. Giulia is upgrading her second vault- doubling it, but both vaults are in danger of being downgraded or heavily deducted due to piking, unfortunately.
Bars
Although Beth Tweddle has said she's definitely not retiring, but as mentioned above she's not in a position to shine this year. Aliya Mustafina and Viktoria Komova will be expected to be in the front of the hunt for medals- and whichever two Chinese gymnasts qualify. Elizabeth Seitz is doing her Def again, newcomers Sophie Scheder, Jonna Adlerteg and Roxana Popa all have strong sets and the brilliant but inconsistent Ruby Harrold and Becky Downie will be pulling out all the stops to make finals. Kyla Ross, Kim Bui, Asuka Teramoto, Noemi Makra and Lisa Katherina Hill are all ones to watch too. There are also one or two Australians like Maddie Leydin who may be in with a shot. All of last year's routines are down about 0.3 in difficulty in this code so I would be surprised if we saw a 7.0 routine. Certainly the Chinese have a few approaching 6.8 though, and there are quite a few girls doing exciting release-release and/or release-transition combinations in their routine to boost difficulty. Whoever makes the final, it will definitely not be a snoozefest.
Beam
We've all been namedropping Katelyn Ohashi for this title when it emerged that her routine has a 7.2 d-score. Although she is very steady with it, her connections are too slow and consequently she has not yet hit past a 6.8 in competition. That's not saying much, since she only competed twice and is currently recovering from surgery. She may be able to get this event back in time and we shouldn't count her out of the running to make the team, but the focus has definitely shifted onto other high-scoring beam routines, or at least until Katelyn's ability to compete this year is clearer. Larisa Iordache is another favourite, and one who is definitely suffering from a few health issues herself that are hindering her usual precision if her recent performance at Anadia is anything to go by. Larisa's beam difficulty is 6.5, she competed 6.7 at Doha and has now competed 6.9. Certainly the latter is the routine she will be unleashing at worlds, and that will be hard to beat. Shang Chunsong remains a major threat, especially if she can improve her dismount. Simone Biles may increase her beam difficulty to 6.7, and Kyla Ross would be a contender too if she upgrades. We should expect an Italian or two, like Elisa Meneghini and Carlotta Ferlito and maybe a Russian if their routines are steady, but this looks like a clear-cut fight between the Romanians and the Chinese.
Floor
The girl to beat is Ksenia Afanasyeva who whipped out an almost perfect routine at Euros and an upgraded difficulty of 6.4. But Ksenia is inconsistent and there are quite a few snapping at her heels- Simone Biles, the second American, Larisa Iordache, one of Sandra Izbasa/Diana Bulimar, Victoria Moors, Mai Murakami, Giulia Steingruber and more. Full-in double layouts, double doubles, 1.5 twists to tucked full-ins and maybe even laidout double doubles will abound. Definitely not shaping up to be a weak floor final.
I updated the predictions that I did last November. You can see them, marked in blue, here.
Do you disagree with my 'teams'? Who I have missed factoring in for event finals? Will we see a laidout double double or TTY? What will Vanessa Ferrari wear?
Showing posts with label Japan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Japan. Show all posts
Monday, 1 July 2013
Tuesday, 19 March 2013
Larisa in strike #5- Updated
Larisa Iordache has been pulled for the fifth time from a world cup, Cottbus. So too has Diana Bulimar but she doesn't have quite the same track record. Sigh. I get that if Larisa is injured then she has to be preserved for Euros and it wouldn't be smart to pull out of all of the March competitions in one go. It does look pretty bad on the part of the Romanian gymnastics federation though and I doubt the meet organisers are enjoying the last minute cancellations. As for Diana, it's possible she tweaked something when she fell off the beam awkwardly, or in training but I think it's more likely they want to work on her beam before she competes again. Who knows. Coming up the week after is Doha which both girls are signed up for still, so we'll have to wait and see what happens there. This meet clashes with Chemnitz- the USA-Romania-Germany friendly and it's quite possible if both girls are healthy that they might be transferred to that instead as the competition is a lot stiffer with USA's a-team and the meet itself being in Europe, preferable to the middle east.
The good news is that Cottbus still has great competitors- Anastasia Grishina, Anna Dementyeva, Evgeniya Shelgunova, Kristina Goryunova, Huang Huidan, Chantysha Netteb, Noel van Klaveren, Sophie Scheder and Roxana Popa. Not to mention Jesolo taking place this weekend too. This meet will hopefully showcase a consistent and strong Simone Biles with more controlled landings on floor, Lexie Priessman's incredible 6.7 floor routine, Bailie Key's upgrades and general fantastic all-around work and a sneaky little upgrade or two from Kyla Ross. I don't expect Kyla to knock out upgrades like Simone has been doing, especially as she lost training time recently, but it would be nice to see her floor at least approach 6.0 and some little adjustments to her beam and bars. I'd like to see improvement on beam and bars from Amelia Hundley and I'm looking forward to her floor. Probably Bailie's the most after Simone's though- she has a new floor routine at last! Not to mention beam and bars upgrades. As for Maggie Nichols and Peyton Ernst, I'll be eager to see what they come up with as they are definitely unknown quantities at this stage. Brenna Dowell's amzing front double pike is always welcome too. Sadly Katelyn Ohashi has pulled out of both Jesolo and Chemnitz, due to a back injury. Hopefully she can recover quickly but I'm happy she is getting a rest from competition anyway, as she looked exhausted at American Cup. Mai Murakami and the rest of the Japanese team will be competing though, and there's an enormous pile of Italian talent on the roster. Can't wait!
Sadly, Huang Huidan had a disaster on bars today in her attempt to qualify to Cottbus bars finals, though she apparently did not fall on her dismount, just a big stumble. She also came to a stop halfway through. Evgeniya Shelgunova suffered the same stop, and had other errors- her Pak sounds as unique as ever, and she scored higher. Must wait for video to judge how big an error Huang's dismount was. She lost the tiebreaker for the eighth and final place to Jessica Lopez so she won't get redemption there. Hopefully she nails beam. Next week we will see Zeng Siqi, Tan Jiaxin and Zhang Qing at Doha. The Chinese are barely out of winter training and I don't expect amazing things from them just yet, but hopefully some lovely work materialises. The good news I got from the quick hits is that Anastasia Grishina performed beautifully on bars, earning the top score by a mile- 14.9. Apparently Oksana Chusovitina has cleaned up her form? I thought when I saw her vaults recently that she had downgraded, as they looked much cleaner. How amazing that they're the same vaults. I wouldn't be surprised if she suddenly emerged as a top all-arounder capable of scoring 60+. Well I would, but she keeps defying logic. Beam and floor finalists at Cottbus will be determined tomorrow. Hopefully video emerges soon, or even just of finals.
Interestingly enough, Cottbus is not using the new vault code. As a world cup., it really should be, unless FIG have reneged on it since LRSY. Evgeniya Shelgunova fell on floor in quals. That, her bars error and her scary second vault should be enough to seal the deal for Afan to go to Euros. Anna Dementeyeva scored well on floor but fell off beam. She is capable of such beautiful work but I doubt they will trust her with a spot somehow. I'm so happy that Anastasia Grishina hit beam. That's two in a row and top qualifier for both I believe. Huang Huidan sadly grabbed the beam and then fell off trying to regain her balance after that. Looks like she will be joining Demy in the inconsistent lovelies box so far this year, but Grishina has clawed her way out so hope remains. Let's hope Shang Chunsong, Tan Jiaxin, Zeng Siqi and Zhang Qing all produce stellar work in their upcoming meets. It will also be interesting to see how Wu Liufang competes nationally this year. They may actually need He Kexin and Deng Linlin to hang on for a while, particularly if Yao Jinnan is not on top form.
In Jesolo news, Simone Biles second vault was very high. I have no idea what it is. I'm guessing a Mustafina. If it is that will be amazing to see, especially as it hasn't been done really well by the handful that have already done it. Even Maroney's was a little low every time she did it. Always great, but could have done with more height all the same. Mai Murakami apparently trained very well, high double double (generally it's been low recently) and a DTY. So excited to see her routines. Loving their training leo, it's showing up USA's (hideous bright pink, black bit and obligatory swirl) leos as extra tacky.
As well as Jesolo and Cottbus, British Championships are taking place this weekend. I'm not sure if Becky Downie is competing, I hope so, for a chance to redeem herself after her unfortunate performance at LRSY. Or Rebecca Tunney, who hasn't emerged yet. Ruby Harrold and Gabby Jupp are both going to Doha next weekend but will still have to give British Championships their all as it's a major qualifier for Euros. The senior AA will be livestreamed tomorrow! Last year it was not region blocked whatsoever, they're good like that. The clocks have not gone forward yet so please bear in mind that normal time conversions to GMT are out. Currently we are 4 hours ahead of EST, not 5. I made this mistake when talking about Russian Championships, apologies. Rebecca Tunney is out with an injury so won't be there. This was mentioned on TCG as well as my comments. Hopefully she will be back on form for worlds if not Euros but Gabby Jupp is competing so all is right with the world. It should be a good battle between her and Hannah Whelan all the same. And hopefully there will be more fantastic bars routines from two certain seniors and some more nice displays of corner dance with which British juniors have paved the way. Tyesha Matthis, who very impressively won the AA at AYOF, repeated her feat in the junior competition. Amy Tinkler and Ellie Downie were second and third.
Alla Sosnitskaya, a new Russian face, has some extremely beautiful turn combinations in training. Neither materialised at Russian Championships though, but nobody was pulling out all the stops there. She had some very out of control landings on floor at Russian Championships, but she does have a nice double layout and triple full so hopefully she can gain more consistency with her landings in time- they're not bad in this video, except one. Check out the BEAUTIFUL illusion-Memmel-double turn, and later the triple turn which starts as an l-turn, graduates to a Moors turn (I don't know what that position is called) and then down to being held at ankle height. Exquisite stuff, hope to see it again soon. Alla turned senior last year but doesn't appear to be on the radar as of yet. I'm not sure what's like on the other events, they could certainly do with a strong clean vaulter if her strengths also lie in that direction. Video is here.
I'm trying not to get excited about the training video of Aliya Mustafina doing a double layout. Granted it's definitely not appraching competition surface and she has a whole bunch of extra backhandsprings in, but wow is it beautiful. As a sidenote, I'm sick of hearing on places like gymfanconfessions (good for a laugh) that Aliya has terrible form. I wasn't aware that her triple fulls and amanars are all that her routines consist of. It's hilarious and yet infuriating when people submit confessions acting as if she is Aly Raisman, Evgeniya Shelgunova or Shallon Olsen in the form department. Yes, she has creepy fans and yes, there's quitea lot of hype around her even now on the gymternet- but no need to blast her as having crap form. There was even one that said she was the worst gymnast ever. LOL. Nobody is acting like her triple fulls and vaulting are Cheng Fei-like objects of beauty, but no need to get delusional. Anyway, I wonder where the DLO would fit in? I hope not to replace her first pass, which is so well done. I'd like to see her do the double arabian-stag, DLO, 1.5 into double tuck and then a 2.5-front layout last pass. No triple full in that routine, and she's generally very solid on dance elements too to bump up that d-score. Hopefully it will appear and isn't just a tease like Jordyn Wieber's. The link is here, it refuses to embed.
I'm busy lately so I can't post or comment as much, but it's temporary and I'm still using my phone to keep up to date :)
The good news is that Cottbus still has great competitors- Anastasia Grishina, Anna Dementyeva, Evgeniya Shelgunova, Kristina Goryunova, Huang Huidan, Chantysha Netteb, Noel van Klaveren, Sophie Scheder and Roxana Popa. Not to mention Jesolo taking place this weekend too. This meet will hopefully showcase a consistent and strong Simone Biles with more controlled landings on floor, Lexie Priessman's incredible 6.7 floor routine, Bailie Key's upgrades and general fantastic all-around work and a sneaky little upgrade or two from Kyla Ross. I don't expect Kyla to knock out upgrades like Simone has been doing, especially as she lost training time recently, but it would be nice to see her floor at least approach 6.0 and some little adjustments to her beam and bars. I'd like to see improvement on beam and bars from Amelia Hundley and I'm looking forward to her floor. Probably Bailie's the most after Simone's though- she has a new floor routine at last! Not to mention beam and bars upgrades. As for Maggie Nichols and Peyton Ernst, I'll be eager to see what they come up with as they are definitely unknown quantities at this stage. Brenna Dowell's amzing front double pike is always welcome too. Sadly Katelyn Ohashi has pulled out of both Jesolo and Chemnitz, due to a back injury. Hopefully she can recover quickly but I'm happy she is getting a rest from competition anyway, as she looked exhausted at American Cup. Mai Murakami and the rest of the Japanese team will be competing though, and there's an enormous pile of Italian talent on the roster. Can't wait!
Sadly, Huang Huidan had a disaster on bars today in her attempt to qualify to Cottbus bars finals, though she apparently did not fall on her dismount, just a big stumble. She also came to a stop halfway through. Evgeniya Shelgunova suffered the same stop, and had other errors- her Pak sounds as unique as ever, and she scored higher. Must wait for video to judge how big an error Huang's dismount was. She lost the tiebreaker for the eighth and final place to Jessica Lopez so she won't get redemption there. Hopefully she nails beam. Next week we will see Zeng Siqi, Tan Jiaxin and Zhang Qing at Doha. The Chinese are barely out of winter training and I don't expect amazing things from them just yet, but hopefully some lovely work materialises. The good news I got from the quick hits is that Anastasia Grishina performed beautifully on bars, earning the top score by a mile- 14.9. Apparently Oksana Chusovitina has cleaned up her form? I thought when I saw her vaults recently that she had downgraded, as they looked much cleaner. How amazing that they're the same vaults. I wouldn't be surprised if she suddenly emerged as a top all-arounder capable of scoring 60+. Well I would, but she keeps defying logic. Beam and floor finalists at Cottbus will be determined tomorrow. Hopefully video emerges soon, or even just of finals.
Interestingly enough, Cottbus is not using the new vault code. As a world cup., it really should be, unless FIG have reneged on it since LRSY. Evgeniya Shelgunova fell on floor in quals. That, her bars error and her scary second vault should be enough to seal the deal for Afan to go to Euros. Anna Dementeyeva scored well on floor but fell off beam. She is capable of such beautiful work but I doubt they will trust her with a spot somehow. I'm so happy that Anastasia Grishina hit beam. That's two in a row and top qualifier for both I believe. Huang Huidan sadly grabbed the beam and then fell off trying to regain her balance after that. Looks like she will be joining Demy in the inconsistent lovelies box so far this year, but Grishina has clawed her way out so hope remains. Let's hope Shang Chunsong, Tan Jiaxin, Zeng Siqi and Zhang Qing all produce stellar work in their upcoming meets. It will also be interesting to see how Wu Liufang competes nationally this year. They may actually need He Kexin and Deng Linlin to hang on for a while, particularly if Yao Jinnan is not on top form.
In Jesolo news, Simone Biles second vault was very high. I have no idea what it is. I'm guessing a Mustafina. If it is that will be amazing to see, especially as it hasn't been done really well by the handful that have already done it. Even Maroney's was a little low every time she did it. Always great, but could have done with more height all the same. Mai Murakami apparently trained very well, high double double (generally it's been low recently) and a DTY. So excited to see her routines. Loving their training leo, it's showing up USA's (hideous bright pink, black bit and obligatory swirl) leos as extra tacky.
Alla Sosnitskaya, a new Russian face, has some extremely beautiful turn combinations in training. Neither materialised at Russian Championships though, but nobody was pulling out all the stops there. She had some very out of control landings on floor at Russian Championships, but she does have a nice double layout and triple full so hopefully she can gain more consistency with her landings in time- they're not bad in this video, except one. Check out the BEAUTIFUL illusion-Memmel-double turn, and later the triple turn which starts as an l-turn, graduates to a Moors turn (I don't know what that position is called) and then down to being held at ankle height. Exquisite stuff, hope to see it again soon. Alla turned senior last year but doesn't appear to be on the radar as of yet. I'm not sure what's like on the other events, they could certainly do with a strong clean vaulter if her strengths also lie in that direction. Video is here.
I'm trying not to get excited about the training video of Aliya Mustafina doing a double layout. Granted it's definitely not appraching competition surface and she has a whole bunch of extra backhandsprings in, but wow is it beautiful. As a sidenote, I'm sick of hearing on places like gymfanconfessions (good for a laugh) that Aliya has terrible form. I wasn't aware that her triple fulls and amanars are all that her routines consist of. It's hilarious and yet infuriating when people submit confessions acting as if she is Aly Raisman, Evgeniya Shelgunova or Shallon Olsen in the form department. Yes, she has creepy fans and yes, there's quitea lot of hype around her even now on the gymternet- but no need to blast her as having crap form. There was even one that said she was the worst gymnast ever. LOL. Nobody is acting like her triple fulls and vaulting are Cheng Fei-like objects of beauty, but no need to get delusional. Anyway, I wonder where the DLO would fit in? I hope not to replace her first pass, which is so well done. I'd like to see her do the double arabian-stag, DLO, 1.5 into double tuck and then a 2.5-front layout last pass. No triple full in that routine, and she's generally very solid on dance elements too to bump up that d-score. Hopefully it will appear and isn't just a tease like Jordyn Wieber's. The link is here, it refuses to embed.
I'm busy lately so I can't post or comment as much, but it's temporary and I'm still using my phone to keep up to date :)
Friday, 28 December 2012
Hopes for 2013
I hope everyone had a good Christmas/holidays. I will be out of work soon as I messed up my back and have too many sick days to be kept on. Sigh. Still, better to have more time to heal. So I will be on this more I expect. Anyway, onto hopes for 2013!
A fair and balanced American Cup
*splutter*. This one is impossible of course. Regardless of who actually competes at it, it would be great if it wasn't a given that all non-American competitors will enter Madison Square Gardens with an 0.5 deduction for each event for their nationality. As for who I want to see at it, Kyla Ross if she has upgrades, and Simone Biles or Sarah Finnegan. I expect to see Elizabeth Price Vs Kyla Ross with Lexie Priessman as the exhibition. I don't expect to see any Russian or Chinese competitors. Russia are pissed and China have more important competitions to be preparing for. IF Russia send someone I predict Evgeniya Shelgunova. Romania will send one of Diana Bulimar/Larisa Iordache and a back-up of a new senior, Ana Maria Ocalisan or Stefanie Alina Stanila.
Original mounts and dismounts
Come on now, there are fabulous ways to mount the beam without running the (understandable) risk of taking up too much time/energy for little gain, or risking an acrobatic mount. Much as I would love to see a fabulous planche into pirouette handstand, it does make sense not to do one thanks to the demands on time and difficulty. Aleftina Priakhina/Elena Zamolodchikova's mount should have a revival. As for beam dismounts, yawn I am SO BORED of the double pike. Not that I want them all replaced with full-in's and Patterson's as that's very demanding. More twisting dismounts, more gainer ones and some of the very rare ones that have a high tarriff would be nice.
As for bars, an arabian tuck mount would be lovely. A bit ambitious though I expect, with the margin of error and impending dead hang. Again, Aleftina Priakhina/Elena Zamolodchikova were onto something here, a gorgeous acrobatic mount without much risk. Bring it back! But I would settle for a little flair and originality- like jump to hang under the low bar in pike position to handstand- stalder. I'm sure it would have a catchier title than that though. As for dismounts, snore with all the double layouts and full in's. Bring back the arabian double pike and triple flyaways! I would also like to see Victoria Moors' dismount built on, it is straight from the old school and just lovely.
A return of great releases and transitions
The new code will allow for transitions such as the Mo Salto and Counter Kim to be performed without a deduction- which is what would have happened in the current code. Expecting them to instantly become popular would be insane of course, given how difficult they are, the stature required and the possiblity of it eating into time for other events, especially for all-arounders. However I do think we will see them this quad, in particular from China and North Korea. Contrary to popular opinion, both of the above were not just performed by one gymnast. Bi Wenjing, Mo Huilan, Kui YuanYuan and a good few other Chinese gymnasts did the Mo Salto. Zhou Duan did the Gaylord II. Quite a few did the Counter Kim aside from Kim Gwang Suk- Gina Gogean, Letitia Begue, Nadia Hategan and a few more- including an unnamed schoolgirl who did it from toe-on. As for more run-of-the-mill releases, more Church', Hindorff''s, Downie's and Ricna's would be great. And release combinations- which China are already on top of.
Transition wise, death to the Pak. Shap's are overused too, but slightly harder to replace. Bhardwaj's, Chow's and Ezhova's are absolutely BEAUTIFUL and I'd love to see them in place of the Pak. Shout out to Beth Tweddle for using the Ezhova. I'd like to see someone do the Delladio and the Strong, but both of them have that insanely difficult and therefore rare look about them.
More rare tumbles and combinations on floor
Why has nobody done the double front-half out since 1996? It has been upgraded to an F so is definitely worth doing now. I'd also like to see the double front in a pike positiion (which has been done by a few), and more proper punchfronts (changing direction), especially after harder tumbles like a triple full (Myzdrikova style). If someone did a back-to-back pass that would be AWESOME though I do know they are not worth doing these days. A double full-in would be out of this world, but I'd settle for a much more achievable full twisting double layout. Or a split-leg one like Gutsu. I'd like to see combinations like Aly Raisman's first pass, though I am pretty sure the need for a combination pass is now out of the code. Damn.
Turns wise, scorpion turns and attitude turns are my favourite. I like the Gomez too. Memmel turns often have a bent supporting leg and are also usually poorly performed, so I'd like to see them decrease in popularity in favour of the others. I want to see more old school choreography, like handstands in pirouette, beautiful leaps out of back handsprings, and turns into front walkovers.
More original connections and moves on beam
Beam has some nice scope in the new code for lovely connections. I certainly do not want to see connections like Jordyn's, or other connections that just look like they will never be truly connected- the sheep jump is a major offender. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Onodi's in combination, so would love to see BHS-LOSO-Onodi or something similar. And illusion turns, they are beyond beautiful. A return of Ruflova's in combination like Yang Bo would be very much appreciated. My favourite moves on beam are sideways elements (NOT side somi's), so a return of Luisa Portocarrero's side walkover, Yurchenko loops, the Teza, and Tatiana Groshkova's/Yvonne Toussek's flic-flac's from sidestand would be just unbelievable. I am also a big fan of Kotchetkova's, another great move which has been upgraded in the new code.
More variety in vault
I don't think the devaluing of the Amanar is enough to really promote other vaults, especially as all of the girls are so used to Yurchenko entry to begin with. Nevertheless, more Rudi's, more Double Twisting Tsukahara's and even maybe a new vault would be great. My favourite vaults are the layout front and the handspring pike front half-out, so if they could be built on and be difficult enough to be worth doing that would be a dream. I would of course be thrilled to see a Triple Twisting Yurchenko though.
The rise of Japan, Canada, Ukraine, Italy and Great Britain
I know I know, why not Australia? Mainly because I am not exposed enough to their juniors to really assess their future potential. I want to see one of these, or all of them, break into the Top 4. They certainly have the girls to do it. All five have huge potential and I want to see them building on that next year.
The rise of Mai Murakami, Gabriella Douglas, Heaven Latimer, Eythora Thorsdottir, Noemi Makra, Gabby Jupp, Rebeca Andrade and Lou Nina
This will go hand in hand with the continued excellence of Aliya Mustafina, Huang Huidan, Shang Chungsong, Rebecca Tunney, McKayla Maroney, Victoria Moors, Kyla Ross, Larisa Iordache, Yao Jinnan and Diana Bulimar. May they ALL shine.
A total lack of sickled feet
And choppy legs on LOSO's, flexed feet, leg seperations, helicopter legs and non-split leaps.
A wonderful World Championships
Not least because I will be there. I want to see a strong field for the all-around, and for each event final. No score inflations, and hopefully no controversy. Also, more than 4 countries on the medal stand.
A fair and balanced American Cup
*splutter*. This one is impossible of course. Regardless of who actually competes at it, it would be great if it wasn't a given that all non-American competitors will enter Madison Square Gardens with an 0.5 deduction for each event for their nationality. As for who I want to see at it, Kyla Ross if she has upgrades, and Simone Biles or Sarah Finnegan. I expect to see Elizabeth Price Vs Kyla Ross with Lexie Priessman as the exhibition. I don't expect to see any Russian or Chinese competitors. Russia are pissed and China have more important competitions to be preparing for. IF Russia send someone I predict Evgeniya Shelgunova. Romania will send one of Diana Bulimar/Larisa Iordache and a back-up of a new senior, Ana Maria Ocalisan or Stefanie Alina Stanila.
Original mounts and dismounts
Come on now, there are fabulous ways to mount the beam without running the (understandable) risk of taking up too much time/energy for little gain, or risking an acrobatic mount. Much as I would love to see a fabulous planche into pirouette handstand, it does make sense not to do one thanks to the demands on time and difficulty. Aleftina Priakhina/Elena Zamolodchikova's mount should have a revival. As for beam dismounts, yawn I am SO BORED of the double pike. Not that I want them all replaced with full-in's and Patterson's as that's very demanding. More twisting dismounts, more gainer ones and some of the very rare ones that have a high tarriff would be nice.
As for bars, an arabian tuck mount would be lovely. A bit ambitious though I expect, with the margin of error and impending dead hang. Again, Aleftina Priakhina/Elena Zamolodchikova were onto something here, a gorgeous acrobatic mount without much risk. Bring it back! But I would settle for a little flair and originality- like jump to hang under the low bar in pike position to handstand- stalder. I'm sure it would have a catchier title than that though. As for dismounts, snore with all the double layouts and full in's. Bring back the arabian double pike and triple flyaways! I would also like to see Victoria Moors' dismount built on, it is straight from the old school and just lovely.
A return of great releases and transitions
The new code will allow for transitions such as the Mo Salto and Counter Kim to be performed without a deduction- which is what would have happened in the current code. Expecting them to instantly become popular would be insane of course, given how difficult they are, the stature required and the possiblity of it eating into time for other events, especially for all-arounders. However I do think we will see them this quad, in particular from China and North Korea. Contrary to popular opinion, both of the above were not just performed by one gymnast. Bi Wenjing, Mo Huilan, Kui YuanYuan and a good few other Chinese gymnasts did the Mo Salto. Zhou Duan did the Gaylord II. Quite a few did the Counter Kim aside from Kim Gwang Suk- Gina Gogean, Letitia Begue, Nadia Hategan and a few more- including an unnamed schoolgirl who did it from toe-on. As for more run-of-the-mill releases, more Church', Hindorff''s, Downie's and Ricna's would be great. And release combinations- which China are already on top of.
Transition wise, death to the Pak. Shap's are overused too, but slightly harder to replace. Bhardwaj's, Chow's and Ezhova's are absolutely BEAUTIFUL and I'd love to see them in place of the Pak. Shout out to Beth Tweddle for using the Ezhova. I'd like to see someone do the Delladio and the Strong, but both of them have that insanely difficult and therefore rare look about them.
More rare tumbles and combinations on floor
Why has nobody done the double front-half out since 1996? It has been upgraded to an F so is definitely worth doing now. I'd also like to see the double front in a pike positiion (which has been done by a few), and more proper punchfronts (changing direction), especially after harder tumbles like a triple full (Myzdrikova style). If someone did a back-to-back pass that would be AWESOME though I do know they are not worth doing these days. A double full-in would be out of this world, but I'd settle for a much more achievable full twisting double layout. Or a split-leg one like Gutsu. I'd like to see combinations like Aly Raisman's first pass, though I am pretty sure the need for a combination pass is now out of the code. Damn.
Turns wise, scorpion turns and attitude turns are my favourite. I like the Gomez too. Memmel turns often have a bent supporting leg and are also usually poorly performed, so I'd like to see them decrease in popularity in favour of the others. I want to see more old school choreography, like handstands in pirouette, beautiful leaps out of back handsprings, and turns into front walkovers.
More original connections and moves on beam
Beam has some nice scope in the new code for lovely connections. I certainly do not want to see connections like Jordyn's, or other connections that just look like they will never be truly connected- the sheep jump is a major offender. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Onodi's in combination, so would love to see BHS-LOSO-Onodi or something similar. And illusion turns, they are beyond beautiful. A return of Ruflova's in combination like Yang Bo would be very much appreciated. My favourite moves on beam are sideways elements (NOT side somi's), so a return of Luisa Portocarrero's side walkover, Yurchenko loops, the Teza, and Tatiana Groshkova's/Yvonne Toussek's flic-flac's from sidestand would be just unbelievable. I am also a big fan of Kotchetkova's, another great move which has been upgraded in the new code.
More variety in vault
I don't think the devaluing of the Amanar is enough to really promote other vaults, especially as all of the girls are so used to Yurchenko entry to begin with. Nevertheless, more Rudi's, more Double Twisting Tsukahara's and even maybe a new vault would be great. My favourite vaults are the layout front and the handspring pike front half-out, so if they could be built on and be difficult enough to be worth doing that would be a dream. I would of course be thrilled to see a Triple Twisting Yurchenko though.
The rise of Japan, Canada, Ukraine, Italy and Great Britain
I know I know, why not Australia? Mainly because I am not exposed enough to their juniors to really assess their future potential. I want to see one of these, or all of them, break into the Top 4. They certainly have the girls to do it. All five have huge potential and I want to see them building on that next year.
The rise of Mai Murakami, Gabriella Douglas, Heaven Latimer, Eythora Thorsdottir, Noemi Makra, Gabby Jupp, Rebeca Andrade and Lou Nina
This will go hand in hand with the continued excellence of Aliya Mustafina, Huang Huidan, Shang Chungsong, Rebecca Tunney, McKayla Maroney, Victoria Moors, Kyla Ross, Larisa Iordache, Yao Jinnan and Diana Bulimar. May they ALL shine.
A total lack of sickled feet
And choppy legs on LOSO's, flexed feet, leg seperations, helicopter legs and non-split leaps.
A wonderful World Championships
Not least because I will be there. I want to see a strong field for the all-around, and for each event final. No score inflations, and hopefully no controversy. Also, more than 4 countries on the medal stand.
Sunday, 11 November 2012
Asian Championships and news
Introducing team North Korea! Hong Un Jong is the one looking fierce third from left. I would imagine the three new girls who were only recently registered with FIG are the one on the left and the two on the right. WAG competition does not start until tomorrow, so these are just podium training leos. Interesting that they look straight from the wardrobe of Nastia. In more exciting news, Hong Un Jong unleashed an Amanar and Cheng! Seeing as both still have their 6.5 values, China's Li Yiting has some stiff competition.
I will update this with more news as the competition unfolds..and hopefully some videos. China's CCTV are covering some of the comp, so that will help. As of now, I predict that China will win team, and Zeng Siqi and Shang Chunsong will medal in the AA. Li Yiting and Hong Un Jong will place on vault, China will dominate bars and beam, while Japan and North Korea will have more of a say on floor.
China are a bit up and down in team finals, though since they can drop a score, they should still win. Shang Chungsong fell on bars, it looks like Luo Peiru fell on beam judging by her e-score, Huang Huidan fell on floor and went out of bounds, Luo Peiru fell on her DTY and Li Yiting crashed her second vault. Hmm. Vault and floor d-scores were very low, with the exception of Shang Chunsong on floor and Luo Peiru and Li Yiting on vault. Bars seems to have been exceptionally strong, with Huanh Huidan in particular scoring a huge 15.4 there. Likewise, Zeng Siqi put up a monster 15.3 on beam. Very interesting!Zeng Siqi has an AA total of 57.4, which will be hard to beat. Shang Chunsong is not far behind, with 56.45.
Team:
1. China
2. North Korea
3. Japan
4. South Korea
China's lead was sizeable, something like 10 points, but well done to North Korea for placing second in their first outing in quite a while. They also had very impressive vaulting on the mens side, as well as two Cheng's on the women's- a vault that was not seen this year in competition.
AA:
1. Zeng Siqi
2. Sung Ji-Hye (South Korea)
3. Shang Chunsong
Event finals results are not out yet, I am a bit confused about time and I'm not sure if they are underway/have taken place/yet to take place. In any case, as mentioned before, vault is a toss-up between Li Yiting and Hong Un Jong, beam should be easily won by Zeng Siqi and Huang Huidan should do the honours on bars. Floor is a bit more undecided, but Japan's Risa Konishi had the highest score there today. Shang Chunsong will place too. Great competition for China, and for Zeng Siqi in particular who is cementing her place as a top AA-er (certainly in Asia, but she obviously needs to get her DTY back to really contend elsewhere). Wonderful to watch, and cute as a button. I think I'm not alone in waiting with delight (not) for all the 4 year-fans to claim she's 5 years old once she gets on the scene internationally.
Here is most of today's competition, with the sad exception of Huang Huidan's bars, but we'll see them in EF anyway.
Event finals are a bit shocking! Phan Thi Ha Thanh won. Ri Un Ha, Hong Un Jong and Li Yiting all had falls. So did Risa Konishi. Also, Wu Liufang won bars! Huang Huidan had some form issues and problems with her dismount it seems. Hong Un Jong's vaults were both underrotated, but it looks like she can fix it. Ri Un Ha's first vault is a DTY and not an amanar as previously reported. She's a little sloppy but quite powerful. Zeng Siqi appears to have fallen (must look up videos soon) off beam, as she only managed a 7.9 e-score in EF. Enough for bronze though! Shang Chunsong won gold in both beam and floor.
In other news, Anastasia Sidorova who has no luck at all has partially torn her ACL. It seems she will be out for only a few weeks, but she is missing the Massilia Cup anyway. Hope to see her fighting fit soon! She is being replaced at that event by junior Viktoria Kuzmina. It also appears unlikely that Yulia Inshina will compete as she is scheduled to do, but no word on why there is suddenly such doubt about it.
Danusia Francis is learning one of the most awesome and incredibly rare beam acro moves..a free sideways cartwheel. The second one looks ready to go.
You can see Mai Murakami's floor from Japanese Nationals here. I know I know, I mention her a lot. Too bad, she's amazing and how could anyone NOT like her after watching that? If you got a fright over how much older she looks, I think anyone would. I do have favourites but they're not influenced by my nationality at least.
Monday, 22 October 2012
Hong Un Jong and Grandi return! More news
The roster for the Asian Artistic Gymnastics Championships has been announced for Japan..and North Korea! (China already covered). North Korea's team consists of Hong Un Jong, Kang Yong Mi, Kim Un Hyang and three much younger total unknowns- Kim So Yong, Pak Sin Hyang and Ri Un Ha who all have birthdates of 1995/6. How exciting! First of all to see what Hong Un Jong and the other two are still capable of, and what the other 3 have up their sleeves. I am dissapointed not to see Cha Yong Hwa of the superb bars, but even so. Fantastic stuff.
Japan's team consists of Risa Konishi, Wakana Inoue, Sakura Noda, Erica Danko, Shizuka Tozawa and Mirai Sekiguchi. Like China they are not using Olympians, but they also seem to have gone one further and are using a bit of a b-team lineup. Very dissapointing not to see Mai Murakami and Natsumi Sasada, but perhaps they are being saved for bigger competitions. Hopefully. The competition takes place from 7-15th November and has an AA, TF and EF's. YAY!
In other news, John Orozco is the 3rd victim of the tour, injuring his knee on a dismount. Ridiculous! High level gymnastics is obviously more appealing as a draw, but so not worth it. It is confirmed to be a torn ACL and meniscus, which puts him out for at least a year. This tour is terrible.
The Russian teams for the upcoming Massilia Cup and next July's Universiade Games have been announced. Massilia's line-up will be Anastasia Sidorova, Yulia Inshina, Maria Kharenkova and Yevgeniya Shelgunova. Universiade's will be Aliya Mustafina, Tatiana Nabieva, Ksenia Afanasyeva and Kristina Goryunova. Great to see Kristina get a bigger assignment of more note, and of course, to see Nabs again. Maria Kharenkova is arguably Russia's best junior, so hopefully she can make even more of a name for herself.
The Chinese team for the upcoming Massilia Cup will be Lou Nina, Mei Jie, Chen Siyi and Liu Zhilin who all had strong performances this year at Nationals. Bars and beam should be a highlight and hopefully they can dominate there. The competition takes place from the 17th-18th November.
Romanian Junior Nationals have just taken place. They were split up into 4 categories from girls born in 2001-2002 down to girls who are already on the junior national team. Sadly, plenty of the most promising did not compete- Madalina Blendea, Adela Florea and Andreea Munteanu were all injured and Laura Jurca only did bars due to an injury also. Other girls were also injured, but quite a few only doing 1 or 2 events. Andreea Iridon who is great on bars (not a qualifying statement- she is!) dominated her age category and won bars, beam and floor. Silvia Zarzu did well but is hindered by her terrible bars. Laura Jurca took silver on bars. Sad to see so many absences, especially as the purpose of this competition was to add more to the national team. The big excitement was Andreea Iridon's bars and Asiana Peng's triple full on floor.Their team for Massilia has not been announced yet, but since they have a plethora of injuries it will be tougher than expected. Individuals and other teams have been announced. Of note are the two super exciting and very different Dutch girls- Eythora Thorsdottir and Chantysha Netteb. The former is glorious on beam and has a floor fresh from the 1985 Soviet team. The latter is powerful with her speciality being vault on which she is the reigning Junior European Champion. From Canada, Victoria Moors who is already down for both world cups and Victoria Woo and Gabriella Douglas (LOL if she competes against Gabby at some stage) are among the contingent.
Bruno Grandi has been re-elected. Yawn. New blood please. He will be 82 when his term ends. So has Nellie Kim which is less of a surprise given she ran unopposed. Nellie continues to be biased in her decisions, no longer a direct judge but having the power to sway their decision.
Anna Pavlova will compete at the Tournoi meet. In USA news, there is a big furore over comments Anna Li has made and some sort of (maybe not at all) reply Nastia made. ie accusations of bullying by Anna followed by 'Let it be' tweet from Nastia. Suspicion has been planted firmly in Alicia Sacramone's corner, with 'victims' being Gabby, Anna and Nastia. Personally, it would not take much for me to believe that of Alicia who does appear from several instances to have a mean side. Bullying is quite a step further though, despite the fact they have been cooped up together for quite a while, and dumping girls in their teens and early 20's together and expecting no drama is ludicrous. However Anna should never have posted any comments. It smacks of immaturity, and she is definitely old enough to know better. It's one thing doing something like that on facebook between school friends, but it's definitely worse when these girls have a substantial fanbase and attract a lot of attention from the gym community at large. Not impressed.
Japan's team consists of Risa Konishi, Wakana Inoue, Sakura Noda, Erica Danko, Shizuka Tozawa and Mirai Sekiguchi. Like China they are not using Olympians, but they also seem to have gone one further and are using a bit of a b-team lineup. Very dissapointing not to see Mai Murakami and Natsumi Sasada, but perhaps they are being saved for bigger competitions. Hopefully. The competition takes place from 7-15th November and has an AA, TF and EF's. YAY!
In other news, John Orozco is the 3rd victim of the tour, injuring his knee on a dismount. Ridiculous! High level gymnastics is obviously more appealing as a draw, but so not worth it. It is confirmed to be a torn ACL and meniscus, which puts him out for at least a year. This tour is terrible.
The Russian teams for the upcoming Massilia Cup and next July's Universiade Games have been announced. Massilia's line-up will be Anastasia Sidorova, Yulia Inshina, Maria Kharenkova and Yevgeniya Shelgunova. Universiade's will be Aliya Mustafina, Tatiana Nabieva, Ksenia Afanasyeva and Kristina Goryunova. Great to see Kristina get a bigger assignment of more note, and of course, to see Nabs again. Maria Kharenkova is arguably Russia's best junior, so hopefully she can make even more of a name for herself.
The Chinese team for the upcoming Massilia Cup will be Lou Nina, Mei Jie, Chen Siyi and Liu Zhilin who all had strong performances this year at Nationals. Bars and beam should be a highlight and hopefully they can dominate there. The competition takes place from the 17th-18th November.
Romanian Junior Nationals have just taken place. They were split up into 4 categories from girls born in 2001-2002 down to girls who are already on the junior national team. Sadly, plenty of the most promising did not compete- Madalina Blendea, Adela Florea and Andreea Munteanu were all injured and Laura Jurca only did bars due to an injury also. Other girls were also injured, but quite a few only doing 1 or 2 events. Andreea Iridon who is great on bars (not a qualifying statement- she is!) dominated her age category and won bars, beam and floor. Silvia Zarzu did well but is hindered by her terrible bars. Laura Jurca took silver on bars. Sad to see so many absences, especially as the purpose of this competition was to add more to the national team. The big excitement was Andreea Iridon's bars and Asiana Peng's triple full on floor.Their team for Massilia has not been announced yet, but since they have a plethora of injuries it will be tougher than expected. Individuals and other teams have been announced. Of note are the two super exciting and very different Dutch girls- Eythora Thorsdottir and Chantysha Netteb. The former is glorious on beam and has a floor fresh from the 1985 Soviet team. The latter is powerful with her speciality being vault on which she is the reigning Junior European Champion. From Canada, Victoria Moors who is already down for both world cups and Victoria Woo and Gabriella Douglas (LOL if she competes against Gabby at some stage) are among the contingent.
Bruno Grandi has been re-elected. Yawn. New blood please. He will be 82 when his term ends. So has Nellie Kim which is less of a surprise given she ran unopposed. Nellie continues to be biased in her decisions, no longer a direct judge but having the power to sway their decision.
Anna Pavlova will compete at the Tournoi meet. In USA news, there is a big furore over comments Anna Li has made and some sort of (maybe not at all) reply Nastia made. ie accusations of bullying by Anna followed by 'Let it be' tweet from Nastia. Suspicion has been planted firmly in Alicia Sacramone's corner, with 'victims' being Gabby, Anna and Nastia. Personally, it would not take much for me to believe that of Alicia who does appear from several instances to have a mean side. Bullying is quite a step further though, despite the fact they have been cooped up together for quite a while, and dumping girls in their teens and early 20's together and expecting no drama is ludicrous. However Anna should never have posted any comments. It smacks of immaturity, and she is definitely old enough to know better. It's one thing doing something like that on facebook between school friends, but it's definitely worse when these girls have a substantial fanbase and attract a lot of attention from the gym community at large. Not impressed.
Tuesday, 31 July 2012
EPIC TEAM FINAL!
WOW USA win by five points!! Hit 12 for 12, you'd never know Gabby is shaky on beam or that bars are a weak point. Russia obviously gutted that they came second after a disastrous floor rotation, but I hope they will be proud that they came second after having to count not one but two disastrous floors. Not too thrilled they didn't congratulate USA..but it looks like only GB did! (Love that team). But they smiled on the podium apparently (didn't see victory ceremony :( ) good for them to pull themselves together for that.
So what happened to Russia, Romania and China?
Russia: Paseka's amanar had a huge step to the side, brought her down to 15.3 which is obviously high but they would have wanted 15.7 plus. Bars were great, though Grishina's was devalued to 6.3, which didn't help either. Beam looked shaky, Vika rocked her routine only to have a huge lunge on landing (how did I forget that when writing this originally???) and Musty had major wobbles everywhere, which I only found out after as it wasn't shown. Musty did not do an amanar- fantastic DTY but that keeps them 0.7 down on USA's three amanars. Floor is where it all came apart, Musty nailed it, Grishina missed her hand on a roundoff and subsequently could not do her double salto- expensive, and then Afan after a glorious routine, the best we will see at these Olympics (yes it trumps Victoria Moors, though well done to her for nailing hers again) came crashing down on her last pass. It was no suprise to see tears all around, how crushing for them. Could they have won if they hit everything? Quite possibly, but they didn't push out the difficulty boat fully and then had glaring errors so we'll never really know.
Romania: Romania played it safe, and saved their star Larisa. She did not do her amanar, so 0.7 down on Russia and 1.4+ down on USA on vault alone, I'm not sure what vault Sandra did as it wasn't shown but I would have heard if it was a Cheng by now. Larisa was not used on floor either, to save impact- Diana Bulimar stepped in and performed a charming routine instead, though difficulty down on Larisa's routine. Cata missed a connection on beam and didn't go for broke with her dismount, so she was 0.4 down on her full potential there but WHAT a routine anyway. Bars brings them way down, Larisa's were really good but the other two are well below standard. Fantastic floor and beam, but lack of amanars, crappy bars and not using full difficulty potential meant they could not catch the other two.
China: I did not see their bad routines (Here's what I did see: HKX YJN bars DLL YJN vault SL floor HQS beam, but counting Deng Linlin's beam fall and a diastrous floor routine was costly (12.5 I heard, don't know who??- Qiushuang?) Excellent bar routines clearly not enough for them to contend, but well done to He Kexin for nailing her bars! That's twice now when it counted, hope she hits again in what should be a super exciting bars EF. Yao Jinnan didn't crash her vault, but that bad landing was expensive too. All in all, a scrappy team and bad mistakes cost them a medal though they did have absolutely fantastic routines.
Well done to Canada! 5th just behind China, and their first team to qualify for a TF. What an achievement. Hopefully they can up the difficulty and continue being the one to watch. Two gymnasts into vault EF a great story too. Dissapointing for team GB not to contend higher, but Jenni Pinches fall from beam (I'm sure Danusia loved that) and lower difficulty counted them out. Their gymnastics programme should still be able to ride high on Beth Tweddle's bars (fairly certain to medal!) and their amazing MAG bronze.
Highlight of the whole competition
Goes to.........McKayla Maroney's amanar. Girl stuck it when it counted though I'm sure that wasn't easy as her huge height sets her at a disadvantage for a stuck landing AND she has a broken toe. Can't believe she stuck it. Just phenomenal! I hope it will be just as recognised as Gabby's bars and Aly's floor to their amazing victory. We saw lots of fantastic routines today but in my opinion, that vault was so exceptional that it beats them all. Vault EF gold in the bag.
Other highlights
- Gabby's beam. So nervewracking, and it WAS a huge gamble as I have already said but you wouldn't know it, most solid she's ever been, and when it counted most under huge pressure. Well done to her.
- Afan's floor. Devastating right at the very end but this is up there with best floor and best choreo certainly of the last few quads. Magnificent. Hope she kills it in floor EF- they would have given her 15.333 without the fall, that's enough to contend with Aly and the others.
- Cata's beam. (Note, her floor wasn't shown on BBC) It was obvious she had it in her to do a much better beam that she did on Sunday, and off she went and had a faultless beam. Amazing.
- He Kexin's bars. Thrilled to see her nail her release combo (STOP saying it's original Christine!).
- Beth Tweddle's bars. Fantastic, hope she can stick on the extra 0.2 in difficulty she has for bars EF, but she doesn't need it really
- Jordyn on floor, once again HUGE background noise for her, but she totally brought it. Clearly the toughest out there, who else would bounce back from being knocked out of the AA like that? No OOB this time!
- Victoria Moors floor. Enough said, it's amazing.
- Asuka Teramoto floor. LOVE her energy, delighted she was shown
- Aly Raisman's smirk on floor and her emotion as she nailed her last pass and saluted, great moment. I doubt she knew she only needed a 10.3 for USA to win, but just WOW.
- Sui Lu's beam and floor. Girl kept it together for her team, lovely on both pieces
Not so highlights (must get snappier name for this)
- Afan crashing her last pass, gutting
- Grishina messing up her roundoff and unable to do her double salto..though thankfully she didn't try and then crash horribly
- Vika having a dissapointing meet, with bad landings on her amanar and Patterson. Quality bars of course but still dissapointing for her
- Paseka with her really bad landing on her amanar. Sigh of relief they didn't get Musty to amanar it as well, Paseka was only brought to do her amanar and scored only a few tenths higher than Musty's DTY
- Musty wobbling on every skill on beam, she has been great and solid on beam all year so very dissapointing for her
- Ferrari crashed her easiest pass on floor! Didn't see it, but I am shocked. Hopefully she can nail it in EF
- Jenni Pinches fall off beam. It looked scary, and it does confirm the dubious nature of her selection. (I have mixed her up with the excellent Rebecca Tunney in the past, but I know now!) Danusia Francis must be pissed
- Deng Linlin's fall off beam, that was a shocker, I would suspect Yao, Lu or Huang of this before her. Very dissapointing for China
- China on floor, Deng's routine had very low landings and Huang apparently fell apart
- Russia and China in tears at the end. Gut wrenching to see their dreams end like that.
- Very sad to see that Victoria Moors floor score today would have gotten her into EF if it was her quals score
- Jordyn nailing her routines brought it home that these would have gotten her into the AA if she did them on Sunday
Favourite leo
Great Britain! It's amazing in blue too, delighted not to see that pretty crappy flag one they were showing earlier in the year. Canada and Japan are equally second, loved both. Italy next, love the blue and flag colour combination, beautiful. Surprisingly nice leos from them so far, but Ferrari can still show us how horrible they can be in floor EF. USA's and Russia both were decent, the silver rib skeletor USA one is better than it was in that photo, but would have preferred a blue one, or a flag one. Russia's was nice, but they have nicer up their sleeve! Did not like China's or Romania's, I want China to be more original in how they use their national colours, and Romania's was too shiny, with a not nice pattern.
Great victory by USA, what a team this is. Let's hope we can get away from Mag 7 neverending famewhores now.. I'd also like to take this opportunity to say STOP searching 'McKayla Maroney sl**/ McKayla Maroney sl***y' to end up here. Seriously getting out of hand now. McKayla is 16, and an elite gymnast. Do you think she has TIME to be a sl**? Just because she looks down in photos...Christ. Disgusting.
Crushed not to see the victory ceremoney, BBC cut off before it. Understandably there's no Brits on the podium, so why would they show it when they lots of other sports to get through but I REALLY wanted to see it. Considering how much of a big deal America's win is, I am sure some kind soul will stick it up on youtube. Please please please...Edit: Watched it on eurosport's live stream. Not a huge fan of USA's outfit, but great to watch nonetheless.
So what happened to Russia, Romania and China?
Russia: Paseka's amanar had a huge step to the side, brought her down to 15.3 which is obviously high but they would have wanted 15.7 plus. Bars were great, though Grishina's was devalued to 6.3, which didn't help either. Beam looked shaky, Vika rocked her routine only to have a huge lunge on landing (how did I forget that when writing this originally???) and Musty had major wobbles everywhere, which I only found out after as it wasn't shown. Musty did not do an amanar- fantastic DTY but that keeps them 0.7 down on USA's three amanars. Floor is where it all came apart, Musty nailed it, Grishina missed her hand on a roundoff and subsequently could not do her double salto- expensive, and then Afan after a glorious routine, the best we will see at these Olympics (yes it trumps Victoria Moors, though well done to her for nailing hers again) came crashing down on her last pass. It was no suprise to see tears all around, how crushing for them. Could they have won if they hit everything? Quite possibly, but they didn't push out the difficulty boat fully and then had glaring errors so we'll never really know.
Romania: Romania played it safe, and saved their star Larisa. She did not do her amanar, so 0.7 down on Russia and 1.4+ down on USA on vault alone, I'm not sure what vault Sandra did as it wasn't shown but I would have heard if it was a Cheng by now. Larisa was not used on floor either, to save impact- Diana Bulimar stepped in and performed a charming routine instead, though difficulty down on Larisa's routine. Cata missed a connection on beam and didn't go for broke with her dismount, so she was 0.4 down on her full potential there but WHAT a routine anyway. Bars brings them way down, Larisa's were really good but the other two are well below standard. Fantastic floor and beam, but lack of amanars, crappy bars and not using full difficulty potential meant they could not catch the other two.
China: I did not see their bad routines (Here's what I did see: HKX YJN bars DLL YJN vault SL floor HQS beam, but counting Deng Linlin's beam fall and a diastrous floor routine was costly (12.5 I heard, don't know who??- Qiushuang?) Excellent bar routines clearly not enough for them to contend, but well done to He Kexin for nailing her bars! That's twice now when it counted, hope she hits again in what should be a super exciting bars EF. Yao Jinnan didn't crash her vault, but that bad landing was expensive too. All in all, a scrappy team and bad mistakes cost them a medal though they did have absolutely fantastic routines.
Well done to Canada! 5th just behind China, and their first team to qualify for a TF. What an achievement. Hopefully they can up the difficulty and continue being the one to watch. Two gymnasts into vault EF a great story too. Dissapointing for team GB not to contend higher, but Jenni Pinches fall from beam (I'm sure Danusia loved that) and lower difficulty counted them out. Their gymnastics programme should still be able to ride high on Beth Tweddle's bars (fairly certain to medal!) and their amazing MAG bronze.
Highlight of the whole competition
Goes to.........McKayla Maroney's amanar. Girl stuck it when it counted though I'm sure that wasn't easy as her huge height sets her at a disadvantage for a stuck landing AND she has a broken toe. Can't believe she stuck it. Just phenomenal! I hope it will be just as recognised as Gabby's bars and Aly's floor to their amazing victory. We saw lots of fantastic routines today but in my opinion, that vault was so exceptional that it beats them all. Vault EF gold in the bag.
Other highlights
- Gabby's beam. So nervewracking, and it WAS a huge gamble as I have already said but you wouldn't know it, most solid she's ever been, and when it counted most under huge pressure. Well done to her.
- Afan's floor. Devastating right at the very end but this is up there with best floor and best choreo certainly of the last few quads. Magnificent. Hope she kills it in floor EF- they would have given her 15.333 without the fall, that's enough to contend with Aly and the others.
- Cata's beam. (Note, her floor wasn't shown on BBC) It was obvious she had it in her to do a much better beam that she did on Sunday, and off she went and had a faultless beam. Amazing.
- He Kexin's bars. Thrilled to see her nail her release combo (STOP saying it's original Christine!).
- Beth Tweddle's bars. Fantastic, hope she can stick on the extra 0.2 in difficulty she has for bars EF, but she doesn't need it really
- Jordyn on floor, once again HUGE background noise for her, but she totally brought it. Clearly the toughest out there, who else would bounce back from being knocked out of the AA like that? No OOB this time!
- Victoria Moors floor. Enough said, it's amazing.
- Asuka Teramoto floor. LOVE her energy, delighted she was shown
- Aly Raisman's smirk on floor and her emotion as she nailed her last pass and saluted, great moment. I doubt she knew she only needed a 10.3 for USA to win, but just WOW.
- Sui Lu's beam and floor. Girl kept it together for her team, lovely on both pieces
Not so highlights (must get snappier name for this)
- Afan crashing her last pass, gutting
- Grishina messing up her roundoff and unable to do her double salto..though thankfully she didn't try and then crash horribly
- Vika having a dissapointing meet, with bad landings on her amanar and Patterson. Quality bars of course but still dissapointing for her
- Paseka with her really bad landing on her amanar. Sigh of relief they didn't get Musty to amanar it as well, Paseka was only brought to do her amanar and scored only a few tenths higher than Musty's DTY
- Musty wobbling on every skill on beam, she has been great and solid on beam all year so very dissapointing for her
- Ferrari crashed her easiest pass on floor! Didn't see it, but I am shocked. Hopefully she can nail it in EF
- Jenni Pinches fall off beam. It looked scary, and it does confirm the dubious nature of her selection. (I have mixed her up with the excellent Rebecca Tunney in the past, but I know now!) Danusia Francis must be pissed
- Deng Linlin's fall off beam, that was a shocker, I would suspect Yao, Lu or Huang of this before her. Very dissapointing for China
- China on floor, Deng's routine had very low landings and Huang apparently fell apart
- Russia and China in tears at the end. Gut wrenching to see their dreams end like that.
- Very sad to see that Victoria Moors floor score today would have gotten her into EF if it was her quals score
- Jordyn nailing her routines brought it home that these would have gotten her into the AA if she did them on Sunday
Favourite leo
Great Britain! It's amazing in blue too, delighted not to see that pretty crappy flag one they were showing earlier in the year. Canada and Japan are equally second, loved both. Italy next, love the blue and flag colour combination, beautiful. Surprisingly nice leos from them so far, but Ferrari can still show us how horrible they can be in floor EF. USA's and Russia both were decent, the silver rib skeletor USA one is better than it was in that photo, but would have preferred a blue one, or a flag one. Russia's was nice, but they have nicer up their sleeve! Did not like China's or Romania's, I want China to be more original in how they use their national colours, and Romania's was too shiny, with a not nice pattern.
Great victory by USA, what a team this is. Let's hope we can get away from Mag 7 neverending famewhores now.. I'd also like to take this opportunity to say STOP searching 'McKayla Maroney sl**/ McKayla Maroney sl***y' to end up here. Seriously getting out of hand now. McKayla is 16, and an elite gymnast. Do you think she has TIME to be a sl**? Just because she looks down in photos...Christ. Disgusting.
Crushed not to see the victory ceremoney, BBC cut off before it. Understandably there's no Brits on the podium, so why would they show it when they lots of other sports to get through but I REALLY wanted to see it. Considering how much of a big deal America's win is, I am sure some kind soul will stick it up on youtube. Please please please...Edit: Watched it on eurosport's live stream. Not a huge fan of USA's outfit, but great to watch nonetheless.
Thursday, 26 July 2012
Podium Training news
The good
- USA looking ready to go on basically everything
- Maroney nailing her amanars (still with the step but even so..) and her Mustafina
- Musty looking very sharp and clean on all four- sticking DTY's
- Hannah Whelan has a DTY! That will help her out, especially when the new code kicks in
- Pena not dying on vault. Prod still questionable but she's not crashing them completely
- Millousi and Preziosa rocked their awesome beams
- Victoria Moors great on floor
- Vika landed amanars well
- Beth Tweddle looked awesome on floor
- Great bars from Huang Qiushuang, Gabby, Kyla, Vika and Grishina
- Huang Qiushuang in general having a great day
- Russia had a surprisingly good beam rotation
- Aly pointed her toes on bars! Stronger bars than her usual. This will help her out IF she manages to qualify for AA
- Afan was fantastic on floor..so impatient to see this routine!
- Jenni Pinches looked really good on floor, maybe she has found consistency?
- Campana, the last-minute substitute for Deagostini of Italy had a really good comp and confirmed the justice of her selection
- There's not just Vika and Aly's Patterson's- Elsa Garcia of Mexico nailed loads of them!
- Daiane Dos Santos lands a full twisting double layout and a double layout. Now aged 29, it doesn't look like any gymnast can ever top her tumbling power.
- Romania looking great on floor which they really need with the partial loss of their star. Diana Bulimar could really shine now.
- Lovely bars from Rie Tanaka. Will have to look up her difficulty but it would be so great to see her in bars EF
- Cata has a full twisting double layout! Really making her case for floor EF medal now
- Izbasa throws her Cheng and a beautiful Mustafina! Vault silver??
- Chelaru does what appears to be a timer for an amanar. Intriguing!
- Iordache did a full beam and bars, and did some vault and floor work (very light). Such determination when she is clearly in pain. Maybe this fire can help her compete strongly
The bad
- No floor from Maroney, who is being preserved and only doing vault. A beautiful routine which will be missed at these Olympics
- This means using Kyla in prelims, her score can be dropped but it makes it more annoying that it has such a stupidly low SV when she has such potential
- Rebecca Tunney hurt herself on a tumbling pass and cried BUT she did vault after so it doesn't seem serious
- Canada had a really crappy time on vault
- Lauren Mitchell had a really rough time, messing up badly on both floor and beam
- Aly had issues with her first tumbling pass
- Koko Tsurumi after throwing some low and dodgy tumbling on floor landed on her head on one, and was unable to continue on floor. However, she did compete afterwards..
- Paseka crashed her amanar more than once, the only thing she is on the team for- though stood them up all week
- Grishina's Silivas not looking competition ready
- Yao Jinnan had a pretty rough day and does not look on top form. UPDATE: Rumours of a thigh muscle strain :(
- Deng Linlin still wearing a back brace and looks to be in pain
- France who have a pretty scrappy team after being plagued with injuries looked rough and not ready, as they have done all week
- Brazil having issues with vault, Hypolito in particular
- Gabby sat at least one amanar and had problems on beam...not a suprise but both are her weak points if she's going four for four
- USA had an unbelievably gross leotard. Not only was it a disgusting pepto pink shade, it was also way too shiny with tacky looking silver stars AND mesh cut outs and weird stripes in the chest area. If Maroney cannot make it look good, it's an eyesore.
- Not one but TWO leopard print sleeveless leotards! Rotten Tina Erceg of Croatia and Laura Svilpaite of Lithuania were the offenders.
The injuries
- In heartbreaking news, Bitang has confirmed Larisa Iordache will not do the AA. Terrible news for her and her team and B&B- but also the Olympics as a whole, she has very exciting routines and was a top contender for the AA. Devastating. She will compete on bars and beam but it still means Romania are almost certain not to medal now..Bitang said the same too.UPDATE: Iordache's AA status now said to be 50/50, with the decision up to her. It is possible if she gets through prelims that she will have rest and pain relief enough to do the AA..nerves of steel just as important with a decision like that. Hopefully she can, though not at the expense of her health!
- Adrien Gomes of Brazil is out and will not compete. Brazil has been plagued by bad luck and injuries this year, and are pretty much out of replacements at this point. They are extremely unlikely to qualify for TF
- McKayla Maroney is competing on a broken toe and is in pain. Although it is brilliant and very lucky for her team that she can vault and did so today, her floor is a big loss and she also has a decent beam routine.
- As I mentioned before, Anna Li is unable to train as she will be in a neck brace for the next few weeks. It appears that she landed on her neck on her bars fall..very very scary! USAG seem to have a different meaning for 'fine'- what an absolute disgrace.
- USA looking ready to go on basically everything
- Maroney nailing her amanars (still with the step but even so..) and her Mustafina
- Musty looking very sharp and clean on all four- sticking DTY's
- Hannah Whelan has a DTY! That will help her out, especially when the new code kicks in
- Pena not dying on vault. Prod still questionable but she's not crashing them completely
- Millousi and Preziosa rocked their awesome beams
- Victoria Moors great on floor
- Vika landed amanars well
- Beth Tweddle looked awesome on floor
- Great bars from Huang Qiushuang, Gabby, Kyla, Vika and Grishina
- Huang Qiushuang in general having a great day
- Russia had a surprisingly good beam rotation
- Aly pointed her toes on bars! Stronger bars than her usual. This will help her out IF she manages to qualify for AA
- Afan was fantastic on floor..so impatient to see this routine!
- Jenni Pinches looked really good on floor, maybe she has found consistency?
- Campana, the last-minute substitute for Deagostini of Italy had a really good comp and confirmed the justice of her selection
- There's not just Vika and Aly's Patterson's- Elsa Garcia of Mexico nailed loads of them!
- Daiane Dos Santos lands a full twisting double layout and a double layout. Now aged 29, it doesn't look like any gymnast can ever top her tumbling power.
- Romania looking great on floor which they really need with the partial loss of their star. Diana Bulimar could really shine now.
- Lovely bars from Rie Tanaka. Will have to look up her difficulty but it would be so great to see her in bars EF
- Cata has a full twisting double layout! Really making her case for floor EF medal now
- Izbasa throws her Cheng and a beautiful Mustafina! Vault silver??
- Chelaru does what appears to be a timer for an amanar. Intriguing!
- Iordache did a full beam and bars, and did some vault and floor work (very light). Such determination when she is clearly in pain. Maybe this fire can help her compete strongly
The bad
- No floor from Maroney, who is being preserved and only doing vault. A beautiful routine which will be missed at these Olympics
- This means using Kyla in prelims, her score can be dropped but it makes it more annoying that it has such a stupidly low SV when she has such potential
- Rebecca Tunney hurt herself on a tumbling pass and cried BUT she did vault after so it doesn't seem serious
- Canada had a really crappy time on vault
- Lauren Mitchell had a really rough time, messing up badly on both floor and beam
- Aly had issues with her first tumbling pass
- Koko Tsurumi after throwing some low and dodgy tumbling on floor landed on her head on one, and was unable to continue on floor. However, she did compete afterwards..
- Paseka crashed her amanar more than once, the only thing she is on the team for- though stood them up all week
- Grishina's Silivas not looking competition ready
- Yao Jinnan had a pretty rough day and does not look on top form. UPDATE: Rumours of a thigh muscle strain :(
- Deng Linlin still wearing a back brace and looks to be in pain
- France who have a pretty scrappy team after being plagued with injuries looked rough and not ready, as they have done all week
- Brazil having issues with vault, Hypolito in particular
- Gabby sat at least one amanar and had problems on beam...not a suprise but both are her weak points if she's going four for four
- USA had an unbelievably gross leotard. Not only was it a disgusting pepto pink shade, it was also way too shiny with tacky looking silver stars AND mesh cut outs and weird stripes in the chest area. If Maroney cannot make it look good, it's an eyesore.
- Not one but TWO leopard print sleeveless leotards! Rotten Tina Erceg of Croatia and Laura Svilpaite of Lithuania were the offenders.
The injuries
- In heartbreaking news, Bitang has confirmed Larisa Iordache will not do the AA. Terrible news for her and her team and B&B- but also the Olympics as a whole, she has very exciting routines and was a top contender for the AA. Devastating. She will compete on bars and beam but it still means Romania are almost certain not to medal now..Bitang said the same too.UPDATE: Iordache's AA status now said to be 50/50, with the decision up to her. It is possible if she gets through prelims that she will have rest and pain relief enough to do the AA..nerves of steel just as important with a decision like that. Hopefully she can, though not at the expense of her health!
- Adrien Gomes of Brazil is out and will not compete. Brazil has been plagued by bad luck and injuries this year, and are pretty much out of replacements at this point. They are extremely unlikely to qualify for TF
- McKayla Maroney is competing on a broken toe and is in pain. Although it is brilliant and very lucky for her team that she can vault and did so today, her floor is a big loss and she also has a decent beam routine.
- As I mentioned before, Anna Li is unable to train as she will be in a neck brace for the next few weeks. It appears that she landed on her neck on her bars fall..very very scary! USAG seem to have a different meaning for 'fine'- what an absolute disgrace.
Thursday, 21 June 2012
Olympic teams named
Excitement is building now that teams are being named. Japan, Australia, France and four-fifths of the Chinese team have now all been named. Japan's team was surprising in that almost all of its members are veterans of the 2008 Olympic team and do not include Mai Murakami. Australia's team includes Georgia Banora as the fifth spot, a spot which Mary Anne Monckton and Georgia Rose Brown were supposedly locks for. China's team seems to be taking risks for a medal- Wu Luifang and Huang Huidan are not even in contention for the fifth spot, whereas surprisingly, Huang Quishang has been named.
Britain will name their team on July 4th. They have depth on some events so this isn't very predictable. Hannah Whelan and Beth Tweddle certainly are locks. Rebecca Tunney has a very good chance. Danusia Francis could be picked for her beam alone, which GB are very weak on- but that puts pressure on the rest if she is picked just for beam and Tweddle is picked just for bars, and possibly floor. Jenni Pinches and Ruby Harrold also stand a very good chance, and Becky Downie is still competing for her second chance.
USA will of course name their team at Trials. Whoever wins Trials is guaranteed a spot. This is no longer Jordyn's spot, if Gabby hits she could take it, her difficulty is higher and she is overscored more than Jordyn is inside the US. These two are locks, and so is Aly Raisman. Number four is less guaranteed but is extremely likely to be Kyla Ross, barring injury. Plenty of ideal teams floating around the internet are forgetting her entirely and are using Sacramone and Maroney. That would be nice, but Sacramone's beam is not needed and there are enough decent amanars. She can't be used on bars. Fifth spot is Maroney's to lose. She adds the biggest difference to the team total and does not even need to show more than one event as the other four have those covered. It is however likely she could outscore Gabby on floor in Olympic prelims with a fixed third pass, we shall see. Certainly it is the most elegant and artistic floor routine they have in that team, and should be used. Not forgetting that she was injured at Nationals, but there is no reason to suppose she will miss Trials. Her petition was accepted and she is being monitored closely in the gym. The fact that she never lost consciousness and that the fracture is described as being very minor are both very positive signs. She does not really need to showcase AA at Trials. Her beam is extremely steady and can be used if it comes to it. Her bars are fairly unusuable, though substantially better than Aly's. Her floor can be great and her vault is always perfect- she could get away with only doing the two but hopefully can do all 4.
Britain will name their team on July 4th. They have depth on some events so this isn't very predictable. Hannah Whelan and Beth Tweddle certainly are locks. Rebecca Tunney has a very good chance. Danusia Francis could be picked for her beam alone, which GB are very weak on- but that puts pressure on the rest if she is picked just for beam and Tweddle is picked just for bars, and possibly floor. Jenni Pinches and Ruby Harrold also stand a very good chance, and Becky Downie is still competing for her second chance.
USA will of course name their team at Trials. Whoever wins Trials is guaranteed a spot. This is no longer Jordyn's spot, if Gabby hits she could take it, her difficulty is higher and she is overscored more than Jordyn is inside the US. These two are locks, and so is Aly Raisman. Number four is less guaranteed but is extremely likely to be Kyla Ross, barring injury. Plenty of ideal teams floating around the internet are forgetting her entirely and are using Sacramone and Maroney. That would be nice, but Sacramone's beam is not needed and there are enough decent amanars. She can't be used on bars. Fifth spot is Maroney's to lose. She adds the biggest difference to the team total and does not even need to show more than one event as the other four have those covered. It is however likely she could outscore Gabby on floor in Olympic prelims with a fixed third pass, we shall see. Certainly it is the most elegant and artistic floor routine they have in that team, and should be used. Not forgetting that she was injured at Nationals, but there is no reason to suppose she will miss Trials. Her petition was accepted and she is being monitored closely in the gym. The fact that she never lost consciousness and that the fracture is described as being very minor are both very positive signs. She does not really need to showcase AA at Trials. Her beam is extremely steady and can be used if it comes to it. Her bars are fairly unusuable, though substantially better than Aly's. Her floor can be great and her vault is always perfect- she could get away with only doing the two but hopefully can do all 4.
Tuesday, 19 June 2012
Great gymnasts we won't see in London
Inconsistency, injury and recovery and sheer depth has done these gymnasts out of their chance to shine in London.
Ana Porgras
Ana is the most artistic gymnast to emerge this quad. Her lines are exquisite and very reminiscent of old-school beautiful lines such as Aurelia Dobre. She could also swing bars like Romanians haven't since the late 1980's. A beautiful bar and beam worker, she also had an elegant floor. Vault was her nemesis into breaking into the AA, as she never really mastered a DTY. Truly a gymnast who would have flourished in the perfect 10 code, Ana was dogged by injuries for most of her senior career and has now retired. With more and more older gymnasts making comebacks, we can hope she will also.
Mariya Livchikova
Mariya is quite similar to Ana, her artistry is evident in her beam and floor, which are works of art. Her beam also showcases great original connections. Unfortunately she also has the Ukrainian tendency to splat all over the place, but it was her injury last year which counted her out of receiving the only WAG place for Ukraine, who shockingly placed so badly they cannot field a time. We can hope Mariya will stick around.
Cheng Fei
Admittedly she had her chance at both the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, but individually failed to shine at both. A huge departure from the Chinese tradition of having petite gymnasts excel at bars and beam, Fei was a powerhouse on vault and floor, with an amanar and a double-double as her highlights as well as a fierce beam routine. This time around, her strengths would have been helpful in complementing those of her team-mates. Unfortunately, Fei has fallen victim to the plague of achilles tendon, ruptured performing a triple twist on floor. Her presence and strength on floor will be missed.
Rebecca Bross
Rebecca Bross peaked in the middle of the quad. Seen as a lock for the US Olympic team two years ago, she will now be very lucky to make alternate. She blew her knee vaulting last year, and it appears to have impacted her greatly. She is now only training two events and neither will score high enough to justify taking her. A sad end for a great gymnast.
Mai Murakami
I've already spoken quite a bit about Mai. In short, she is amazing and has incredible difficulty. Inconsistency was an issue at the Japan nationals so she missed out. Thankfully Japan love sending veterans so we can hope she will be around for the next quad.. 2013 worlds!
Ana Porgras
Ana is the most artistic gymnast to emerge this quad. Her lines are exquisite and very reminiscent of old-school beautiful lines such as Aurelia Dobre. She could also swing bars like Romanians haven't since the late 1980's. A beautiful bar and beam worker, she also had an elegant floor. Vault was her nemesis into breaking into the AA, as she never really mastered a DTY. Truly a gymnast who would have flourished in the perfect 10 code, Ana was dogged by injuries for most of her senior career and has now retired. With more and more older gymnasts making comebacks, we can hope she will also.
Mariya Livchikova
Mariya is quite similar to Ana, her artistry is evident in her beam and floor, which are works of art. Her beam also showcases great original connections. Unfortunately she also has the Ukrainian tendency to splat all over the place, but it was her injury last year which counted her out of receiving the only WAG place for Ukraine, who shockingly placed so badly they cannot field a time. We can hope Mariya will stick around.
Cheng Fei
Admittedly she had her chance at both the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, but individually failed to shine at both. A huge departure from the Chinese tradition of having petite gymnasts excel at bars and beam, Fei was a powerhouse on vault and floor, with an amanar and a double-double as her highlights as well as a fierce beam routine. This time around, her strengths would have been helpful in complementing those of her team-mates. Unfortunately, Fei has fallen victim to the plague of achilles tendon, ruptured performing a triple twist on floor. Her presence and strength on floor will be missed.
Rebecca Bross
Mai Murakami
I've already spoken quite a bit about Mai. In short, she is amazing and has incredible difficulty. Inconsistency was an issue at the Japan nationals so she missed out. Thankfully Japan love sending veterans so we can hope she will be around for the next quad.. 2013 worlds!
Tuesday, 12 June 2012
The amazing Mai Murakami
Mai Murakami vies with McKayla Maroney for the coveted spot of my current favourite gymnast. Unfortunately though she is senior she has been left off the 2012 Japanese Olympic team, which really is devastating. However, Japan have a habit of sending older gymnasts so we can expect to see her as a major contender for 2016. Consistency is a little bit of an issue with her, can't think of any other reason they would count her out. She didn't have a great showing at Nationals this year but did manage to impress on floor, unfortunately not enough. Her difficulty is astounding, hopefully she can tie everything together and be super gymnast some time soon. 2013 worlds would be nice! I pray she will not peak too soon and miss 2016 Olympics. Anyway, here she is for anyone who hasn't heard of her.
Girl is shoooort. We are of course no stranger to tiny powerhouse gymnasts but Mai in particular has that extra quality of 'where did THAT come from?' as she doesn't have the obvious strength and stamina that more muscular gymnasts do. She can give them all a great run for their money.
Check out those awesome tumbling passes! And she has some even more impressive ones cooking...
WOW. Not landed on a competition mat of course, but it may be by now! She is apparently training a Produnova vault (handspring double front). This is an extremely rare vault as it takes such brute power to stand up. We have seen Yamilet Pena land this to her back over and over again, receiving much lower scores than if she landed a clean DTY. Yet Mai looks to be very capable of it. I would put her ahead of any other current powerful gymnasts to land that vault.There IS footage of her training a layout-1 and a half twist vault however. I would and I'm sure everyone would, love to see her land both.
Dance moves have not been neglected in place of pure power either. Here she is performing a beautiful quadruple spin on beam! Betty Okino would be proud. This has since been bettered by a quintuple spin by a teammate, but nevertheless just so impressive.
Unfortunately footage of her beam and bars show weak spots. Her bars are somewhat underwhelming and she just doesn't shine on them. Her beam shows impressive skills but she has difficulty with steadiness. We can of course speculate she will be able to get her bars to a decent clean standard, Japanese bars as a nation tend to have a lovely swing and score pretty well. Beam could be pretty easy to fix. I find it kind of odd to comment on a gymnast's looks BUT I have to say, she is SO CUTE! Especially that reaction when she completes the spin.
Go Mai! Looking forward to seeing her at Worlds.
Update: Apparently an elbow injury hindered her performance at Nationals. What a shame, with clean routines she absolutely would have threatened Wieber, Iordache, Komova and co. I'd also question how early Nationals were, start of April?? Could well be that if they were being held now, she would have performed much better. It will be very tough for her to hang around for the next quad, but there is great precedent in her country and not a huge amount of depth.
Girl is shoooort. We are of course no stranger to tiny powerhouse gymnasts but Mai in particular has that extra quality of 'where did THAT come from?' as she doesn't have the obvious strength and stamina that more muscular gymnasts do. She can give them all a great run for their money.
Check out those awesome tumbling passes! And she has some even more impressive ones cooking...
WOW. Not landed on a competition mat of course, but it may be by now! She is apparently training a Produnova vault (handspring double front). This is an extremely rare vault as it takes such brute power to stand up. We have seen Yamilet Pena land this to her back over and over again, receiving much lower scores than if she landed a clean DTY. Yet Mai looks to be very capable of it. I would put her ahead of any other current powerful gymnasts to land that vault.There IS footage of her training a layout-1 and a half twist vault however. I would and I'm sure everyone would, love to see her land both.
Dance moves have not been neglected in place of pure power either. Here she is performing a beautiful quadruple spin on beam! Betty Okino would be proud. This has since been bettered by a quintuple spin by a teammate, but nevertheless just so impressive.
Unfortunately footage of her beam and bars show weak spots. Her bars are somewhat underwhelming and she just doesn't shine on them. Her beam shows impressive skills but she has difficulty with steadiness. We can of course speculate she will be able to get her bars to a decent clean standard, Japanese bars as a nation tend to have a lovely swing and score pretty well. Beam could be pretty easy to fix. I find it kind of odd to comment on a gymnast's looks BUT I have to say, she is SO CUTE! Especially that reaction when she completes the spin.
Go Mai! Looking forward to seeing her at Worlds.
Update: Apparently an elbow injury hindered her performance at Nationals. What a shame, with clean routines she absolutely would have threatened Wieber, Iordache, Komova and co. I'd also question how early Nationals were, start of April?? Could well be that if they were being held now, she would have performed much better. It will be very tough for her to hang around for the next quad, but there is great precedent in her country and not a huge amount of depth.
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