Farewell to He Kexin and..the injury list

Copyright- A'Min, Guo Chen- Xinhua news agency

After a long (for a female gymnast) and fruitful career, He Kexin bid farewell to gymnastics today. The winner of multiple titles on bars- including Olympic, world and National Games- had a mishap on her final routine, where she lost it on a turn on the low bar and came off. Unbelievably, she managed to smile at her own misfortune and gracefully saluted the crowd afterwards. She will be much missed.

Here is her final routine. The jumbotron at the end shows roughly (not my translation of course, but a very accurate source!) "From the National Sports Arena (Beijing gym venue) to the O2, we've watched your brilliant performances. Today, we hope to see your radiant smile as you perform the final routine of your career. He Kexin, UB queen forever!"

And one of her best.

;( What a truly phenomenal bars worker.

And of course, there's more sad news. The injury list has grown to include Diana Bulimar. Diana was winning medals at Interland last week, but had knee surgery yesterday. It doesn't sound too serious, but the six weeks rest will of course mean she's going to miss worlds. Devastating! Winning a medal would have been a long shot but it's the joy of her routines that counts.

The Injury (or recovering) List

Mariya Livchikova, Ukraine
Gabby Jupp, Britain
Nadine Jarosch, Germany
Lisa Hill, Germany
Janine Berger, Germany
Jade Barbosa, Brazil
Adrian Gomes, Brazil
Viktoria Komova, Russia
Ksenia Afanasyeva, Russia
Anastasia Grishina, Russia*
Evgeniya Shelgunova, Russia
Lou Nina, China
Julie Croket, Belgium
Gabriella Douglas, Canada
Lexie Priessman, USA
Katelyn Ohashi, USA
Madison Kocian, USA
Elisabetta Preziosa, Italy
Giorgia Campana, Italy
Erika Fasana, Italy
Celine Van Gerner, Netherlands
Lisa Top, Netherlands
Diana Bulimar, Romania
Wyomi Masela, Netherlands
Anna Kuhm, France
Sarah Finnegan, USA
Sabrina Vega, USA

I do think Anastasia Grishina is not fully out due to injury- it seems blacklisting could be the issue there. Neither Ana Sofia Gomez Porras, Alexa Moreno or Elsa Garcia appear on the nominative list, which is a bit worrying. 

In happier news, Shang Chunsong added to her haul of medals at National Games with gold on bars and a whopping score of 15.367. Yao Jinnan just missed, she didn't do the Mo and skipped another connection so her 15.2 reflects a lower d score. In third place was Huang Huidan, who continues her miraculous streak of not falling. As mentioned above, He Kexin sadly fell. In vault finals, Li Yiting HIT, scoring a 15 on her DTT. Second and third went to Deng Yalan and Yang Pei. Tiny superstar Wang Yan unfortunately fell on her Rudi but it was an interesting final- with a dearth of Yurchenko vaults! Li Yiting hitting vault like that makes things interesting- it makes no sense for Zeng Siqi to go to worlds and if Sui Lu retires beforehand- then there's a possible opening for Li Yiting...

I don't think I mentioned the all-around but if you didn't hear- the best result possible happened- Yao Jinnan and Shang Chunsong tied for first! This result alone sets them up for life, so happy for them. Deng Linlin bowed out of competition on a high note, just about (and controversially at that) securing the bronze.

Today at Romanian Nationals, Larisa Iordache triumphantly returned to competition, taking first in the all-around. She watered down most of her routines and was a little wobbly on beam, but a stellar performance given that she only restarted training a week ago. Hopefully she can regain the difficulty in time for Antwerp, which is really creeping up fast now. She came to a stop on bars after messing up her Jaeger- and it looks like her coach helped that long by touching her- but she introduced the shap half at last and the rest of the routine looked fine, but laboured. Andreea Munteanu was second with STUNNING floor and beam routines that are a must-watch- especially beam, and likewise Andreea Iridon was third with gorgeous bars and beam routines. Sandra Izbasa scored a huge 15.1 (think US scoring at this competition) on floor. Larisa has a new floor and I like it, until it was pointed out the choreography is much the same as her old routine. The music is dramatic and hopefully she can differentiate more between this routine and the last one with her dance in time. You can find videos here.

News

Brenna Dowell leads the Mexican Cup after Day 1. The competition is being split over two days, vault and bars were contested, beam and floor is next. Anna Dementyeva is in fourth place, knocked down after a very scary yurchenko full which she barely got around after no block. Dowell had a DTY, the only one of the competition. Although she is a GAGE girl, Dowell's form is pretty sloppy. Nevertheless, her difficulty puts her ahead- her bars contained shaposh 1/2, Jaeger and a full twisting double layout dismount. Demy is usually excellent on beam, but doubtful that it will be enough for gold at this point. Dowell is strong on floor and will be looking to get a double front piked credited. It was apparently downgraded to tucked position before, which as a deduction as she already has one of them. If you're that good at front tumbling, do Podkopayeva's double front half out in place of the tuck and save the penalty! Georgia Rose Brown of Australia is in third and Yessenia Estrada of Mexico is in second, delighting the home crowd. Tomorrow will be a strong day for Brenna Dowell and Marta Pihan-Kulesza who would be able to work her way up the rankings. Nobody's sure what Demy can or will bring on vault and beam, hopefully enough to medal. Videos are available, I will be putting up highlights in a new post along with Dityayin Cup videos, if they become available.

Amanda Reddin is the new head coach for Team GB. Amanda is the long-term coach of Beth Tweddle, as well as Hannah Whelan and Jenni Pinches. It is very obvious from seeing how she interacts with her gymnasts and looking at Beth's longevity and continued extremely high level of performance that she is a fantastic coach. Former head coach Adrain Stan is moving on to high level coach development. Bring on the continued beautiful gymnastics of Rebecca Tunney and the new era of wunderkinds Gabby Jupp and Angel Romaeo!

Amelia Racea of Romania has retired. Amelia most notably had success in 2010 Europeans, where she won beam. She qualified to 2011 worlds event finals on that event, but was hindered by low difficulty. Nevertheless, she had lovely gymnastics and would make a nice addition to Euros teams. Amelia is just not feeling gymnastics anymore and has gone to university, so fair enough. This year has seen the retirement also of Ana Porgras and Gabriela Dragoi.

McKayla Maroney has rejoined the Kelloggs tour. McKayla was still in two casts last week, so I highly doubt she has been medically cleared to do any actual gymnastics. She will of course need to spend a lot of time getting back into peak condition anyway after resting for so long.

Along with the Mexican Cup which will be streamed live here, the Dityatin Cup in Russia is attracting some interesting faces. Anna Pavlova, Ekaterina Kramarenko and Evgeniya Shelgunova are the major Russians competing. Anna has quite low difficulty now and seems to train more recreationally but still gets decent vault scores which shove her up the rankings. Ekaterina is she of the infamous vault touch-automatic zero from 2007 Worlds. Not sure what shape she's in, but I'd say her floor is still worth watching. Evgeniya is a 2013 senior, and is quite promising though probably not the best Russia will have in its arsenal leading into Rio. From Ukraine, Darya Kloptsova, a junior with a lovely elegant floor is competing. Kim Janas, a German junior is also very exciting and elegant. Hope to see videos from this. I'll put some up of both comps if they become available.

China's roster for the Asian Championships has been announced. It's quite the break from the usual faces, but should be very interesting. It is composed of the girls who excelled at the recent Nationals. Zeng Siqi, Li Yiting, Huang Huidan, Shang Chungsong, Wu Liufang and Luo Peiru.

Chinese National Individual Championships

As mentioned, Zeng Siqi won the AA. Huang Huidan came second with a mistake and Shang Chungsong came third with a few mistakes.

Event finals have also taken place. Huang Huidan won bars with Tan Jiaxin in second and Wu Liufang in third. Li Yiting won vault- by a mile, her vaults are 6.0/6.3. Second place Xiang Tong's vaults are 5.2/5.3! Third place Yang Pei also had 6.0/6/.3 vaults but fell on both judging by the scores. Zeng Siqi added the beam title to her AA win, helped by a fall from Tan Sixin. Lou Nina came second and Li Shanshan (not the 2008 Olympian) came third. Shang Chungsong won floor, with Zhang Qing in second and Cui Jie in third. No 2012 Olympians performed.

Overall, a great competition for Zeng Siqi who with a DTY and some upgrades on floor (she did introduce one in this competition) would be able to rival Yao Jinnan nicely. Huang Huidan also had a strong competition and Shang Chungsong too. Very dissapointing for Tan Sixin who had a point to prove after being left off the 2012 team for inconsistency. Also for Wu Liufang who would have wanted a better outing than this, and counted a fall on day 1 from beam. All of these girls- and the 2012 Olympians- will be performing next year in the National Games, barring injury. They carry huge prestige and will be the final competition for many. It is expected that He Kexin, Sui Lu, Deng Linlin, Jiang Yuyuan and Huang Qiushuang will retire afterwards. That leaves room for new faces- and Li Yiting, Zeng Siqi, Huang Huidan and Shang Chungsong in particular should be at the forefront as well as upcoming juniors like Lou Nina. Li Yiting is an event specialist- but the most important kind, and a potential vault medallist.

I will add videos here as and when they become available. So far there is one which includes Li Yiting's DTT, starting at 0:56. Also in this video is part of Huang Huidan's bars.

And here is Wu Liufang's beam from day 1- AA, with a fall.

Part 2 of the first video, featuring an amazing tucked Barani on beam from Xiao Kangjun. Towards the end are Zeng Siqi on beam and one of Shang Chungsong's passes, she was lucky to land that punchfront. There are videos of Zeng on that channel but they are from Nationals in May, at which she was still recovering from injury so wasn't at her best.

Also some interesting insights from Lu Shanzen, Chinese head coach about the 1994-1996 team, brought on by a biography by Liu Xuan

- Not only could Mo Huilan, Bi Wenjing and Meng Fei perform the Mo Salto- so could Kui Yuanyuan, Jin Yu and Wen Jing
- Zhou Duan of the insane Gaylord II who medalled on vault at the 1997 Worlds was supposed to perform the move there too to have it named after her. Unfortunately her technique completely messed up right before Worlds so they had to hold back on it. I always wondered why she didn't do bars then!
- Guan Yujing did the counter-Kim and Liang Qiong the Gaylord in a piked position.

I really love these bars releases, amazing the talent China had at this time. Apparently the new code allows for an intermediate swing with some releases, which may mean we might see some of the above again some day!