Seniors Day 1

A day late, but I have a very busy Monday ahead. The Ireland-France game is about to begin, I don't care about football but this is historic stuff. A great pity France have world class players. I apologise in advance for the distraction the game is going to cause this post.

Anyway, seniors day 1! I'm so glad I didn't stay up to watch it, and watched the whole thing when I woke up at 9am instead. So much easier to absorb everything.

Simone Biles

Stellar. Just unbelievable stuff from her as per usual. Beam is where she can look slightly more human and have a few bobbles, but her routine was seriously strong and steady to start off her night, capped by another great full-in. (The French national anthem is so jazzy, not like our anti-British dirge - though I love it) I'm sure I repeat myself a LOT when I talk about her, but there just is always something so uplifting when watching her about to begin, the surety that here is someone who is in a class of their own, whose skills are easy for her. (IRELAND JUST SCORED FROM A PENALTY GET IN!!!!) The highlight of her floor was the Silivas, so floaty and beautiful and nearly stuck - and it's her third pass. I thought the lyrics in her floor were going to be changed though? The deduction is a whole point and while she could weather that deduction, she really doesn't need to risk it. Vault was stunning and her Amanar seemed slightly higher than usual, but could just be the contrast after watching everyone else vault. Would love to see her echo McKayla Maroney and stick it in team finals. Or the AA or EF, I'm not fussy. After waiting so long for her to throw the Cheng, it's looking glorious. Her bars are always good - short and to the point, but her handstands stood out for me and the stuck dismount was nice also. Methodical. Definitely TF worthy since she leaves such low margins for deduction only for the fact that she'll be competing so much that it'd be nice for a rest too. All depends on who else makes the team.

In short, while she is always great, this felt like a particularly extra-great night for her. Just such a pleasure to watch.

Leotard game - strong. Striking combination and I like the design on the front. 7/10

(Ireland are holding off France. France!!)

Aly Raisman

The Aly Raisman of late last year and early this year who was struggling a bit with consistency and not showing her usual self on beam in particular was nowhere in evidence. Fantastic to see her attack back on beam, nailing connections as if they were on floor. Her improved layout - much more airtime - is great too. She looks 2012-esque, her solidest beam in a long time in competition. (This game is filthy! So much on the line...a LOT of fouls and yellow cards) On floor and her first pass looks like it's never been away or downgraded, she even had a slight bit of room to spare after the layout. Super-high Dos Santos, floaty DLO with just a small hop back and a double pike with chest fully up. Great stuff, Olympic floor medal contender for sure.

Her amanar is decidedly less thrilling. VERY messy in the last 1.5 rotations, but fully around nevertheless, with her now trademark step to the side. Ligaments of steel. She doesn't need to be aiming for a more precise landing at the moment, would be nice to see in Rio though. An Aly with this much fight was never going to take any nonsense from bars, and sure enough although some struggle was evident with a break here and there, she finished without a major hitch to end her day. This is a great Aly with more tenths to fight for on bars and vault, so it's reassuring to see her in second - tied, but second nonetheless.

She has her ticket to Rio I think, no question. Leotard game - excellent. Beautiful neckline and sparkly belt in particular. A bright pink that's not sickly, very pretty. 8.5/10

Laurie Hernandez

Like Simone and others, Laurie didn't do AA at Classics, but unlike the former she's more of an unknown entity on all 4 as she seemed to be warding off some sort of leg injury earlier in the season. Starts on floor and her trademark energy was evident from the start. That DLO is still risky (NOOOO FRANCE SCORED!) in that she has no margin for error before she hits the ground. Hopefully she can learn to get a better set on it (OH CHRIST and again). The rest of the routine is great, love her unusual third combination pass especially. While I still love her dance and snappy choreography style, I'd still prefer it if the poses and expressions in particular were toned down. A very efficient vault from her, no sign of when it looked precarious. It's not as obvious on the USAG video, but on the stream she doesn't get much distance, seems to hit the table quite early. Nevertheless, chest up, the tiniest of hops and right down the centre, not to mention clean in the air. Good stuff. Beam used to be her weakest event, and flaky, but she's a much different worker there now. Confident. Quick connections, crisp BHS-LOSO-LOSO, sassy choreo. Her set on the double pike dismount is poor, so she has a very low chest on landing - better off with a touble tuck or a twisting dismount probably but a great routine nonetheless. Bars is another event where she has made great strides. She's got quite an unusual style there which is enjoyable to watch. Stalder-heavy, nice releases and a stuck dismount. She's no medal contender there but it's a big boost to her AA status.

A fierce display from Laurie which has done nothing but good to show her worth to the Rio team. Leotard game - too much shiny brightness for me, but an interesting back. 4/10

Gabby Douglas

 She has looked strong since she came back and after Glasgow and a strong outing early in the season has much less to prove than most. But this wasn't the best of outings for her, she just didn't seem fully on at any point. Beam was nervy with checks coming very frequently (about 10 minutes left in which WE NEED TO SCORE). On floor again she was lacklustre in terms of connection to the audience and expression, but tumbling was strong. I really like the back tuck she's added to her full-in. Gorgeous leaps. Keeps the energy in tumbling going to the end, but taken together it just wasn't an exciting routine. Quality vault, BIG air on that DTY and you can see the room for the amanar that's more than likely to come. That'll be her ticket to being the second AA in Rio. Bars have never reached her 2012 levels and it's probably too late to expect they suddenly will but are strong anyway and do her a lot of favours although she didn't do a skill this time around that they credited her with doing. Bad judging, but not quite at the level 4 years ago when she was credited with doing an amanar for a DTY.

A less-than-ideal day but not exactly damaging. I hope she gets her game face on tonight all the same. Leotard game - Interesting. She can carry that orangey-pink but the shine makes it too much for me. 5.5/10

Madison Kocian

The big test is as per usual her bars, and again (we are 45 seconds from not qualifying to the quarter finals...) she comes second to Ashton Locklear there, but great bars nonetheless and the big advantage she has over Ashton as we all know is the fact that she's much more of a team player and can slot in much better than the latter. (And we are out...but played much better than expected against MUCH better players) Marta is as always all about the team, and not so much the specialists. This is not like USOC forcing McKayla Maroney into the team for guaranteed (LOL) vault gold, bars has many more contenders with no certainties. Anyway, a lovely arabian on beam followed by a check or two and a broken connection, but solid work. She's stunning to watch on floor too with the usual WOGA tumbling style of connecting twists showing up in her second pass. WOGA also shows up in her vaulting in a clean and beautifully executed FTY.

A strong showing and she's in the mix for sure. Leotard game - a bit dull, but nice sparkles on the red. 5/10

Ashton Locklear 

KILLER bars, great to see. Gives very little away and great rhythm. She continued her visible improvement on beam, very quick-fire connections. I love her leaps in particular her lines make her wolf jump look amazing. I'd like to see her do some old-school elements, like a Kolesnikova variation, even a Kotchetkova or Onodi. She'll never do a major acrobatic element so they'd suit her. And a double stag just because I love them. Anyway, she's another who's right in the mix for this team.

Leotard game - love the colour contrast, but the design seemed a bit too juvenile and let it down. 6/10

Ragan Smith

Strong on 3/4 events with that weird Grishina-esque balk on floor decimating her score there. I just love the distance she gets on her DTY and bars dismount. Unfortunately her beam wasn't her best with some big checks there but she really nailed the dismount with a much more secure landing than we have seen. She really needed to knock it out of the park to challenge at the top of the leaderboard...but it's a 2-night competition. Even with that, I think she's fighting for an alternate spot as even without her less than perfect consistency record, she's strongest on the events they've got plenty of depth on.

Leotard game - STUNNING! Love the mosaic stained glass design, very unique and pretty. Chrystal pattern was gorgeous on the sleeves. The best. 9/10

Mykayla Skinner

She's not all the way there in terms of how strong she can be, but a good effort. Her amanar landing can be better than that and look much more secure. Very nice in the air with great height. The Cheng is just her thing, so reliable. She should be using that in a TF lineup were she to make the team. Needs a bit more oomph on floor to really nail all of her difficulty, she seemed to flag a bit in terms of energy towards the end. I didn't catch her beam and bars yet, but they're not really that important in terms of her value. It's hard to say where she slots in in terms of a potential team now, she could quite easily be a victim of 5 slots instead of 6.

Leotard game - props for a design I haven't seen before, I especially like it on the side. Colours were not for me and the shiny grey washed her out too much. 4.5/10

Maggie Nichols

It's hard to judge Maggie at this point as she is still coming back with a way to go before she gets back to her self again (hopefully in time for Rio selection). Her wolf turn on beam was a struggle and looks like it might have pained her, but she looked her usual strong self after that. A few checks, but nothing major and a great double pike to end with. Getting there. Bars were her usual though, strong and capable and she treated us to a stuck landing. Hopefully she keeps it up tonight and is able to bring back vault and floor by trials, she's a major contender for the team if she can.

Leotard game - I quite like the leo, but not the banana bit. 5/10

Alyssa Baumann

Started off with such a strong bars routine, only to come off again. After a bad meet at Classics it was the last thing she needed. Redeemed herself somewhat on beam with a gorgeous arabian, BHS-LOSO-LOSO series and Onodi-wolf connection but there were some checks in between and overall the flow was poor. She's another fighting for alternate when most other teams would kill to have her.

So all in all, regardless of a good portion of the team being locks for quite a while, we are still shaping up for a killer fight at trials, and Nationals is extremely important for those girls who are on the cusp to show how ready they are. Really looking forward to watching day 2 at some stage tomorrow as I can't stay up that late.

As of now, until Maggie is proved out of the AA, my team is Simone, Aly, Gabby, Laurie and Maggie. I don't think bars is important enough to warrant a spot when the team is so small. Let there be killing for the AA spots in quals.

Who has made your team? Who will win leotard game tonight? Can Simone get even better than she currently is? Can someone succeed in livening up Gabby? How many hairbows will Mykayla have? These are the questions that need answering.

All photos copyright USAG - John Cheng and L.Smith

 

  

Classics

Ahh Classics. Such a great competition with so many new routines, new upgrades..and consequently lots of falls and rough bits. This year was no different.

First, Simone Biles. It is just so pleasing to watch someone so masterful at work. I do get a bit nervous watching her on bars and beam, but less so over time. She really is the most talented gymnast we have ever seen (remember: this is a fact. It does not mean you have to like her gymnastics) and continues to be at the top of her game without showing any signs of peaking or maxing out her difficulty. The best her competition can hope for in terms of gold is that they can upgrade enough that a fall or other huge mistake from her can topple her, but of course, she herself continues to upgrade. She is certainly untouchable in this year, but if the likes of Gabby Douglas and Maggie Nichols continue on their trajectory they may be able to spook her. A bit.

Her beam was a little wobbly and hesitant, hopefully we can see a steadier version at Nationals. It's great to see her bhs-loso-loso series so super solid though. The barani is one of my favourite moves on beam, so obviously I'm delighted to see it make its mark. She has a nice beam composition for her. Bars were as expected, solid and unexceptional. I'm hoping she might do the Mustafina dismount this year though. On vault, I see no reason for her not to at least attempt the TTY next year along with the Cheng...a bit disappointed not to see it but it did make sense if she felt a bit off in general on vault during podium training. Nationals isn't far away after all. Floor was....brilliant. I wasn't sure what we were going to see other than energy. It did take me a few goes to really appreciate the music..still not a fan of the super fast dancey bit towards the end but I love her choreography and her charismatic style oozing through it. Her tumbling was phenomenal and so were the landings, it's so great to see her control the bounce. The full-in DLO looks cleaner every time. Still curious about that last pass...looks very upgradeable, if not this year then next.

Gabby Douglas was a pleasant surprise. She looked extremely dodgy in podium training especially her pet piece, bars. I honestly never thought she'd get through that routine. Fierce competitive nature was definitely in action. I am a bit baffled at her floor music and choreography but the tumbling looks well, she could probably sneak in a little upgrade or two. Beam and bars were so solid, I hope she can upgrade these two though to really make the most of her comeback. I'm not sure what I was expecting from her, but what we did see seemed too much to wish for at this stage. She's not someone I'd automatically root for as I'm not the biggest fan of her style, but I'm thrilled at this force of nature of a comeback. It's exactly what the sport needs. A huge step up from Jesolo for Gabby and while I'll hold her completely cementing her on teams until she gets through the greater challenge and endurance required of Nationals..she's pretty much there. A huge asset to any team, without a discernible weak spot.

Photo copyright- USAG/John Cheng

Aly Raisman's strong performance was less of a surprise, she already had a good showing at Jesolo. I certainly didn't expect to see an amanar though! In fact, I didn't think we'd see one at all...the fact that hers is messy I thought would negate the d-score advantage, as her DTY is much cleaner. Well it's still messy but despite her landing I thought it seemed quite secure, Her beam was a it surprising. Hit her skills with the odd slow connection or two, but I didn't expect her overall slight sluggishness on the event. She said herself afterwards she didn't fully concentrate on the little things, which definitely makes sense. Hopefully she can be more precise and solid on beam like she usually is at Nationals. Still pleased at the improvements she has made on bars, though they'll never be anything more than decent she can certainly claw back a few tenths in execution there hopefully. Floor was the crowning highlight, even with the fluke fall...it's such a great routine. Really enjoying the music, choreography has improved too and the tumbling is just amazing. First pass as good as ever, the upgraded second pass was solid in training and I'm sure we'll see it stood up perfectly in a few weeks and the DLO is a welcome change, and very well done. Her energy levels are fantastic and she looks well on track for Rio.

Maggie Nichols improved in such a short space of time, and keeps getting better. It's not so much her upgrades although those are fantastic, but her style. Her execution has really improved but the most important thing is that she is now light on events she was previously heavy and laboured on. Her beam and bars are so different to how they used to be, and her floor flows a lot better. Really remarkable improvement. I loved how close it was between her and Gabby, but I thought Gabby scoring higher on floor was arguably correct, as Maggie still faces quite a few deductions for messier tumbling...

...I've just been completely thrown off course by the news that Simone Biles has gone pro. Also it's getting pretty late so I'll finish this tomorrow :)

..Several days later...

I hate when things get in the way. Anyway, back to Maggie. Markedly improved as she is, I'm a little unsure how she will be scored internationally. She invites a lot of deductions that gymnasts like Simone Biles and Kyla Ross will not, an example being the aforementioned messy tumbling form. Lots of niggly little things in her bars too. She also doesn't have the years of experience and the reputation that someone well known for sloppy execution has- Aly Raisman. For this reason, I think Gabby Douglas will continue to have the edge on her. But, they're close, and upgrades can make all the difference.

Kyla Ross had an unfortunate day. To come off bars twice is so bizarre to see from her. It was disappointing that she had to pull out of the all-around prior to competition after tweaking an ankle injury, electing only to do bars and beam - a good and correct decision of course, but who didn't want to see her standings in the AA against the rest! I'm glad she redeemed herself on beam, including a nice save. Much as I LOVE the bhardwaj, I'm not too sure this is going to be a keeper for her. Not just because she messed it up and when that happens, upgrades tend to disappear from her routine..but just, height wise. She has precious little room between the bars to twist and be in the perfect position to grab the bar, it's a tiny margin of error. I'd love to see her make it work though. I'm hoping they'll do it Day 1 of Nationals at least to see how it goes, or at least try it in podium training to see if it's a runner.

I'm looking forward to seeing a determined Kyla hit every single thing at Nationals. Although she continues to churn out strong performances just when you think she's going to step back or be overtaken, I DO think she will be surpassed for Rio. But not Glasgow.

Bailie Key was a bit muted for me. Not personality/charm-wise...she was the same as ever though, but in her skills, on beam in particular. It's not just the "layout" that lacks amplitude, it's everything, even her dismount. Everything looks clean and precise, everything is landed fine, leaps are nice...but it's just blehh. Not that she has ever shown a lot of height in her elements on beam, but it has become more pronounced over time. My best guess would be that her foundation of skills was learned when she was a lot smaller and lighter, and they haven't really grown with her. She looked laboured. I find it a little shocking to see her bent in half on her beam dismount, or completely underrotating a triple. It just doesn't seem 'her', I'm so used to her executing everything to near perfection.

Her bars were very nice, hopefully she can show a few upgrades there. Vault was clean and well done as always, though it didn't seem either as easy or with quite the same pop off the table as usual. Hopefully she'll show her old brilliance there, especially since she said she may throw the amanar at Nationals. Floor...the less said the better. Nothing wrong with the tumbling aside from the underrotated triple, the DLO was beautiful for instance. But I cannot believe after such a promising showing last year that there's been such a regression. The music is better after a few listens but still woeful, and I don't think she works with it very well. And the dive and swimming bit...please no. Anyway, overall I think I'm being harsh calling her gymnastics laboured and flat. I hope to see her reinvigorated for Nationals. (Thanks to Cordelia for pointing out that she competed at Jesolo this year. I definitely confused her not being at Nationals last year).

Nia Dennis has had a very difficult few weeks, and that coming on top of a long history of injury, absence and inconsistency. With all of that going on, it wasn't surprising that she didn't do the AA. What was surprising was that she hit. Quite pleased with that, all things considered. Unfortunately, she was much sloppier than she has been in the past...I'm hoping that's temporary. I'm also wishing that once she settles down in her new gym, she can work on upgrading and adding back her best skill..the arabian. I missed it so. She showed a nice bit of power on vault too. Still, unless she shows massive improvement and upgrades, I don't see it happening for Nia. For which I will always lament, because she showed such massive potential from such a young age. Sigh.

Nia Dennis- Photo copyright USAG/John Cheng

Brenna Dowell was an absolute heartbreaker, but I'm so glad both of her falls were complete flukes rather than showing a lack of readiness or having taken on too much. Falls aside, she showed lovely work...especially the bars combination. She's highly unlikely to progress to worlds, but I'm looking forward to seeing her nail everything at Nationals with steely determination. A fabulous competitor.

Sabrina Vega was a complete mystery going into the competition. She's always had lovely gymnastics and I was looking forward to seeing that, and she didn't disappoint. Gorgeous leaps and dance, I was gutted when she fell on floor. Unsure of her motivations for coming back or her future, but if she just enjoys competing with no expectations then good for her. I'll continue to enjoy watching her. Expect for the bent knees on beam, I didn't miss them. At all.

I'm so glad Lauren Navarro had a nice steady beam after falling on bars, but I'm not too sure how long she'll stay in elite. I did think she might surprise, but she'd need a lot of improvement for that. Considering all of the confusion over Ashton Locklear's lack of scoring, it doesn't sound like something USAG has done before. Lovely bars, hopefully she can bust out the full difficulty or close to it with no coaching help at Nationals. Alyssa Baumann and Madison Kocian have I think, had their day. Both are not strong enough in the AA to stand out, and both don't have enough difficulty on their standout event to force their being picked.

Mykayla Skinner was well, a mess. Very clearly not ready. Highlights were a beautiful DTY and a surprisingly nice bars set...she's always had a lovely easy swing there when it comes together, which it did for her there. Not much else did though, with too many lowlights to mention...the beam fall, the very low Cheng landing, her music, baaad floor landings, her music, her music....why did they let her use that music?? It's impossible to work with even apart from the annoyance factor. And it's such a shame, because she can dance very well. I really love her 2013 music and choreography. Sigh. I'm hoping to see much more energy and readiness from her at Nationals. Hopefully not an amanar though. Either way, I don't see her in Glasgow. She is not a guaranteed vault medal...vault is getting deeper all the time. There's 2 medals up for grabs after Simone and quite a few will be angling for them, among them Wang Yan, Sae Miyakawa, Maria Paseka, hopefully Ksenia Afanasyeva, please please please Marcia Videaux will have a FIG license and Giulia Steingruber, who will hopefully regain her DTY.

All in all, a fascinating competition. I can't wait to see the kinks worked out at Nationals, with hopefully less falls and errors. The juniors were a little all over the place, I'm going to discuss them properly after Nationals.

Favourite gymnast:
Simone Biles stole the show

Favourite floor:
Simone Biles. Breathtaking. Aly was a not-too-distant 2nd though.

Favourite vault:
Simone's roof-scraping amanar. Just amazing. Runner-up is Alaina Kwan who floated a gorgeous textbook FTY out of the sky. Beautiful.

Favourite beam:
Hmm. Maggie or Simone. Lovely composition from this pair.

Favourite bars:
Bailie I think. Or Brenna, ignoring the fall.

Favourite leo:

Ashton Locklear. Photo copyright- USAG/John Cheng

Simple but stunning. The sleeves made it, and the classic monochrome.

There were loads of inoffensive ones but not that many stood out. Except for McKayla Maroney's pink flower leo, which totally stood out. It's a beauty, but seemed a bit much as a 'team' leo. It's a very individual one to me. Not because of who wore it previously, I'm not into that. Just seems a bit much. Imagine if they had qualified 10 girls? As for Texas Dreams...if only the black bit was matte! I would be thrilled with it then. I did like the concept, but shiny black just didn't go.

So, can you even remember Classics this long after the competition? Favourite performances, biggest heartbreaks? How is your number 2 AA for worlds shaping up in your head after Classics? Who is winning the most annoying music battle?

Classics - 4 and a half hours til Juniors!

I am SO EXCITED.

I didn't get to watch podium training live but I did feast on USAG's videos and I'm watching the senior archived PT. Not much point in watching the juniors...there is just too many and without the benefit of people pointing out everything, it's too much of a jumble and there's too many coaches and gymnasts to get in the way of viewing.

Aly Raisman looks unbelievable. Like a fresh healthy senior, not one in her 5th year. She is super impressive and the ease and floatiness in a skill like her Dos Santos is just incredible. I'm really loving her double layout too, very well done considering it's the third pass, and the fact that it replaced a somewhat ugly triple full is a huge point in its favour too. Vault looked a little iffy but I think she'll pull out a decent DTY in competition. Bars are still improved, still...Aly of course, but the noticeable effort to improve that we saw in her Jesolo bars continues. She is ready, and a super-solid AA contender.

I'm quite glad there is no upload of Simone Biles' floor. I want to see the debut of her new routine in a competition setting. The tumbling alone will make it and I'm happy she mentioned new leaps being added, hopefully that means she can dump the old B dance skill she was counting. The whole package together should be interesting. Her amanar didn't seem to have its usual oomph so seems like a wise decision to save the Cheng for nationals.  I bet she will vault as good as ever by tonight though. I am really loving her beam, the barani looks great. I will always prefer the crisp precision of someone like Bai Yawen on beam but there's no denying Simone's mastery and I love her composition. I saw nothing of her bars but she reported them as going well. She is just so...exciting! I can't wait.

I haven't seen much of Kyla Ross and hearing that she was quite rough, I won't exactly seek out footage of her either. Sad to hear she seems to have tweaked an ankle but she's still doing bars and beam so thankfully it can't be that serious and she can prove herself in the AA at Nationals. I can't wait for this Bhardwaj!

Gabby Douglas was painful to watch at times. Good DTY but I wouldn't be confident in the reports of an amanar coming soon. Bars were a struggle and a half, so much so that I don't see it coming together for her tonight either, but hopefully they do. I expected beam to be better than it was, or at least show more ease. She has time, but can't help wondering what she would look like if she had stayed at the gym that made her a superstar.

I had thought Bailie Key was finally moving in the right direction on floor music and choreography wise but there has been a clear regression. Techno-Viking weird battle music, odd music changes AND she starts swimming of all things...this routine has got it all. I'm definitely not on board with it but hopefully with tumbling added it will distract me from the bad things. Sadly, I don't think we will ever see her beam improve. The "layout" looks like it's here to stay and she lacks lift on all of her elements, including the dismount. I'm very curious to see all of her routines together, and how she will score against Aly for instance.

Very sad to hear of Felicia Hano's injury on her second vault. I'm a little puzzled as to why she is even training one...both of her vaults would need to be high difficulty to be worth doing a second one at all. Hopefully she is back to business soon.

I haven't seen enough of anyone else to form any semblance of cohesive thought. It's such a pity Kyla is out of the AA, her scores against whatever Bailie and Aly can put up. The identity of the second all-arounder at worlds is still very much open I think. I'm excited to see Ashton back in action, and Maggie who has very exciting routines and upgrades. Her bars at Jesolo were so fabulous, looking forward to seeing them again and the debut of her amanar...although I heard that was a little rough. I did see a bit of Mykayla and Sabrina on beam but nothing of Brenna...another interesting bunch to watch! Not to mention Nia Dennis who has had an interesting few weeks. And Lauren Navarro, who I still think could surprise.

And that's just seniors. I deliberately am avoiding even news of the juniors, I want to be surprised. I think it will be a battle between Jordan Chiles and Laurie Hernandez but I really want Deanne Soza and Morgan Hurd to be right up there also. It will be an interesting meet now that Nia Dennis and especially Bailie Key have moved up. I'm also rooting for Olivia Dunne, Elena Arenas, Colbi Flory, Christina Desiderio, Maile O'Keeffe...the list goes on.

What are you most excited to see? Will Simone break 62? What will the margin be on floor between her and Aly? How many juniors could you pick out of a line-up? How many gross leotards will there be? Do you feel sorry for those of us watching in GMT? You should. Seniors won't end until 2:30 AM and that's without being drunk dreaming of bad Chinese takeaway food to keep me awake.

Jessica Lopez and the Elixir of Youth

Ah, American Cup. The first international competition of the season, and always an interesting one. I'd have to say that the interest lies mainly in the fact that it showcases the top American gymnasts, the fact they they are there and will almost automatically take the top 2 of the 3 medals and prize money available (except a lot won't, since they aren't pro), the earliness of the season and the distance tends to put a lot of federations off. It's a huge factor in why the rest of the top 4 don't bother with it. To say it's moreso to do with the scoring and old butthurt from Aliya Mustafina losing to Jordyn Wieber is well, wishful thinking. It probably doesn't help, but I'd be very surprised if it was a major contributory factor.

In totally shocking news, Simone Biles dominated, as expected. We are seeing the most powerful gymnast ever, who will go down as one of the greatest, if not THE greatest. She certainly has quite a lot of people who do not appreciate her style of gymnastics, but she doesn't have to be the favourite to be the best.

As I was saying in the comments of my last post, I do not feel that she is beatable. She's on a different level and she's also on a trajectory...she showed upgrades here, and she so clearly has a lot more to give. The TTY alone would of course boost her phenomenal difficulty into the stratosphere, but even if she doesn't do that, it's the little things here and there..the Mustafina on bars, with maybe a Fabrichnova possible, the introduction of the Khorkina transition hopefully and a more valuable dance skill on floor, and even a bigger tumble for her last pass because hey, she looks capable of a double layout or similar there.

It all just puts her out of reach. Nanning Simone was already beyond everyone else, the American Cup one yet more so, and she's got plenty left in the tank as she gears up for the summer season heading into Glasgow, and the longer goal of Rio. Bailie Key is a magnificent gymnast and I am REALLY looking forward to seeing the two compete, but I just don't see Bailie being victorious. Especially because as mentioned, Simone still is not at her peak.

Back to the actual competition....watching her almost, almost stick that huge vault was just incredible. We've gotten so used to the big hop, but it just makes it so much more impressive. Would love to see her continue to land it like this, or with reduced movement on landing. She really has equalled McKayla Maroney with this vault and matching The Great One's Olympic score was I felt justified. It's good to see her bars routine progress from last year, where it was quite cookie-cutter, it was solid and the dismount was fantastic although I was disappointed we didn't see that extra half-turn, albeit knowing already she wasn't going to debut it there. I'm seriously in love with her BHS-LOSO-LOSO on beam, the highlight of the routine. A pity she was wobbly but it's very early in the season, I expect jittery beams in March. Floor blew me away with the competitive debut of the full-twisting double layout and the leap added to the Biles. They look fabulous, and while moving the Silivas to the third pass means it's a bit less explosive, the fact that it is third makes up for that.  Considering the big hops on some of her landings, it was a bit overscored, and so were beam and bars, but not by much. A bit more than half a point altogether. And that's nothing, when it still means you can and will legitimately score over 61 internationally.

Considering how Mykayla Skinner looked in podium training, I'm glad she was able to keep it together in competition. I do love her DTY also. When she's 'on', I really enjoy some of her skills, and her power and enthusiasm. This Mykayla is just not there yet, and wasn't exactly the easiest to watch. It's hard not to think that her training seems to focus on skill acquisition, rather than honing and improving her form.

Not doing the AA isn't the wisest idea in the US National team, limiting the events you can bring in even a prelims score in. But, I think it would be a wise decision for Mykayla to focus on vault and floor. I'd love to see her be schooled on blocking, and really work on her leaps on floor, when she cannot be used on either beam or bars it seems like a waste to detract from time that could go to her star events. Jessica Lopez with her low difficulty but super form beating her for 2nd would have been a good wake-up call perhaps.

It was a bit of a disappointing competition with a few falls, Jessica Lopez threw away a medal on beam, Ellie Black fell on her ambitious clear hip-Shang and Claudia Fragapane had a heartbreaking complete meltdown on floor. That coupled with gymnasts like Mykayla Skinner and the ever-competing Vanessa Ferrari just seeming off...not the most thrilling world cup, and that's coming from a gigantic Simone Biles fan. I'm still trying to catch up on quite a few routines, not having been able to watch the competition live...it's a long one to sit through otherwise, and it's hampered by the fact that a good bit of my free time is going towards WWF/WWE videos on youtube, an old interest recently rekindled into basically an obsession. Just. So. Entertaining.

On that note, other than the falls and ill-preparedness forming the negatives along with the weak-ish field and Simone's awesomeness, new skills and great combinations from people like Ellie Black being the positives...it's a little difficult to sum up this competition.

What were your highlights? Do you see Bailie besting Simone? Can she legit do an 8.0 floor routine? How fun was Mykayla Skinner's hair? Is Jessica Lopez actually 12? 

Things

First post of 2015! That's a shocking start :/ I've been sidetracked by minor health issues, such as a virus that floored me halfway through January (actually floored..) and developing a crazy heart rate (105 lying down and up to 180 working at a desk..??) which has now been resolved by the joys of modern medicine.

Anyway, most of my gymnastics absorption over the last while has been NCAA related, mainly frantically trying to put a team together in fantasy gymnastics that will score the magical 197. Week before last, everybody randomly decided to not compete floor and screwed me over. Week just gone...I got 196.95, sigh. If only Keeley Kmeciak was possible to predict on events on a weekly basis, but alas...

I really, really, really, recommend signing up for this next year for anyone who's wary. It doesn't take that much time (bit of research before signing up etc. will serve you very well) at all and is so much fun, and this is coming from someone who is pretty much locked out of actually watching the competitions due to timezone and international TV station paywall issues. The competition aspect of it is just so enjoyable, trying to improve week on week.

So, elite! I'm delighted that Aliya Mustafina is taking a break from driving herself to the brink, and won't compete at Russian Championships or Euros. Considering the pain and nagging injuries she's been dealing with for a long time now and the immense pressure of basically being a team, her statements towards the end of last year about not taking any breaks and work, work, work...it's a relief. I'm curious about when such a superstar gymnast will bow out from the sport...of course, hoping for post-Rio if at all possible. It would be devastating to see her go before her time because she pushed too hard or was pressured into shouldering her team when she wasn't physically able to do so.

Yao Jinnan is definitely going for the surgery in the US, and will be out for the year...this has been known for a while, just the matter of where and when that's not really known. The fact that it will be in the US annoys me and the reason why is because there are other girls on the team who have nagging injuries that would benefit more from surgery outside of China, instead of the dodgy healthcare they receive there. Nobody needs to be reminded that US healthcare is astronomical...going to Germany, the UK or Canada for instance would probably fund several for the price of one, especially the UK. Unless the surgery is actually pioneering and/or much better when done in the US, in which case the location is totally understandable.

I can't wait for American Cup! The somewhat lacklustre non-US roster isn't a surprise to me at all, this is pretty much always the case. The fact that a lot of people attribute this international scorning to scoring IS surprising though. It's a lot more to do with the fact that it's very early in the season, extremely far away for most, and has no event finals so only bronze in the AA is up for grabs due to the strength of the US roster. Most of the European crew will want to be focusing on Euros anyway.

I wonder who will exhibition/wildcard. Mykayla Skinner's AA spot is in doubt according to some, due to Bailie's recent performance at camp. The recent pattern tends to be not to have new seniors, or at least, not to have them unless forced by injuries to others. On the one hand, Bailie would be a local and it would be a great senior debut for her in front of a big crowd. On the other, she could well be better off honing things like her bars difficulty and the readiness of a more difficult vault for later in the year. Hard to know, I think they might want to hold off on her though and keep Mykayla unless she gets injured.

As always, watching Simone will be a treat and interesting to see her add in some new elements, although saving bigger things for later in the year by all accounts. The two falls at camp are not worrying in the slightest, she will be a force of nature as always.

It's pretty quiet on the interesting news front...can't wait for things to kick off.

EF Day 2: Beam and Floor

Bit of a delay on this, so let's pretend it just happened!

After the high of the first day of event finals, it was perhaps inevitable that the second day would be a letdown. Beam finals have been a bit desultory for a while now, and this one was no exception, in fact, it was worse than ever with only two gymnasts truly excelling. There was nothing wrong with floor, except for the debate over bronze. Beam went one better, with disputes over gold AND bronze.

Beam

Qualifying to this final were Yao Jinnan, Bai Yawen, Simone Biles, Kyla Ross, Aliya Mustafina, Larisa Iordache, Ellie Black and Asuka Teramoto. The favourite was Larisa Iordache with her huge routine, with Simone Biles, Aliya Mustafina and Bai Yawen chasing her. Last year's silver medallist Kyla Ross had too low a d-score to really contend.

So, what happened?

Bai Yawen hit a glorious routine without even the suggestion of a hesitation or wobble. Showcasing why exactly people love to watch Chinese gymnasts on beam...the precision of the elements. This was particularly impressive given the fact that she is quite unknown and inexperienced, wasn't given the opportunity to compete on the event in team finals despite having qualified to event finals on it already, and was not just facing national pressure to do well, but local too. The fact that she scored under 9.0 in execution, even taking into account the low execution scores on beam anyway, was, I thought, hard to justify. Step on dismount, horizontal chest on dismount, and perhaps an argument that she could have had better rhythm and flow. Really exceptional routine otherwise.

Simone Biles, facing beam again after two less than satisfactory routines in team finals and AA, showed us what she's made of and delivered a much steadier routine. She nailed her flight series, hit her connections, threw yet another killer dismount and left the judges without much to deduct. There were three hints of wobbles though in the routine, but despite those, she really moves very well on beam with great flow and rhythm. Her difficulty score was higher than Bai's and she moved into first, with the difference in execution not making up for the d-score advantage.

And that was a bit of an issue for me. Simone unquestionably performed a great routine and deserved a medal. Bai, though, outperformed her. There should have been greater disparity in their execution scores, not because Simone's execution was lacking, but because Bai's is so exceptional. She has a precision and control over every single element that is not present in Simone's routine, nor indeed in most other beam routines. I am reluctant to bring into the question how much it would have meant to Bai Yawen to take gold in front of her hometown crowd in a country where gold is everything and rewarded highly...but, yeah, it would have been great for that reason too.

That wasn't going to be an issue though, because Larisa Iordache was the favourite and would surely hit after doing so well in the AA and TF and after falling in London and Antwerp beam finals, surely it was her time to get lucky. And...she fell, on the tuck full this time. Disappointing isn't the word. She has really improved her form on this event even in just the last couple of months, at Euros for instance I found her quite sloppy. Sigh.

Yao Jinnan falls. She wasn't a challenger and after winning bars gold I doubt it was really a big deal, her smile after coming off on the layout seemed proof of that.

Ellie Black falls. A super hard routine and her one chance in an event final to shine, and she comes undone on the full. Devastating, especially given how open bronze was.

Kyla Ross performs, well, very untypically. A huge wobble, two smaller ones, broken connections and quite a slow routine. It's a long, tough week and I'm never surprised when a gymnast who does the AA in prelims, team finals AND AA on top of making event finals, falters at the end of the week. It's a pity as she could have quite easily taken bronze had she exhibited her usual steady, clean routine.

Aliya Mustafina is anything but predictable on beam. The reigning world champion, but so inconsistent. It starts off well but then she breaks completely during her series, and without time to fully remedy it. Some really nice elements to it, but without an acro series her d-score is way down. But as the final pans out..it's not too surprising that she overtakes the routines with falls and weaker routines.

Asuka Teramoto is bouncing back from falls on her layout in both the AA and team finals. It's so satisfying when she hits it beautifully this time. Unfortunately, the routine is marred by a myriad of broken connections and with her medium difficulty and questionable dismount, it's not enough and she stays behind Mustafina.

The fact that a hit, clean, beautiful routine is beaten by one without an acro series has resulted in a lot of backlash, with accusations that Mustafina's name and reputation held her up. Had Asuka perfectly hit her routine, I think it would be a different story and actually a judging scandal. But she did herself no favours with all of the broken connections and not-fully-around dismount so I can see how this happened. The fact that a routine with no acro series ended up on the podium is not a testament to judging scandal or the power of reputation. It is a damning indictment of how weak beam is at the moment.

All in all, not the most exciting of finals. 3 falls and just not the highest standard when you compare it to the depth of the other events. To me, it was missing Andreea Munteanu, Maria Kharenkova and Shang Chunsong. The latter was rumoured to be replacing Bai Yawen and I'm so glad she didn't, but it would have been nice to see the two alongside each other in the final (legitimately, not at the expense of Yao Jinnan). I don't dispute the bronze, but I would have liked to see the order of gold and silver reversed.

Floor

The favourite this time, Simone Biles, was highly unlikely to be ousted or beaten because of a fall. Fresh from victory on beam, she was slated to compete second last, conveniently building the excitement of the final to a crescendo. Alongside her were Mykayla Skinner, Vanessa Ferrari, Erika Fasana, Larisa Iordache, Larissa Miller, Claudia Fragapane and Aliya Mustafina. The skill level was through the roof, with a laid-out double-double, 5 tucked versions and a full-twising double layout.

Mykayla Skinner has impressed me at these worlds, and continued to do so in her last final. Sharper form, better execution, really strong landings. Her signature skill looked straighter than ever. Leaps are still letting her down but she tried hard with her choreography I thought. A strong effort and a good chance for a medal.

Larissa Miller was a surprise qualifier, and she knocked out the popular Roxana Popa. This exercise was a joy to watch for just how beautiful her tumbling was, textbook double arabian, gorgeous combination tumbling. Very floaty.

Larisa Iordache had to bounce back from the crushing disappointment of yet another beam medal thrown away, and she did so in spectacular fashion. The big question was going to be, could she equal Simone's d-score again by throwing the pike full-in at the end? She pulled it around convincingly, and stayed in bounds on her second pass this time. It's just fantastic to watch her in motion, as the motion just never stops. The enjoyment of what she does shines through every movement, every bounce.

When her score came in I thought it should have been closer to 15, but the explanation that her Gomez hadn't been fully around countered for some of that, but not all. In my opinion, she loses tenths for the bounciness, not necessarily landings, but after leaps and turns, it's a sign of not having full control I suppose. It wasn't going to able to push Simone or properly challenge her, which was a bit disappointing.

Vanessa Ferrari's routine was a little sluggish, with one bad landing and she also missed her tuck back connection after the full-in. Although it wasn't her best, it was still great. It's wonderful to see a 24-year-old gymnast throwing such hard tumbles so many years later, and one of them, the double layout, a recent upgrade. It was unfortunately clear that she wasn't going to be a medal challenger in spite of the difficulty.

Erika Fasana's routine didn't make much of an impression on me, I found it was a bit lost amongst the other finalists. Nice tumbling, but it just didn't have the full package to make it stand out.

Claudia Fragapane's routine is always a highlight. She looked ready. HUGE air on the first pass, too much, as she rebounded spectacularly to prone position. In all the falls we have seen, I have never seen one quite like that. It's strange too, we've been hearing complaints that the floor is quite hard, yet the stronger athletes have been having no problem, with some sticking less than usual with the extra bounce they get on landing. It was a big moment for Claudia and so crushing to come to grief within the first few seconds. She performed the rest of the routine admirably, still selling her impassioned dance to the crowds. I can't wait to see her continue to improve and polish her performance but she really had a great worlds despite the fall.

Simone Biles was second last. Another explosively energetic routine, this time with bouncier landings than previously. I never get tired of this floor, it's quite artistic in its own way, because of the performer. Only she and Larisa displayed that magnetic connection. And straight into gold with a half-point lead.

Aliya Mustafina sat her first pass just two days previous, but this time she not only landed it, but added back the two whips preceding the double arabian. She's never one you can rule in or out really, and clearly decided that in her last final she had nothing to lose and should go for broke. Not having the triple full is so refreshing and I do like her choreography, though it feels a little empty and that she could do much more. Given her injuries, how much she has to carry her team and the long week, I'd imagine endurance is an issue and getting through the routine cleanly is more important than really emphasising the artistry.

When she had finished, I thought, well that will be 4th and well deserved. At least she has beam. But then she ousted Mykayla Skinner's position by a fraction of a tenth, 0.33. The delighted surprise on her face contrasted with Skinner dissolving into tears. But, in another display of how great the latter has been at these, her first worlds, she quickly controlled herself and accepted her placement.

I'm not sure how I feel about bronze. On the one hand, Mykayla Skinner's routine really was deserving. On the other, Aliya Mustafina showed more of the full package with exceptional dance elements. It's hard to say whether Mykayla was hard done by, but in this case, I do think Aliya was held up by her name. Had Larissa Miller performed that exact routine, I think we would have seen two Americans on the podium.

Far be it from me to deny what a truly great gymnast Aliya Mustafina is. I was very disappointed when she counted a fall in the all-around and was looking forward to seeing her bring home some individual hardware besides the team bronze. Bars I thought was her best chance, and although I expected her to place higher, I was thrilled with that podium and certainly bronze was her best hope there. Beam, well, the girls who fell and Asuka were quite unlucky, but I don't think anyone was 'wronged' for Aliya's bronze there. Floor though, being who she is DID I feel help.

Did you agree with the podiums? Was anyone helped by having a name, or wronged by not having one? How much worse can beam finals get? How much better can Simone Biles get? How weird are my tenses here?

EF Day 1: Vault and Bars

For a mid-quad worlds, this is proving to be a truly exciting one in individual competition. Today for WAG, the vault and bars finals were contested.

Despite the fact that several of the people who ended up on podium were not a surprise, the competitions were very tight and very tense with some surprises thrown in. First, to vault!

Simone Biles has spent most of the year since Mckayla Maroney's latest batch of injuries as the known favourite for the vault title, which continued until Asian Games. At that competition, Hong un Jong of North Korea vaulted an extremely floaty amanar and a much stronger Cheng. Her improvement, and 0.8 d-score advantage were suddenly big threats to Simone. Would Simone go for the Cheng that has been in the works for quite some time, or even a Mustafina hinted at earlier in the year on her ask.fm? The idea of an upgrade was shot down, and so her execution would be the decider.

Hong un Jong is the 2008 Olympic vault Champion. Remarkably, she survived the long banishment of her country for cheating and emerged after the London Olympics with the same vaults, the Amanar and Cheng. The difficulty on both has gone down, to 6.3 and 6.4, but still makes a gymnast with them formidable. Last year, she used the difficulty to push through and take bronze behind McKayla Maroney and Simone Biles. Neither vault was particularly inspiring, with her Cheng especially struggled around. Considering the fact that she is now 24, the fact that she has improved the form and landings on both vaults is just incredible. It came down to the wire, especially with Simone only having a small hop on her amanar and just a tiny shuffle in place after a perfect Lopez, with Hong edging her out by less than half a tenth.

I'm very pleased for Hong un Jong and her coaches reactions were very touching. 6 years on, and just as good as ever. The absolutely tiny margin of victory just goes to show just how strong a vaulter Simone Biles is, to almost beat her. I'd imagine the death knell has been sounded on her Lopez, and while I'm sure an upgrade will look great, it is a pity as it just such an exceptional vault, so textbook and so pretty. There is something inherently pleasing about her vaulting, and it's the certainty. She isn't going to mess up, we're not afraid she will twist into the ground, land off the podium, not get her twist around in time, block completely wrong etc. etc. She'll block dead-centre with straight arms, lift into the ceiling, and land securely. Refreshingly great. I really look forward to seeing her develop on this event. Our gold winner showed that anything's possible.

A lot has been said about Mykayla Skinner and her vaulting, especially of course the block on her Cheng. Certainly the technique is quite wrong, she's twisting off one hand too early and the other hand is not repulsing her. We know this. But she has doing her job really well at her first world championships, a team extremely few would have put her in at the start of this year, and today was no exception. Her Cheng was very clean in the air with a great landing. It's not the most dynamic but it's still worthy of a good score, which she certainly achieved. Her DTY has improved quite a bit, form was tight and clean. She was much more pleasant to watch than those whose landings are far from a sure thing. Great effort from her and a well deserved bronze.

Alla Sosnitskaya vaulted the exact same vaults as Mykayla. Her Cheng is very new for her and it's quite dynamic, she looks to me to get more airtime than our other Cheng vaulters. It's such a tough vault! But it was from perfect, or even great. Almost a perfectly stuck landing but she was completely out of bounds, and it had loose sloppy form throughout. The DTY was much cleaner, but with bent knees. She has had a great competition and 4th here is a triumph that she can build on. I know she has an amanar in the works and I don't doubt that she's capable, but I hope they focus just as strongly on her execution. She could be really good.

Giulia on the other hand has been struggling a bit these worlds. Most notably, she has developed a block about twisting which threw her DTY out the window and has been limiting her at just the wrong time of year. Her Rudi certainly showed deterioration, very messy in the air and really fought around, and while her FTY was so much nicer, it was just an FTY really. Alexa Moreno fought valiantly on her vaults and so too did Phan Thi Ha Thanh but both really showed how hard their vaults are, and it wasn't surprising that their difficulty, especially Alexa's, didn't place them higher. Claudia Fragapane shows much more ease in hers, but they are relatively easy. It's strange how it looks like she's doing a completely different vault to Simone's Lopez BUT she really sharpened up her form on her DTY which I am very happy with.

Matchy matchy! Source- John Cheng/USAG

All in all, a tense fight for gold and a very strong field. Vault finals seem to be getting stronger all the time, long may that trend continue! Next year we'll more than likely see an upgrade from super-vaulter Simone and maybe even another comeback from McKayla Maroney...?

Highlights

No falls!

No Produnovas!

No 'impossible' vaults like an amanar from Phan to rightly give everyone heart failure

Very strong field and difficulty

Good variety of vaults

Lowlights

Um..I suppose form loss on some vaults

Some vaults were a bit of a struggle to land

Favourite vaults

1. Simone Biles Vault 2 Lopez
2. Simone Biles Vault 1 Amanar
3. Hong un Jong Vault 1 Amanar

Leotards

Niiice effort by the US, a little too shiny for my liking but simple and striking and of course, not pink. I like the simplicity of the North Korean leotard and the matching podium looked well, again! Not a big fan of Alla's leo, Alexa's was pretty, Claudia's was nice but needed more oomph, Giulia's was pretty also and I'm undecided about Phan...I think I like it?

Bars

Well, that was an extraordinarily deep and exciting final.

First up was Aliya Mustafina in her Pikachu leotard, the strong colouring of which highlights the fact that she's not well. All things considered, I didn't think she would upgrade as expected, and she didn't. Playing it safe when you're not at the top of your game is always wise, and it was very clean and nice to watch, albeit (and I feel mean) boring. It's not a routine I would have thrilled with had it medalled, despite how clean it was. I hope she can return and show us just a little bit more on this event.

Another super-clean gorgeous routine from Daria Spiridonova which unexpectedly propelled her in front of Aliya. What was a highlight of the whole competition was how delighted the latter was about that! Daria's lines are superb but her score was still a surprise, a nice one.

Having Ashton Locklear right after those two showed just how Russian her routine is in composition. Luckily we have some Brits to shake it up a bit. Anyway, Ashton showed no signs of her inexperience and delivered another great routine, hitting her massive combination with ease. It really build the tension with 5 elements! Her sickled feet (and Mustafina's and Lisa Hill's..certainly Ashton's not the only one) put me off a bit but a very enjoyable strong routine to round off her great worlds. The scoring and placement was right too. I know she ended up 4th, but in a field like that...amazing.

Rebecca Downie has been great all year, after a very disappointing 2013 in which she struggled to hit her fantastic routine the whole year, coming to grief yet again in Antwerp's bars final. But the Euros and Commonwealth 2014 bars champion has come on quite a lot since then, and this jam-packed routine was another hit for her. I love her variety of releases. That said, this wasn't her cleanest and she seemed to have to fight through it, but no major error and that rounds off an excellent year nicely.

Having a Bhardwaj AND a Zuchold means you belong in every bars final in my opinion. The former skill has been cleaner for her and the latter threw off a subsequent pirouette forcing her to count a fall...but it's just a treat to watch this routine. Ruby is so dynamic and daring, and she finished it off so well with a stuck dismount, declaring afterwards that she was just so thrilled to make the final at all.

It's great to see Lisa Katherina Hill in this final, and she certainly had the skills for it. It wasn't the cleanest and she had to save it a bit and fight, but she got through it nicely and I really loved her Bhardwaj, very clean.

Dun dun DUN arrival of the big hitters. Defending champion Huang Huidan was up first, and really went for it. Great Jaeger, dismount, smoother on her turns than she has been, really getting the handstands and minimising deductions. Just fantastic work and a well deserved huge score as a result.

And everything to play for Yao Jinnan, up last. The most nervewracking routine of worlds so far for me, as I really really wanted her to finally get a gold. It was thrilling to see her catch everything, nail her turns and the dismount. Her pirouettes are really stunning, just so precise. The Tkachev lets the whole routine down for me, it's flat, but the rest does make up for it. A very smartly constructed routine as it's so short..but 6.9 difficulty means she's far from messing about. And THAT SCORE! Finally a win for her! I understand that gold and silver could be argued for either way, but I was much more emotionally invested in Yao Jinnan winning so I'm very happy with the podium.

Highlights

7 hit routines

Tense, down-to-the-wire scoring

Lots of variety, transition heavy routines, balanced routines, rare skills, pirouettes..

Not-so-highlights

Ruby coming off bars

One or two routines sloppier than they have been prior to now

Russian routines were identical

Favourite routines

Our podium exactly. 

Leotards

Ashton looked good in USA's patriotic flavour of the day. I really like the red GB leotard and Lisa's was nice also, if slightly low at the neck. The winner is Yao Jinnan in lovely regal purple.

Source- Reuters/China Daily

Of course, we have to have some drama. First, Yao's lack of number. This was addressed after the competition in which it was stated that it fell off right before, and that it was presented to the judges and accepted. (This is what happens if you do back spins...Claudia Fragapane has permission to do this on floor). Even if it wasn't, too bad if the judges didn't catch it. Seeing accusations such as 'cheating again' is enraging. How could they possibly benefit? Who would risk an 0.3 ND? Seriously?

And, the tears. Huang Huidan was moved after her dismount and it was touching to see. Hitting a great routine when it matters most, it's perfectly understandable to feel such relief. This got ugly after Yao Jinnan's score came in and she was still crying, miserably this time, and STILL CRYING in the press conference, right beside Yao Jinnan. I have no patience with that. To hit such a fabulous routine and lose has got to be hard, but it should not have been such a surprise...Yao consistently beats her when they both it. It is perfectly acceptable to feel upset, but she should have sucked it up, sincerely congratulated Yao who after all, has just cemented her place on the Champions wall after years of trying and working though injury to do so, and waited until she was alone to let our her frustration and disappointment. It was quite in contrast to Aliya Mustafina who looked absolutely thrilled to be beaten by teammate Daria.

Nothing wrong with emotion, but there is when it dampens things for not just your teammate, but your friend...they train together in the same group. It's just...awkward. How is Yao supposed to reflect on a job well done and her triumph at last when she has to console her friend and no doubt feel misplaced guilt? It it just...annoying and unnecessary. In discussion earlier it was rightly pointed out to me that we cannot expect these girls to have the full maturity of their age due to their lack of socialisation, they are after all in a very insular and intensive training environment. Nevertheless, I am disappointed in Huang Huidan's inability to mask her feelings in public for her friend.

Now that I've got that way, I do want to emphasise that I am DELIGHTED with today's competitions. Only one fall, nothing too dangerous, and above all, lots of tense competition and nervous waiting for scores. Just as it should be.

What were your favourite routines/vaults? Do you agree with how Biles/Hong and Huang/Yao placed? Can tomorrow live up to today's competition? The US leotard for tomorrow has been described as 'fun'- does this scare you also?

Worlds Predictions

Ahhh, that time of year :D I have a massive advantage on the last one as worlds are actually in a few weeks instead of a year.

I won't do teams as they are all largely in place or with very little room to manouevre, even the US. I will say that I don't see Brenna Dowell on the team. In my mind it's Simone Biles, Kyla Ross, Mykayla Skinner, Alyssa Baumann, Madison Kocian and Ashton Locklear.

Moving on to the fun

The All-Around

1. Simone Biles

Woah, unorthodox choice I know! She hasn't raised the roof on her difficulty level since Antwerp..bars and beam changes probably cancel each other out. What she has done is clean up, she's technically better than ever AND her landings are so much more precise. It will all help. I think she would need to fall and have a significant other error for someone to have a shot at catching up to her.

2. Aliya Mustafina

3. Kyla Ross

I'm not overly confident in the order of these two. Aliya looked super strong at Russian Cup, better overall than last year. Kyla meanwhile has downgraded further. It's hard to know. Larisa HAS upgraded her floor and beam and her bars look stronger than ever...so she could of course feature here. The reason why she doesn't is because she has never gotten it together in the AA when it really counts while the other two are absolute beasts in competition.

4.(th again) Larisa Iordache

5. Vanessa Ferrari

Vanessa still looks very strong. Larisa will fall off beam I think. 

Team Final

1. USA

SHOCKER. It won't be easy as we all would have imagined at the beginning of the year. Losing Ebee, McKayla Maroney and injuries to Peyton Ernst, Maggie Nichols, Lexie Priessman with no Fierce 5 comebacks...it's definitely not a glorious pool of depth. But they still have the goods..even though China technically has higher potential d-scores.

2. China

3. Russia

4. Great Britain

5. Romania

Now I'm really not confident in this..but at the moment it makes the most sense. China have killer, and I mean killer, bar routines. Their lowest d-score out of 4 is 6.7-8. If they all hit then it's a major boost. Likewise with beam, strong potential there as usual. Russia are just...not really a strong team. And just today they have lost Ekaterina Kramarenko. Viktoria Komova will almost surely be on the team now, but they'll still be weak. As ever, Aliya Mustafina does not a team make and she'll be carrying them. The second strongest team member is Maria Kharenkova. Together I can see them dragging the team above the twin onslaught of GB and Romania.

Romania recently spectacularly lost to Germany. It makes me very unsure of how equipped they are to deal with GB. GB are lacking depth in some areas but may still be able to surpass a greatly weakened Romania who didn't even choose a team as there was nobody to leave behind.

GB..hmmm, mystery. I'm not sure what the story is with Raer Theaker and Rebecca Tunney but I got the impression they're not going to be in contention? Gabby Jupp on the other hand is back! This could go either way for them. 4th would be an enormous achievement even with their new strength. 5th is just as likely. Romania veer from 3rd to 5th to me, they don't have 'it' for 2nd this year at least I don't think.

Vault Qualifiers

Simone Biles
Mykayla Skinner
Giulia Steingruber
Oksana Chusovitina
Hong un Jong
Phan Thi Ha Thanh
Ellie Black 
Maria Paseka

I'm a little stumped here, I feel a bit out of the loop. Hmmm. *Added Maria Paseka! We could see a suicidal Prod though of course. Perhaps Mahmoud as the last I saw of Pena she didn't look particularly strong and crashed a layout front if I remember correctly.

Bars Qualifiers

Ashton Locklear
Becky Downie
Ruby Harrold
Yao Jinnan
Huang Huidan
Aliya Mustafina
Daria Spiridonova
Kyla Ross

Madison has more difficulty than Kyla, but not as clean.

Floor Qualifiers

Simone Biles
Mykayla Skinner
Larisa Iordache
Shang Chunsong
Claudia Frangapane
Giulia Steingruber
Vanessa Ferrari
Roxana Popa

I haven't seen a huge amount of great floors this year. Mai Murakami is struggling at the moment, I don't see her getting her tumbles back and into this final, sadly.

Beam Final

Larisa Iordache
Kyla Ross
Simone Biles
Aliya Mustafina
Maria Kharenkova
Shang Chunsong
Bai Yawen
Andreea Munteanu 

I'm very confident in this finals line-up, out of all the EF ones.

Vault podium

1. Simone Biles
2. Mykayla Skinner
3. Giulia Steingruber

Ta-dah! So that was straightforward enough.


Bars Podium

1. Yao Jinnan
2. Huang Huidan
3. Becky Downie

Yeah so this is impossible! The Russians have lesser difficulty which could get Becky into the medals if she hits everything for hers. Much like Euros. This is one of those predictions that feels right, but so many variables involved..

Beam Podium

1. Larisa Iordache
2. Maria Kharenkova
3. Bai Yawen

BOOM, Larisa has to hit beam in a final when it actually matters, just once. Maria is quite steady with a lot of difficulty...but I have big issues with silver and bronze. Where is Kyla, how will Bai Yawen be scored, what about Simone's higher difficulty now...all legit concerns. It's a tough one.

Floor Podium

1. Simone Biles
2. Larisa Iordache
3. Vanessa Ferrari

All 3 of these routines have 6.5 difficulty. Gold is obvious. Not so much the others. I dumped Mykayla Skinner after comments made me look harder at Vanessa Ferrari who I initially forgot about for floor finals altogether and needed reminding from Cordelia Price! Mykayla does have a good shot though at this podium.

Even when we're this close, there's still a huge amount of 'what if'. What's right here, what's definitely wrong? What's downright bizarre? 

Nationals Thoughts

Still playing catch-up on the routines of the army of juniors, and still processing and formulating possible worlds teams in my head, but here I go.

General Thoughts

It's really quite odd to see such a depleted senior field compared to what it looked like at the start of the year, and then have so few actually do the AA. Ebee has of course gone to college, as has Abigail Milliet. Kennedy Baker dropped to Level 10 to prepare for college while others such as McKayla Maroney, Lexie Priessman and Peyton Ernst were out with injury. Brenna Dowell, Madison Kocian and Nica Hults were present but not healthy enough to compete AA. Madison Desch did, but seems to have totally faded, sadly.

The US is lacking depth...but for them, for their standard. Certainly they are a world away from the crisis facing Romania who have so few seniors that they are not choosing a team, they only have 6 girls. Given how we've become used to the US having the goods to send more than one team, it's downright odd to see so few healthy and in contention.

That said, we saw an incredibly impressive display of gymnastics. There's absolutely no doubt that even a weakened mid-quad US has the goods to dominate all...team, all-around, floor, vault and again should be able to make an impact on bars and beam.

Scoring was um, a bit sickening at times. I had thought that US overscoring had calmed down, but now I think of it that probably relates more to American Cup which certainly died down from hysterical levels in the last 2 years. Nationals though, 9.1-2 e-scores were being handed out like candy, especially to the top few. Simone Biles and Kyla Ross were big offenders here, both netting massive scores on beam in particular with 9.2 execution, other scores that stood out were Ashton Locklear's bars, and Mykayla Skinner's Cheng and floor. Over the top. What I tend to do instead of focus on the scoring is focus on the ranking, or of course, just the routine. Otherwise it's easy to get annoyed. Especially when you watch a so-close-to-perfect beam routine by Wang Yan score 8.233 execution and then watch Alyssa Baumann score over one point higher on the same event. Both judges were at opposite extremes and neither was correct. Bahh.

Simone Biles

She just needs to be the first gymnast mentioned. At this stage, and after watching her compete the all-around 3 times in as many weeks, she is strange to watch. Almost scary. How can someone be that good and do everything with such ease? She improves all.the.time. As a recent gym fan, I have been able to follow her progress in 'real time' which is of course a bit of a novelty. In 2012 she stood out for her amanar and DLO-split jump in the clouds, but that was it. She didn't properly stand out until 2013 when she emerged as a huge all-around threat, but she managed to lose to Katelyn Ohashi. This weekend she emerged 4 points ahead of her closest rival, which would have been 3 had neither of them counted falls. She has become untouchable and it's fascinating.

The best in the US being the best in the world isn't exactly a new phenomenon. Yet the gap between her and the rest is actually shocking. What's most intriguing is how much more she has to give. Her floor didn't really tax her at all, you feel when watching her that she could do a triple double, Biles, double layout-split leap, Dos Santos/double arabian-leap, and a full-in too if 5 passes were still allowed. What I really loved watching was the control on her passes, she's no longer bounding all over the place. Clearly there has been massive work undertaken on her landings and it shows off her skill so much better. Her split position looks to be that bit better too. She's never going to wow anyone there, but nevertheless, more flexibility is always good news.

Copyright- Christy Ann Linder

I'm flabbergasted at how with her power and build she can throw an extremely flighty high BHS-LOSO-LOSO with perfect form. It's not an acro line that would immediately bring her to mind...I'd imagine her doing BHS-arabian or another aggressive series much faster, but it totally works. And it's not flat, which is a plague affecting the new resurgence of this wonderful acro line. She is consistently swaying just slightly to the side on the landing, but no big deal. It was the much easier aerial on which she came to grief on day 2, more than likely she was spooked previously by the dodgy execution and save of her 2.5 wolf turn. I'm not concerned, I bet it will all be rock solid by selection camp.

Bars are nothing to write home about at the moment, and more than likely never will be. She's taking it easy for the moment and giving her shoulder a break. And why not, when she can easily afford to downgrade. I do expect a Khorkina which she was training earlier on in the year (this will up her SV by 0.2 as she counts a C) to make a reappearance perhaps early next year, and also a Fabrichnova (add another 0.2). It doesn't need much, really. She has really come on in leaps and bounds on this event, which doesn't really show. But check out her routine in 2010. It's especially tough when the foundation exhibits glaring weaknesses.

There's not much to say about vault. Usual jaw dropping display. I was very pleased to see the Lopez back to its usual brilliance though after an uncharacteristically flat block at Classics, although of course, being superhuman, that was no impediment to her and she still landed it fine. She mentioned a while ago that the Cheng (and TTY) are out for this year but she's aiming for a half-twist upgrade on her second vault, which doesn't look like it should be a problem judging by how she dropped the Lopez out of the sky.

So to sum up..I cannot quite comprehend her talent. She's so far ahead of the field that it's crazy. And not only that, but the fact that she's not done upgrading and hasn't reached her full potential. I am in awe. The only barrier to repeating her AA world champion feat is her own health.

Kyla Ross

I was very pleased to see Kyla continue to look a lot better than she did at the start of the year, not laboured at all. The whip-double arabian upgrade looked a bit precarious and indeed was her downfall on night one with the whip getting dumped at breakneck speed for night 2. Not to worry, the stag jump was fantastic. What was even stranger on the first day than Kyla falling on floor was Kyla failing to stand her double layout bars dismount up. She floats through the entire routine only to come to grief at the last possible second. Of course, when you think about it..it must be tough to rotate it at her height but I don't think it will ever happen again. Certainly she was much more flawless night two which was great to see.

Kyla is of course a lock for Nanning, and despite a disastrous day 1 at Nationals, did absolutely nothing to change this status. Nobody can take her spot, which I totally thought was possible until exactly this time last year. Ebee I do think would have really challenged her but alas, injured and not doing AA last year, and retired this time around. I'd really like to see her challenged properly.

I'd still really love to see her push herself on beam and bars but I get it. Why change the formula? Her routines deliver, time after time. Not the gold but see above for why that would be impossible.

Maggie Nichols

Maggie Nichols was a big surprise, and a welcome one at that. She has been coasting along on the 'b team' in my mind for a while with a lot to prove to really push herself forward into the limelight. And regardless of injuries and absences of others, she certainly did so in fine style. Solid, but mostly quite clean. Usable on any event. She's much, much better than Aly Raisman was in 2010 at the same exact mid-quad point and more rounded than the latter ever was, but she doesn't have a standout event and that continues to hurt her chances of making an impact on a team.

She is the perfect alternate. Yet the idea of having her as just alternate seems cruel when she pulled it out of the bag like that both nights and even noticeably cleaned up, doing a really nice DTY in particular on night two. But, someone who can fill in on any event and is healthy is worth their weight in gold. On the team though, she can do a few events in prelims. Appearances in TF depends mightily on another potential team member and how she would score in prelims, Mykayla Skinner. If badly, Maggie would slot in easily for good scores on floor and vault.

A fantastic outing but she still doesn't stand out and will need more difficulty, coupled hopefully with yet more form improvement, to really make a name for herself and shine individually.

Ashton Locklear

I am so thrilled her leg form on bars cleaned up a lot, she was much, much better at keeping her legs glued together throughout the routine both nights. She is sickling which is the worst, but it's a fantastic routine and I'm thrilled she's working on the little things. Massive connections and d-score, if she connects it all I could easily see her achieving 15.3ish in Nanning with it.

Beam on the other hand is just not her thing and I'm more unconvinced than I was at Classics. Not because she fell, it's just not really strong in general.

Luckily, her star routine is I think strong enough to get her onto that plane. So much so, that she's in a stronger position than Madison Kocian who is more of an all-arounder than Ashton and has been on the scene a lot longer. Along with Mykayla Skinner, the scores of both girls at Pan Ams happening very soon will be extremely interesting and could decide quite a lot.

Alyssa Baumann didn't really stand out to me, unfortunately. Her beam is really good, that's for sure, but I'm not really swayed by her and I'm not exactly sure why. She remains alternate material to me rather than obvious team member. I keep expecting to see an amazing beam from her since that's what she's known for, but I'm not really seeing it. WOGA need to dump their arabians, I'm tired of seeing them chucked and landed low.


How frustrating for her though, to injure herself on the last routine. Given that she was able to get back up and finish her bars routine with the hyperextended elbow, it might just be minor rather than a nagging complaint that takes her out of worlds contention.


It's great to see Amelia Hundley back in action but her low difficulty isn't going to do the trick. She could quite easily make alternate though. Very, very annoying that the camera followed Simone on the sidelines on day two rather than Amelia's floor...

Brenna Dowell was heartbreaking. Only being ready for bars and then not actually ready on them...it's definitely far from what I was hoping for at this stage of the year from her, leading on from a promising early season.

I'm not sure where she goes from here. She's planning to do the AA at selection camp and certainly vault, particularly the amanar, and floor would be valuable back-ups from her. But I think it's too late. Marta wants them showing the same stuff consistently, not adding back routines at the last minute. It's different if your name is McKayla Maroney but Brenna has yet to really prove herself and in my view, isn't going to be trusted with anything other than bars and right now that's not looking great for her either. Devastating.

Overall, yet another illuminating Nationals. Some have stepped up, others faded away, and some are superhuman.

Best vault: Simone, just anything
Best floor: Simone
Best beam: Simone
Best bars: Ashton

Surprise, surprise, these were my favourite routines on each event too.

My worlds team is shaping up nicely. Simone Biles and Kyla Ross remain as locks, duh. At this point I think Maggie Nichols, Ashton Locklear and Mykayla Skinner make the most sense. The latter I really didn't think would make a worlds team, yet there's not actually much choice with no other obvious floor/vault specialist. She's still a wildcard as her scoring could go either way.

No. 6...nope, can't really name them. It's between Madison Kocian and Alyssa Baumann I think, whoever makes the most sense at the time. I'm too unsure about Brenna Dowell at the moment but she is in the mix still.

More to add to this post tomorrow, at least leotards :)