Shiny pink (bee infested) podium

Source: draw-cartoons.blogspot.com

I just can't get over how hilarious that was. Larisa's deadpan helpful pointing out of said bee is also fantastic.

Source- see watermark

Okay, on with the competition!

What a thrilling final! We have our first back-to-back all-around champion in 20 years! Simone Biles repeated her feat...although I don't think anyone expected it to be such a tense nailbiter. A lovely person sent me the link for the AA stream and I tortorously avoided the gymternet on lunch and the whole way home. Congratulations to me for willpower. I am just about finished watching, with some catching up to do on non-broadcast routines of course.

Let's have a look at our top 8.

1. Simone Biles
2. Larisa Iordache
3. Kyla Ross
4. Aliya Mustafina
5. Yao Jinnan
6. Vanessa Ferrari
7. Alla Sosnitskaya
8. Jessica Lopez

Simone Biles was truly fantastic to watch, but she has been better! That was what made the competition so interesting though, seeing Larisa Iordache challenge her so fiercely with barely a tenth between them at times, with Yao Jinnan and Aliya Mustafina close on their tales. Only Simone's vault was truly one of the best she has displayed, with a much smaller hop forward that wasn't taken into account in her score. Bars were a little bit of a struggle, but the important thing was soldiering on, and the magnificent stuck dismount really helped. Beam was quite shaky, although thankfully it lacked the massive wobble and save she had in team finals. Breaking the connection hindered her there, but with floor to go it didn't seem like that big a deal. Until Larisa Iordache upped her difficulty at the last minute...and had an out of bounds. Very nerve wracking! Simone was bouncier than usual on floor but performed with her usual flair, stayed well in bounds with her chest upright and some really quite nice leaps.

She is just thrilling. I cannot get over the ease with which she does everything, and judging by the commentary, neither could Christine. Great performance (although as mentioned, not her best) and I can't wait to see how she does in event finals. Congratulations to our back-to-back champion!

Larisa Iordache. Well. I am so so so happy for her! Not since Euros 2012 has she been this strong in a major competition I feel, and while we knew there was strong competition for silver and bronze, I had no inkling she could get that close to challenging for gold. Especially with her consistency record when it really counts, and having to carry her team the whole time must be tiring. No sign of that today! Her floor and beam were highlights as ever, especially beam seeing her land the full twist and layout so securely. Upgrading her floor at the last minute was such a thrilling twist, one of the highlights of the entire competition. She was so fresh, so ready, and the only pity is that she couldn't inch that little bit closer. But who knows, she was so much more dominant than expected...

Kyla Ross Hearty congratulations to Kyla are in order. She's been dealing with an injury, has competed quite a lot so far with AA in TF and...pulled out her usual extremely consistent AA performance to take the bronze. Both Aliya Mustafina and Yao Jinnan sadly came to grief on floor, which just proves yet again that there's a lot to be said for a plan like Kyla and her coaches have. Slow and steady wins the race. However, it is a little sad to see Kyla further downgraded and only able to figure in to medals if others mess up, rather than last year where she was beating them by simply surpassing them. If she is happy to continue elite AA after this year then of course she would remain a great asset, but I feel she is becoming a bit susceptible to injuries and her gymnastics is deteriorating. I'd like to see her in NCAA where she would be so wonderful.

Aliya Mustafina seemed a little off from the first glimpse, so so pale and sombre looking and just a bit defeated looking. I was wondering was she tired or just extra focused, since as soon as she started competing there was no sign of an issue. Excellent DTY landing with nice airtime, great bars and solid beam with stuck dismounts on both. And then she stood up her double arabian opener on floor only to sit it back down. The most shocking part of the competition for me. She rapidly deflated after that understandably, but delivered an admirable floor routine all the same. I was unsurprised to learn afterwards that Aliya reported feeling unwell on waking up in the morning and felt that she gave her all to the team competition. It is sad to see such a fantastic gymnast drained by carrying her team on her back, yet AGAIN. I was really enjoying watching her in action and the commentary mentioning her ACL injury really drove home the point that her comeback has been amazing and showcased such determination and willpower. Hopefully she can show us what she'd made of in event finals and then take a well deserved break. Another fantastic performance despite the fall considering all of the factors against her.

Yao Jinnan is a consistent heartbreaker. She'll never be the gymnast we saw in 2011 and is sadly usually carrying an injury or recovering. At the moment she has been revisited by a recurring foot/ankle one that has had her compete in pain and she is just two weeks distant from the gruelling Asian Games. Nevertheless, she gave yet another strong performance today with exquisite massive difficulty bars, decent DTY and an excellent beam, an event she can be a bit hit or miss on. Floor though. I knew it was going to be a bad idea for her to finish on floor. It has been the event that she's struggled with since tweaking her foot again, and it really showed. I knew she wouldn't get the last pass. Such a shame for this super talented gymnast who seems dogged by bad luck. Gold on bars please after that and what happened in the bars final in Antwerp. Winning the Longines prize though was wonderful, very happy for her and it was definitely earned.

I'm really pleased with 6-8th. Vanessa Ferrari is her usual self, it has been impressive to see her regain the DTY and up her difficulty on floor at this stage in her career, 8 years out from her world title. I did not expect Alla Sosnitskaya and Jessica Lopez to place so well, particularly the latter but need to see videos of them to comment further.


Highlights

The medal ceremony.

Simone Biles repeating.

Larisa Iordache FINALLY proving herself in a major AA competition in truly spectacular fashion. Who suspected that she would come that close to catching Simone?

Yao Jinnan getting the Longines prize. Well deserved and nice after a great AA ended badly, again.

Stuck dismounts on bars from Aliya Mustafina, Kyla Ross, Simone Biles and Yao Jinnan were great to watch and really built on the momentum of the competition for me

Jessica Lopez breaking into the top 8! She usually barely even qualifies to AA and has some truly lovely gymnastics.

Kyla Ross proving that consistency still beats significant difficulty advantage.

Not-so highlights

Aliya and Yao falling at the last hurdle. Heartbreakers.

Shang Chunsong having a nightmare on one of her best events

Asuka and Natsumi both coming to grief on beam. Asuka did the exact same thing in team finals and Natsumi had a complete meltdown on bars last year in the AA so all in all, quite upsetting.
  
Favourite routines

Bars: Yao Jinnan, Aliya Mustafina, Roxana Popa
Beam: Yao Jinnan, Larisa Iordache
Floor: Simone Biles, Larisa Iordache, Shang Chunsong 
Vault: Simone Biles

Fashion Corner

Seeing all the pink just before they marched out cracked me up. First, to the biggest consistent offenders:

USA

This took a while to decide on. I liked the bodice shape, chrystals...and colour contrast! It worked well on both gymnasts and the shades were nice. The white accents were quite conflicting but in the end I liked the definition they gave.

6.5/10

Source- USAG/John Cheng

Romania

Not a huge amount to say here. A bit too shiny for my liking, not a shade of pink I can tolerate. Chrystals were nice but it was boring overall. Even in the blue shade they have it in.

4/10

Aliya Mustafina

An oldie but a goodie. The black collar bit throws it off still.

6/10

Yao Jinnan

She has gorgeous leos, and this isn't one of my favourites. Still though, very unusual and striking and it really suits her. I love the sweeping black bit and it all just comes together so well.

8/10

Vanessa Ferrari

An instant 5/10 for having two sleeves and no weird holes. Suited her down to the ground but was a little um, dominatrix for my liking. Not particularly nice but nothing majorly wrong with it.

5/10

Shang Chunsong's had too much going on, Roxana Popa's had lovely colour usage, Marta Pihan-Kulezsa's was AWESOME with a solid 8.5/10, Japan's paint party leotard is AMAZING and I will never have enough of it. In fact, it wins at 9/10. Congratulations Japan!

Source- Xinhua/Huang Xiaobang

The replay is here but it won't play inside the US. If you know of channels with uploaded non-broadcasted routines, please post in the comments. I expect Piibunina will be amazing as ever.

What did you think of the competition? Favourite routine/moment? How great are matching podiums? Is it true that Nellie Kim planted the bee in Simone's bouquet as a protest against athletic gymnasts? 

The REALLY BIG Worlds Review Post

I am snowed under with assignments currently and for the last while, with no real let-up this side of Christmas. So that is the delay with posting, but I haven't gone anywhere :) I'll still have time for the usual much shorter posts, it's just these long ones that have been a killer to write. Anyway, worlds finished a month ago but I haven't finished yet!

I had an absolutely fantastic experience attending these worlds live. It's kind of difficult to recount it, but you can read about it here, in 4 parts:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

I believe I said this in at least one of the above, but it was just so, so surreal to be watching gymnasts and gymnastics in person, rather than the hundreds if not thousands of hours I've watched through a screen. Like, oh McKayla Maroney is vaulting about 8 feet in front of my face...no big deal. But on to the juicy bit, actually reviewing worlds!

USA

Well, what a glorious domination for them. I did expect I believe a beam medal, 1 or 2 AA medals, 1 or 2 floor medals and 1 or 2 vault medals. Which obviously they exceeded, with a total of 8- 4 (AA and FX gold, VT silver, BB bronze) for Simone Biles, 3 (AA, BB and UB silver) for Kyla Ross and 1 (vault gold) for McKayla Maroney. I do have to say that this medal haul was helped along by a bit of a flop as regards international competition. The US were prepared as if it was the Olympics, everyone else as if it was a post-Olympic world cup. Viktoria Komova was not there, the Russian programme was a shambles, Aliya Mustafina was a bit tired, and the Romanians were relying entirely on a just-recovered Larisa Iordache. China were relying on Yao Jinnan who was also bouncing back from injury and new girl Shang Chunsong. The AA medals, floor and vault would have been won anyway, regardless of the strength of the competition, but the beam and bars medals were a bit of a surprise, and definitely not foreseen at the start of the year. Not a surprise in the last few months, but in general when sights turned to Antwerp last year. They attest to a general weakness in both events, especially beam I think.

BUT, that said, the US had an incredibly impressive worlds and fair dues to their programme of excellent preparation. It's fairly hard to imagine another country toppling their spell of domination any time soon.

First, we need to talk about Simone Biles. Simone has had quite a topsy turvy year or so. She exploded onto the scene this year with a huge arsenal of upgrades, but she also showed inconsistency- with falls at American Cup and Chemnitz. Still, she was regarded as the best US all-arounder and her performance at Classics where she fell on 3 events and was pulled from the fourth didn't really alter this. Indeed, it seemed to energise her. The new US National Champion fulfilled all of her potential and promise and defied the ever-present nay-sayers by going to Antwerp and qualifying to all four event finals, as well as the top all-around qualifier. This feat of qualifying to all finals is very rare these days as we know, especially since top all-arounders tend to eschew doing two vaults. Aliya Mustafina famously did so in 2010, however.

Of course, qualifying is only part of what she needed to do. I was nervous every time she mounted an apparatus...especially when she was first up on beam in her group..and yet, there was no need. Her all-around performance was a tour de force, summed up by the fact that although she was in second by a tenth after three rotations, she finished the competition in the lead by nearly nine tenths- an enormous gap. Could she keep it up for event finals with no break in between? It seems in hindsight to be silly to have been concerned over her consistency. For a first year senior to win the all-around title, qualify to all finals, and bring home another 3 medals including a second title is phenomenal. And, she doesn't seem like she's even at the height of her difficulty yet.

Kyla Ross

I don't feel like I'm the person to talk about Kyla. I haven't been shy of the fact that although I appreciate her lines and mastery of her skills and routines, I don't have much time for her gymnastics otherwise. She certainly had a great worlds, better than I could have predicted. Watching her on beam and bars in particular, knowing that there wasn't a hope of a mistake, was kind of thrilling in a way. It's refreshing to know that nothing will go wrong. I'm very curious to know where she will go from here. Will 3 silvers be an added spur to up her difficulty so she is one of the top contenders next year too? Or will she stay in and around the same level of difficulty in order to preserve herself for college? We do know that the injury rate is laughably high as a result of striving for high difficulty, after all.

  
McKayla Maroney

I have to laugh at the portrayals of McKayla Maroney as a one-eventer. A one-eventer does not place sixth in worlds qualifications all-around. She was a one-eventer last year since that is how she best served the team, and her own minor injuries meant saving herself for vault rather than adding floor into the mix was the best bet. I absolutely do not like the fact that Brenna Dowell was sacrificed at the last minute to make way for McKayla to do the all-around in qualifications, especially as she stood little chance of actually making the finals, which indeed proved to be the case. But it was still nice that she got the chance, and she certainly proved that all-around is not beyond her capabilities. Sixth with a fall, that is, and the best bars routine that she's ever done, an apparatus on which she has always looked nice, but much less secure than a bad routine by Aly Raisman.

The fact that her floor music was overtime is an appalling mistake which should have been fixed at Classics, nevermind camp. The US may have the best programme in the world right now but their internal competitions tend to overlook things- like Peyton Ernst getting credited for a dance series when she did not in fact do one. This silly mistake meant McKayla tied with Kyla and lost on execution. Kyla earned her place fair and square of course, but it would have been amazing to see McKayla in the final, with a routine that was worthy of fighting for a medal. Getting knocked out of the AA- although undoubtedly with the knowledge that that was nearly a certainty is one thing, but getting knocked out of floor finals over such a trivial error that wasn't even her fault is quite a setback. But that didn't do anything to dent her only final performance, vault. The reigning world champion fought off some fairly stiff competition to regain her title in style, and put the spectre of London to rest.

Russia

Really, I am amazed they managed to field a team at all. Meningitis, viruses, back problems, it was all going down at Round Lake, in almost comical fashion. I did predict that Viktoria Komova would not do the AA this year, but hospitalised with meningitis? Not to mention Anastastia Grishina getting blacklisted and then dealing with back/leg injuries and Ksenia Afanasyeva needing ankle surgery at precisely the wrong time. And glossing over other injuries, like Evgeniya Shelgunova. The team of Aliya Mustafina, Tatiana Nabieva, Anna Rodionova and Maria Paseka would never have been predicted six months ago, or at least, half of it. But it didn't end there, before qualifications, Maria Paseka was declared out with injury and then Tatiana Nabieva fell flat on her face in warm-ups, which curtailed the amount of events she was able to do in the end. Seriously, that is one strong curse Round Lake has going on. What a pity that yet again, Aliya Mustafina had to carry the team on her back, despite having just recovered from yet another virus, seemingly so prevalent in Round Lake. Nevertheless, it was great experience for newcomer Anna Rodionova and it was nice to see the comeback of Tatiana Nabieva from the depths of Russia's b-team, who may yet be useful for Russia...particularly if they continue to be struck down so badly before a major competition. It proves the folly of peaking for Euros and Universiade, though the Russian Gymnastics Federation had their hand forced in that regard.

In the face of such adversity, three medals, one gold, is a fabulous result for Russia's WAG. Let's hope their programme bounces back quickly into producing more than one gymnast healthy enough to snatch medals.

But that one gymnast, Aliya Mustafina, is amazing. Footage from podium training was half deliriously exciting with upgrades, half gutting as she looked so tired and just not with it. We have come to expect lacklustre showings from Russia in podium training, yet it kind of seemed more than just not trying when it didn't matter. Adding two whips to her double arabian pass and adding a Seitz on bars was wonderful to see, yet she was having issues with landing the double arabian sometimes, and having trouble on bars too. Beam was still wobbly  and the double turn connection was just not getting hit at all. Nevertheless, still a force to be reckoned with, and so she proved. Nobody competes like Aliya Mustafina. When she walked out and lined up for vault, she just exuded everything a top competitor should have, focus, poise, confidence with the addition in her case of queenly regal-ness. She wasn't really able to catch either or the top two throughout the all-around, but had such moments of greatness, a hit 6.7 bars set and utterly nailing her whip-whip-double arabian-stag. It's just so impressive to watch her in action. It's unfortunate her bars routine in event finals wasn't that bit better, but hey, it's new with fabulous composition. But, a key factor in the US team's success was repetition. There's a lot to be said for not chopping and changing...although, she shot that down by winning the beam title with a routine that has looked different in some way in almost every single competition this year. A great all-arounder, a top bars worker, but beam? How amazing that she still manages to surprise us. Before finals on Sunday I saw a post on twitter 'Plot twist: Aliya Mustafina is beam champion' which, really says it all.

Romania

Another team affected by injury (and a shedload of retirements, as usual). Diana Bulimar is definitely the gymnast I missed most - as we know she had to have knee surgery just a few weeks before worlds. Still, it was nice to see the previously invisible Stefanie Alina Stanila get some much-needed experience. Not that she received much attention, all eyes were on Larisa Iordache as usual, and Sandra Izbasa in floor finals. Only one medal was their sum total, when it really should have been three, possibly four. That said, Larisa had been dealing with yet more injuries this year and had not been back training at full strength for that long before worlds, while Sandra had only recently returned to competition, after a year long break.

It feels like Larisa Iordache has been around for years, and also that she has been more successful than she has in actuality. Quite an unlucky gymnast, dogged by injury and only in her second year as a senior. Her difficulty is enormous, her potential remains as high as ever, yet she doesn't seem to be able to get it together when it matters most. Obviously, lack of full-on training time will hinder that. But I feel she needs more competitive fire, she seems to be more nervous in the really big competitions. She's going nowhere, a gymnast like her will continue to be the backbone of Romania's WAG programme. Let's hope next year is her time to really shine and get everything together.

I'm quite curious to see if Sandra Izbasa will stick around. Her fall on the exact same element in floor finals as in London was really gutting, and could well be motivation to retire on a better note than that. Not that she let herself look upset, she was so smiley and dignified, wonderful to see.

China

Now this was a 50/50 team. Three girls with a big record for inconsistency, the fourth an international unknown with an age question mark over her head. It was very hard to predict what this team could do, and so sad that they spectacularly underperformed. Not Huang Huidan, who after so much flakiness but a streak of hit routines this year, unexpectedly claimed a bars title with a huge score and the best routine she has done all year. Injuries have done their damage, Yao Jinnan and Shang Chunsong have both been dealing with those, and although Zeng Siqi's major problem seems to be general frailty as well as inconsistency..she has not been the same gymnast since an injury she sustained two years ago. In spite of that, she was supposed to make beam finals easily and was a huge medal hope. After her performance at the National Games, hopes plummeted and she lived up to those by falling in qualifications. Personally, I think she needs conditioning more than anything. Endurance is a big issue with her. Not sure how the flakiness can be cured but sometimes that happens- look at Sui Lu. Yao remains a heartbreaker. Caught the Mo in the all-around only to fall victim to a tucked full (or fall?) that she absolutely cannot do on beam. It's so, so low that the margin for error is huge and when I saw her preparation for it I was raging because it was never going to work out. Had she landed it, it would have been hit with so many deductions that it would not have been worth doing. Lamentably poor coaching decision. Grrrr!

I mentioned this before but..to Mo or not to Mo? Worked out once out of two occasions at worlds. I believe she had the same hit record at National Games with it. Our favourite source, Valentina Rodionenko, states that Yao was failing to catch it over and over again that she saw, in training. I think if she cannot better it during winter training, as in not only catch it more often but ensure her feet and shins are not going to touch the bar, then I think it dropped. It's awesome, so so awesome, but there's not much point otherwise.

Shang Chunsong is interesting. Huge potential difficulty, 6.9 UB, 6.1 FX, 6.6 BB etc. But she didn't live up to expectations, falling on beam in the AA, an event she is usually quite consistent on, and not doing a good enough routine to really challenge for the second Chinese spot in uneven bars finals. Floor scoring was so harsh that I wasn't that taken back when she failed to qualify for that final, but in general, I wasn't happy with her execution scoring at all. Don't get me wrong, she HAS execution errors. But it seems like she gets deducted for everything, while others don't necessarily suffer the same level of high scrutiny. Personally, and feel free to disagree, but I think she is to some extent being judged just that little bit harsher, due to how young she looks. As if that's somehow her fault? If the FIG have an issue, then they should be questioning her federation. It is highly, highly unfair, IF perceptions over her age are working against her - I'm not saying this is unequivocally the case - to take it out on her scores.

I was thrilled when she stayed on the beam in event finals, and even though there were definitely biggish deductions to be found like the big wobble and the lamentable switch ring, that e panel hated her too. Sigh. Worlds was a mixed bag for her. Much needed international experience and exposure (not that the latter was kind), always a good thing though. I think that she peaked at National Games which is by no means a negative- this worlds wasn't a big deal, and the benefit she received from her medals at NG (approximately $500k, a university place, and the ability to provide a house etc. for her extremely poor family) is immense, a huge achievement. In person, her FTY looked fine to me. But seeing it on the replay and online, it's another story. It's quite anaemic and just not dynamic at all. She really could do with gaining muscle mass, she's not a fragile gymnast by any means if you look at her other events but it would really help her vault with the goal of achieving a DTY in the future. I'm hoping her form is tightened up during winter training. She could be so much better than the girl we saw in Antwerp.

Thankfully, China did not go away with no medals. An extremely dismal performance as a team, but not for Huang Huidan who definitely exceeded expectations. A well deserved title.

THE ALL AROUND

The Good

- The TENSION. It was awesome. An absolutely wonderful atmosphere.
- Always, always something to watch.
- The buzz when big skills were nailed.
- Yao catching her Mo, Victoria Moors nailing her laidout double double.
- The opportunity to watch the beautiful gymnasts who are far below the radar, like Noemi Makra, Anna Rodionova and Ilaria Kaeslin.
- The rotation music. WHAT a song.
- The enormous roar any time the two Belgian gymnasts competed.
- Seeing vault and the gymnasts so up close.
- The view in general. It was fantastic. Not for bars, but you can't have everything.

Favourite Routines

- BEAM Ilaria Kaeslin, Anna Rodionova, Noemi Makra, Natsumi Sasada
- FLOOR Victoria Moors, Simone Biles, Aliya Mustafina, Larisa Iordache, Elisabeth Seitz, Noemi Makra, Roxana Popa, Shang Chunsong
- BARS Yao Jinnan, Roxana Popa, Aliya Mustafina, Ruby Harrold, Noemi Makra
- VAULT Simone Biles, Kyla Ross, Giulia Steingruber, Roxana Popa, Noemi Makra

The Bad

- Well...the falls really. Natsumi Sasada's meltdown on bars, Shang Chunsong, Larisa Iordache and Yao Jinnan's beam falls in particular. And Ruby Harrold and Victoria Moors. And Rebecca Tunney. Anna Rodionova. It's a loooong list.
- Another missed opportunity for Yao Jinnan in particular, and for Larisa Iordache to really shine in an AA after what happened last year.

Favourite leotards

Carlotta Ferlito

Copyright - AP/ Virginia Mayo

This was just stunning in the arena. Eye-catching, but not too much. Lovely colour too.

Rebecca Tunney

Copyright- Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images

Just so classic. Simple, but not dull.

In general, I had seen most of the other leotards too many times to really care about them, or I found them dull. The US predictably had a leotard that would have been lovely in a wide variety of colours, but not that ugly, ugly shade. I'm not sure about Victoria Moors' leotard. I think the pattern was a bit too clumped together? Loved the contrast of the colours though.

VAULT

The Good

- McKayla Maroney vaulted right in front of me.
- See above.
- Also, Simone Biles did.
- Simone Biles' block on her Lopez.
- McKayla Maroney's amanar block is still phenomenal.
- Nobody died!
- The legend that is Oksana Chusovitina
- Higher calibre final than London.
- No deaths.
- Lots of diversity. Switzerland, USA, the Netherlands, North Korea, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Dominican Republic...wow.

The Bad

- Chantysha Netteb went for the DTY and tore her ACL right in front of me. Absolutely horrifying to witness and to imagine her suffering. The constant replays of her injury on the screen, which was too close to block from my field of vision. The pain on her face was just so heartwrenching. Awful, awful, awful.
- Others were lucky to get up after their vaults. A preposterous decision for Phan Thi Ha Thanh to go for the amanar when her DTY is dodgy. And not forgetting the death cannonball Produnova.
- Too Yurchenko friendly.
- Overscoring. LOL at McKayla Maroney's amanar score for which her execution score was higher than in London, kind of blatantly ignoring off centre, bent knees, bent hips.

Favourite Vault

Simone Biles' Lopez, since it was TEXTBOOK. Uhhhh so beautiful! I know I just pointed out the flaws in Maroney's amanar but the block she gets off that thing makes it a close second. It's like BOOM.

Favourite Leotard

USA

Copyright- Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images

Hey at least they got one good leo for finals! Look the colour, the neckline, the sleeves. Suited everyone. More please.

UNEVEN BARS

The Good

- Great lineup. And some diversity, always great to see.
- Not one but TWO British girls made the final. Fantastic!
- Lots of dynamic connections, like Huang Huidan and Sophie Scheder.
- Rare, creative moves like Ruby Harrold's, super-difficult ones like Aliya Mustafina's Seitz and Yao Jinnan's Mo.
- Not a pirouette fest. Just enough.
- Very different styles of routines on display, from very different types of gymnasts.
- The gold medal winner doing the best routine of her life in a surprise finish.

The Bad

- Yao falling. Ugly sobbing. It was especially bad since she caught and then peeled off..
- 8 glide kips. I understand why it's wise to conserve your energy but it was just dull..
- Sophie Scheder's score was too low.
- Simone Biles' score was too high.
- Aliya Mustafina missing a connection and biffing her dismount a little bit.
- Becky Downie coming off when it looked like she was going to make it.

Favourite Leotard

The US, again.

BEAM

The Good

- The stunningly elegant Anna Rodionova qualifying.
- Aliya Mustafina hitting a beam routine perfectly. Twilight zone.
- Kyla Ross' lovely long lines.
- I expected Simone to mess up. Couldn't really say she did, dismount a bit I suppose. Pleasantly surprised to see her maintain herself until the end of competition.
- A very surprising gold winner. Always interesting.
- The super difficult BHS-Arabian attempt! 

The Bad

- Larisa falling. Not unexpected given her performance on beam in general at worlds. But so devastating.
- Anna Rodionova's fall.
- Shang Chunsong's routine far from her best.
- Lack of difficulty, gold and silver had double tuck dismounts, bronze hadn't much in the interior of her routine despite the killer dismount. All three had extremely weak acro series.
- The enquiries. It just seemed to taint the whole final.

Favourite Leotard

Shang Chunsong

Copyright- Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images

Lovely! It's a much deeper shade than their usual ketchup, and so so much prettier. The mesh and stars are a nice contrast and the yellow livens it up without being ugly. Anna Rodionova would really have won since she had my favourite Russian leotard but it's not new, this is, and it's the surprise element of this that I love also.

FLOOR

The Good 


- Killer difficulty. THREE double doubles, 1 full twisting double layout.
- The bounce, energy, charisma and charm of Mai Murakami and Simone Biles who just drew in the entire arena into their routines.
- Larisa Iordache recovering from her beam fall and the loss of that title by performing wonderfully - fantastic routine and tumbling.
- Simone Biles' double layout half. Such an awesome skill.
- Kyla Ross' much improved dance. Love the 'whip' bit especially.
- Elsabeth Black's 2.5 stepout, loved it.

The Bad

- Underscoring, specifically Mai Murakami who was robbed of a medal.
- Inflation of Vanessa Ferrari's routine.
- Sandra Izbasa's fall.

Favourite Leotard

Nothing really stood out..

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Congratulations, you have reached the end! I won't have anything near as long until I'm dissecting Glasgow worlds. Anyway, feel free to discuss your liked and dislikes- if worlds is not too much of a distant memory by this stage!

Worlds experience/competiton part 1

It's a little difficult to fully process the 177 routines I saw over the weekend (okay, not exactly..ignored some in the AA if something more exciting was going on..) but I'll give it a go! Here is my (painfully) long worlds experience, and thoughts of course. The actual gymnastics bit probably won't be as detailed as I'd like as it's hard to differentiate everything at the moment.

Friday

4AM alarm unfortunately but thankfully it was way more exciting to wake up to the realisation that my flight was actually finally leaving in a few hours than Christmas morning growing up ever was. Antwerp inexplicably does not have an airport, or if they do it's a Fisher Price effort, so had to go via Brussels. Because of this we had to go for the safe option of a morning flight, but it was great having the security of arriving very early (09:30). The two cities are just 40 minutes apart by train, so it was fine.

Here's how convenient the location was:

This is Koningin Astridplein, or Queen Astrid's square.

Source- dedavid.wordpress.com

The beautiful building in the middle is the train station where we arrived from. To the left is the zoo, which has King penguins! Killed time nicely there. At the other end facing the station was our hotel, which was a huge behemoth of a thing and looked down on everything.

Source- beautifulgymnasticsblog.blogspot.com

We were bumped from a 3 star to this 4 star, which was great :D To the right of the station as seen here were streets filled with great places to get lunch and dinner. The street to the left of the hotel in this photo was a Chinese district, where we had an unbelievable meal. Worth feeling left out for eating with forks and having Western dishes. RIGHT UNDERNEATH the hotel was the metro station for the subway to the arena. On the same street as the Chinese district we could have gotten trams to the arena either. Transport to the arena with event tickets is free, because why not.

Anyway, on with the show. Met up briefly with some people I know which was great and.......wait for it......Andreea Raducan crossed the street right behind us! I am in the green jumper, nicely in height order - how very Romanian of us. She was very gracious about being pounced on (nicely!) thankfully.

Source- beautifulgymnasticsblog.blogspot.com

Our tickets for the all-around were slightly beyond the vault table, and for row 13...which ended up being row 5, presumably because rows were chopped out to make room for the podium. Amazing feeling to sit down in INCREDIBLE seats, though they should be as I booked them on day 2 of release :p I can see us in some footage already, and I haven't seen much. Here is the view straight ahead, floor and beam were perfect. Bars were far away but still fairly clear. Each seat had a shiny card on it, made to be folded into a fan. The noise of everyone using them for clapping was great, really added to the fun of the music they used between rotations and as marching in/out music. In fact, I basically loved all of the music they used.

Source- beautifulgymnasticsblog.blogspot.com

Group 1 started on vault which was so exciting. The sheer noise in warmup of Simone Biles hitting the table and then the mat is awesomely loud, and she was doing her usual trick of throwing DTY's and amanars while the rest were just doing timers still. Having the perfect side view means things like leg separation go unnoticed, and foot crossing. It was such an experience to see Simone Biles launch towards the rafters just a few feet away. The others vaults I enjoyed the most were Giulia Steingruber's, Roxana Popa's, Kyla Ross' (legs looked perfect on the block from my angle..), Noel Van Klaveren (so so clean and beautiful) and Larisa Iordache. Almost immediately it was tough to know where to point my eyes. I wrote out the start lists as I wasn't going to be ripped off for roaming data prices and there was no wifi in the arena, and that definitely helped, but I had lots of pink underlining for routines I wanted to watch clashing with others throughout the competition which as expected, was tough to manage.

I found vault and floor quite calm to watch, beam was so nervewracking. Most gymnasts were held for at least a minute before competing, which I really hated to see. It's not an apparatus you want to be standing around waiting for, giving yourself time to freak out. There were moments of glory a-plenty, Simone Biles nailing the 2.5 wolf and planting the dismount, Kyla Ross' lines and being perfectly and gloriously in line with the beam on everything, Roxana Popa hitting a very solid routine for her weakest event, Anna Rodionova, Noemi Makra and Ilaria Kaeslin showing off their perfection, form and elegance, Aliya Mustafina staying on and Natsumi Sasada's insanely difficult mount, the layout full. But such heartbreak, and so many tense moments. Every time there's a big wobble everyone holds their breath and the atmosphere heightens completely, and such disappointment for someone when they fall. Ruby Harrold, Rebecca Tunney, Victoria Moors, Larisa Iordache, Shang Chunsong and Yao Jinnan...horribly long list of such fantastic gymnasts. Ruby's routine is quite exciting so it was such a downer when she fell, and of course Rebecca has had a very tough time with injury, recovery and growth so had she succeeded here at last it would have been such a boost for her. I found Victoria's routine one of the most upsetting as I had a clear view of her sitting apart from everyone else looking absolutely miserable afterwards. And of course, the 3 girls who had the difficulty to contend right at the top. Yao's fall was infuriating because the tucked full should have been dumped long ago. As soon as I saw her prep for it I was gutted, pretty sure I called out 'Noooooo!'. Shang's was another super disappointing one, she's usually very solid on beam, or at least not prone to actually falling. And of course, Larisa, who when you think about it aside from Euros 2012 has had a pretty bad time as a senior. It's funny, you think she's been around for ages and everyone knows her and her routines...but she hasn't accomplished much and has been so unlucky. The competitive fire seems to be lacking a bit too, sadly.

Not that floor didn't have its moments. Right before Victoria Moors went for her skill, there was total, terrified silence. And then BOOM an explosion of joy when she not only landed it but stuck it too! Simone Biles' much better landing (than quals) of HER own skill also got a great reaction. It's so different to hear floor music booming live. Shang Chunsong's gunshots seemed louder and weirder than ever, but the ending few seconds of her routine were absolutely endearing and totally worked. Elizabeth Seitz' routine was great even just for this reason, the beat magnified in the dance bits was infectious and really got the crowd involved. Happily I did not notice one single fall on floor and the number of out of bounds was very, very low - lower than would have been expected with such a bouncy and newly - launched floor, but of course that's what practice and podium training was for. One strange thing I noticed is the speed of gymnasts runs- for instance, Asuka Teramoto and Natsumi Sasada seemed to be taking their ease, compared to the power and attack of others. It instantly explained the difficulty they are apt to have with underrotating skills like the triple full. Ilaria Kaeslin and Anna Rodionova stood out a mile for their beautiful gymnastics here, and my eyes were out on stalks thanks to the perfection of Noemi Makra's piked full-in. I'm so glad I got to see that live. It's great to see stunning lines and form etc. amidst all of the scary and sloppier difficulty. Not that immense difficulty isn't exciting, it was awesome to watch, but noting the amount of crazy skills performed and the legions of injured gymnasts is still worrying.

Highlights and Favourite Routines

- Yao Jinnan's Mo Salto. It was breathtaking, and the entire routine besides was amazing to watch.
- Elizabeth Seitz' Def. It looked way cooler than I expected, seriously impressive skill.
- Natsumi Sasada's layout full beam mount, previously mentioned.
- Aliya Mustafina's PRESENCE. She radiates it even walking down the steps after saluting. She holds herself very regally and beautifully, and while it wasn't exactly a surprise, it was still great to witness her at her queen-liest.
- The Biles and the Moors.
- THAT shap full. Fabulous.
- Simone Biles' smile. Lit up the arena and while obviously her choreography is lacking, her routine was still electrifying and she expresses the hell out of it, particularly in the dance bits before the corners. For this reason, I see no issue with her seemingly not getting any artistry deductions. It was just a great routine.
- Aliya Mustafina's floor, especially the first pass. She left no doubt at all, the whips looked fantastic and she went for the stag and totally nailed it. Her determination blew me away completely.
- Roxana Popa, what a competitor she is. Highlight would have to be the whip-whip-full in. Because WOW, it's just jaw dropping.
- Again, Noemi Makra's piked full in. Love...
- Larisa Iordache's speed and fluidity. Seamless movement and it's especially great on floor, her floor works very nicely for her.
- Stuck landings, especially the really planted ones. It's just such a thrill.
- Ruby Harrold's bars. It's just so much more interesting and exciting when original moves are performed, and Ruby did two, and they were great. The Ooooo!! after the Zuchold..great moment.
- Vanessa Ferrari still being so strong. Veterans are great to see, no matter their motivation to continue!

'Podium' of favourite routines

UB 1. Yao Jinnan 2. Roxana Popa 3. Ruby Harrold
VT 1.  Simone Biles 2. Giulia Steingruber 3 T Noemi Makra and Roxana Popa
BB 1. Ilaria Kaeslin 2. Noemi Makra 3. Simone Biles (tough, so many falls..)
FX 1. Victoria Moors 2. Elizabeth Seitz 3 T Simone Biles, Aliya Mustafina and Roxana Popa

Favourite Leotards

Carlotta Ferlito's sparkly turquoise and black leotard, it looked so well in the arena. Victoria Moors' black with pink maple pattern. All of their new leotards are stunning but the contrast of this one is particularly amazing. Yao Jinnan, just stunning, and I really liked Rebecca Tunney's too. Least favourite...hmm. I'm not sure about Vasiliki Millousi's, I don't think it worked. Also, the top button at the back of her neck was undone, so noticeable.

Longines Prize for Elegance

I felt this was a bit of a letdown, since Kohei Uchimura has already won it and while Kyla Ross IS elegant, I felt they should have rewarded one of the unknown but stunningly beautifully elegant gymnasts. Ah well. 

Not-so highlights

- Beam falls. Oh so many. 7 that I remember offhand, I'm sure that wasn't the grand total. It's such a fraught apparatus and the groan all around you just makes it affect you more and feel the gymnast's devastation more.
- Natsumi Sasada's bars. She had to come off three times, it was heartbreaking.
- Overscoring. Yes, Simone Biles' scores, notably vault and floor, were that little bit too high. It wouldn't have done anything to the standings however. I don't think she was the only one but I'd need to have a good think about it.
- The waits for beam. Let them on!
- Vault execution scoring in general. Too generous.
- The stupid switch ring rule. It appears quite a lot of beautiful ones got downgraded, sigh.
- The really hard twisting leaps on floor, like the Gogean. Ugly on screen, uglier in person.
- Aliya Mustafina's contouring/bronzer skills. What was that about? Looked like someone put it on like that out of spite. Same for Vanessa Ferrari's lipstick, which looked to have been done without the aid of a mirror.

This is hard, there were soooo many highlights compared to things that sucked!

The Podium

Simone Biles has firmly shut the haters up. It has been obvious for so long that she was capable of this kind of domination, if she could just get her head and new skills together in time..and sure enough, she was untouchable. I was already a big fan but seeing her compete in person...just, wow. The scary thing is, it doesn't seem like she has peaked at all. Both vaults, her floor, bars...she's definitely not done. What a thrilling performance by a first year senior, and a well deserved gold. No arguing with the validity of that result, for once.

Kyla Ross had a great day, but all of the naysaying 'her best is not good enough' etc. came to pass, as predicted by basically everyone. I don't really hide the fact that I'm not a big fan of hers, but that doesn't mean I didn't appreciate her gymnastics, or aspects of it. Her lines were great, bars were smooth and so solid, floor choreography has much improved and I got a fabulous view of her super clean vault. I really would like to see her keep improving, adding sensible upgrades- beam and bars. So no, I am not converted but wow is she solid, strong and totally earned this.

Aliya Mustafina has depths of reserve like no other. When all looks bleak - knee pain, general tiredness and looking off-form, dodgy beam and/or floor, the stress of carrying her entire team on her back again...have no fear, because nothing like that seems to matter when hitting is the most important. Her fierceness and elegance everywhere was dazzling and I'm delighted she was able to get it together. It would probably be too much to ask that she gets a break now..


What were your favourite routines? Moments? Skills? Leotards? Worst? Can anyone step up the plate next year and beat Seamoney?


"Tune in" for part 2 (and 3 probably) soon which contain a picture I prize even more than the one included here and a thrilling story about who I met at breakfast on Sunday..(not very thrilling, but still a fantastic sighting)...

News

I'm sure most have already heard this but just in case- Victoria Moors is training a laid-out double double, which she has just competed at Canadian Nationals. This is majorly exciting first because of how incredible it is, second because Victoria has very good execution in general on floor and thirdly because she is much more likely to be at worlds than Mykayla Skinner who also has one. Unfortunately, Victoria was below par otherwise and had a disastrous beam routine where she fell twice and lost connections and compositional requirements all over the place. She also significantly watered down vault and her floor aside from her new skill must have been watered down too since it only netted her a 5.1 difficulty value. This was also the case earlier in the year too, but then she came out in top form at American Cup. So I wouldn't worry unneccessarily about her yet.

Sure she's soft in the knees, but she has plenty of time to hone it and it's definitely not enough to declare it tucked.

Kaitlyn Hofland placed first in the AA qualifiers at Canadian Nationals, followed by Ellie Black and Maegan Chant. Talia Chiarelli placed fifth and was deliriously happy to make bars finals of all things. Here's Mihai Brestyan's reaction:

Source- gymnasticscoaching.com- @taliachi

Her twitter, like Catalina Ponor's, is endlessly entertaining. In the junior ranks, wunderkind Shallon Olsen was victorious. Hopefully with sharper form. Second and third were Aleeza Yu and Brianna Clark. You can find senior results here and the junior ones here. Note that a bonus system was applied in the junior rankings. Shallon Olsen has very high difficulty, particularly for her age, but not THAT high. Edit- Woops, posted AA qualifier results as final ones. Final results have not been confirmed yet, though it's known that Ellie Black won in senior and that the podium in junior was unchanged, even though Shallon Olsen fell three times. Victoria Moors withdrew from competition, and Heaven Latimer (she of the superb layout full and very strong floor) and Jordyn Pedersen were both out with injuries.

Andreea Munteanu has won the all-around at the Lugano Cup. You can find the results here. The order is vault, bars, beam and floor. Andreea's pet pieces are unsurprisingly beam and floor, though it's heartening to see her vault and bars score, especially her improvement on the latter. Her bars had (wait for it...) the highest e-score! Which is amazing given that she was in the presence of some very lovely Russians. As can be seen from the scores, third place Anastasia Dmitrieva is that bit bit better than the much more hyped second place Maria Bondareva on three out of four events. And I believe she can close the gap on bars in time; to me she is the best junior they have. Certainly, sixth place Viktoria Kuzmina is top notch on beam and bars..but there she'll stay as she does not even have an FTY yet and floor does not look to be her strength either. But bars/beam specialists are still highly valuable. Check out her bars d-score, she obviously fell but 6.1 topped the difficulty field by nearly a point. Even better, she has her own dismount, an arabian double layout no less! I'm really hoping for a video. Andreea Munteanu will compete alongside Andreea Iridon, Laura Jurca, Diana Teodoru, Silvia Zarzu and Madalina Blendea at the France V Romania juniors meet coming up soon. There are some videos here (one Italian, the rest Romanian).
  
Nadine Jarosch of Germany has sadly torn her ACL. This is ACL tear number four, the others are Mariya Livchikova, Gabby Jupp and Yvette Moshage. It's happening far too often. In more positive German news, Tabea Alt won the all-around at the recent German Junior Championships.

Here is the first look at how all-arounders are shaping up so far this year/quad. The difference in scoring must be taken into account; for example Yao Jinnan is in eighth place under a notoriously harsh scoring system whereas the top 3 in particular had the opposite. Jesolo is known to be harsh but that didn't really happen this year. Also I don't see Kyla Ross getting that close to a 60 with her difficulty in a fair competition.

The last segment of the Pro Gym Challenge airs tonight in the US. I for one have really enjoyed it. Retired gymnasts, college gymnasts etc. showing off excellent skills with a team spirit of camaraderie (except a certain US coach) and no pressure? Yes please! It's up on youtube and some parts won't embed which is messy. This awesome uploader uploads frequently so I'll link to the very first one here to make it easier to navigate.

Yulia Belokobylskaya of Russia has retired, at just 17. She won bronze on floor at Euros 2011 and helped with team silver at Worlds the same year. Unfortunately, she struggled quite a lot in the Olympic year. Hopefully she will be happy with whatever she decides to do.Edit- Yulia has entered the world of ballet and is already en pointe!

Natsumi Sasada won the all-around at the recent Japanese Nationals. She also had a strong meet at Jesolo this year after practically disappearing last year with injuries, so that's great to see. Not only is she back with a vengeance but she's brought her layout full mount with her! I was so sure it would have been ditched with the onset of puberty, it's great to be wrong sometimes. Second place went to veteran Yu Minobe who will compete at Universiade this year and third was Mai Murakami who would have won had she not fallen on beam. I have tried to give up hope in Mai, who performs quite strongly in Japan but nowhere near that internationally. But then I see a video of her huge smile during her floor routine and it's impossible to write her off. I still want her to win floor and the AA at worlds this year, however irrational that may be! Asuka Teramoto crashed her second pass and almost sat her first, which along with her vault difficulties is pretty worrying. These results will be coupled with those of the upcoming NHK Cup on June 8-9th in deciding their worlds team and East Asian Games team. As we saw last year, they don't hang around in deciding teams. Because this is a specialist worlds they won't just pick the top few all-arounders, but in this case I think it will serve them very well, though I'd like to replace Yu Minobe with Wakana Inoue..though the latter fell twice. Some videos after the jump; and the information as to how they will choose the team is there too (with thanks to an awesome source).

Favourite beam mounts

There are so many amazing ones, I'll make it easier by picking one from each category. I'm not going to complain about how today's gymnasts jump on the beam- that is the code's fault, not theirs. Hopefully this will change in the future.

Acrobatic mount:

Natsumi Sasada, Japan. WOW. I couldn't decide between this and Daine Dos Santos' front layout mount, but I chose this because Daiane fell off but Natsumi doesn't even wobble. Usually the most daring acrobatic mounts come with a built in wobble.

Incredible strength mount:

We've seen our fair share of one-handed awesomeness on the beam (Mo Huilan 1996 is great) but this in its own category. The sheer strength of that, unbelievable. Jackie Bender gets a good bit of internet kudos for this but is pretty unknown all the same.

Best handstand mount/most interesting handstand variant:

I love how unexpected her drop onto the beam is, it's great. I find the standard press into handstand boring, she shook it up very nicely.

Best show of flexibility:

This mount has plenty of variants- Zmeskal, Miller and others come to mind- bit this is my favourite shaped one! It's no harm either that it's done by the widely acknowledged greatest beam worker ever, Yang Bo.

Best mount sequence:

This just has it all, flexility, handstand, more acro. Beautiful.

Best planche:

These were pretty common, I chose her because it looks so easy and effortless for her.

Most inventive mount:

 Once again, Priakhina displays incredible difficulty and  another move she didn't get the credit for. (This mount was named for Zamo). I'm a sucker for inventive side-beam mounts and back hip circles. All this AND combined with acro and the splits and it doesn't take too much time..should be used these days.

There are loads more that blow me away, but these are the ones that stick in my head. My absolute favourite is Priakhina's. I'll do one for bars too.