Happy gymnastics weekend!

And it's a long bank holiday weekend here, which is just as well because there's too much to watch in different timezones. I have major catching up to do still.

First, Classics (way behind on Euros..) Considering how tough Nationals, Trials and pre-Olympic training will be on dead certs like Simone Biles and Gabby Douglas, it made perfect sense for them to ease their way into it by opting out of the AA for Classics and only competing bars and beam. Sensible, yet disappointing when every opportunity for a good AA scrap between the top few is welcome. Aly Raisman on the other hand had more to prove after a somewhat up-down year in terms of consistency and realisation of full potential. It was fantastic to see her beam improved, much more reminiscent of how it was last quad, and an amanar that was safe and fully rotated with a decent landing. Floor was her usual top standard, no surprises there. Of course, she fell on bars, but it seemed very fluke-y and bars are not important to her status as a team member. Not the biggest of deals.

The showdown on bars between Madison Kocian and Ashton Locklear was seriously exciting, and although the former has a 3-tenth difficulty lead, Ashton is the better bars worker and I'm pleased the (moderately inflated) scores reflected that. Madison will be out for blood at Nationals after she fell on a back tuck on beam. Sadly, Ragan Smith came to grief there too, on her Patterson dismount. I never feel that Texas Dreams gymnasts get a proper high 'set' on their beam dismounts. Contrast them with the likes of Catalina Ponor's glorious double pike from Euros TF....dreamy. Anyway, Ashton's beam was interesting. It's a routine I don't expect a whole lot from as her difficulty is low and her form is lacking on some elements. I'd much rather see her floor, it's a pity that after reading it's an event she was considered strong on, her back prevents her from training it. Although her beam last night was hesitant in flow, she has really cleaned up her form and it was pretty decent. Not a routine you would want to use outside of quals ever, but still, improvement is always good.

I'm seriously impressed that Nia Dennis competed. As exhibition, but nevertheless a full bars routine WITH a DLO dismount. She's not long after injury at all, and it shows such a positive attitude to want to be there and compete even though time is not on her side. She did get lost after the Pak but had a nice recovery and I was really expecting a flyaway dismount, so kudos to her. I'm a bit baffled that Bailie Key did not. The fact that she was on the roster, then not, then slated to compete by her coach, then did podium training and that was it is a bit odd. It would have been nice if she exhibitioned at least, or just did one event even, like Laurie Hernandez also. I enjoyed Laurie's bars, even if her technique seems different to the norm on some elements, which throws me off. Looking forward to seeing her and Simone and Gabby back in the AA at Nationals.

In terms of how the Olympic team is shaping up, I think Simone, Gabby and Aly have cemented their places, Aly being a bit more doubtful than the other two, but held up by her vast experience at being the team rock. It's a big advantage over the likes of Laurie and Ragan, and although their beams rival Aly's, their floors fall short, and so does vault now that the Raismanar is back and secure. The fourth spot is between Madison and Ashton and the fifth is a toss-up between a beam specialist type role which Laurie and Ragan are still in the running for if Marta wants to go that route, or the vault spot for Mykayla. Simone gaining the Cheng has somewhat negated the importance of that as now she's nearly a given for gold there, whereas before with her Lopez she risked being pushed out of bronze. Technically they don't need all 5 spots at all, the first 3 alone could cover everything and win easily, but 5 still makes for awkward choosing thanks to their depth. If Maggie can regain everything in time, she's a significant threat to Aly, but the latter's amanar could well keep her ahead as it's not a safe vault for Maggie to compete. It is tragic that such capable gymnasts as Alyssa Baumann and Rachel Gowey can hope for alternate at best, they'd be such an asset to almost every other country.

Romania for instance would kill for a gymnast like Alyssa. It is almost extraordinary to see how much they have backslid since London, and how overly reliant they are on Larisa Iordache and Catalina Ponor. Cata is facing enormous criticism at the moment for upping her game in the fight for the (sole) spot for Rio (seriously it won't sink in that there'll be no team) by training bars again, getting her DTY back, and regaining her floor and beam skills. It is an enormous credit to her that she can train and improve still. Her determination and fight are incredible, and if the whole National Team had that, they'd be in a better position. Of course, it's a vicious circle and the fact that they focus and rely on the same old faces is a major demotivator to other girls trying to make their way through the ranks. Their retirement rate of girls who are barely or not even senior is appalling. Looking at my post of girls turning senior 2013-2016 is particularly saddening for all the Romanian names who have dropped off.

The whole thing is infuriating and has been voiced many times over much more eloquently than I could ever attempt. It's obvious that their entire coaching system needs an overhaul. It's not just bars, there is too much focus on them. Yes it is disgraceful that hit routines can't break 13 but it's the marked deterioration on floor and beam that's more worrying. Outside of Catalina and Larisa and possibly Diana, the rest don't even look like elite routines anymore. The difficulty and 'special'ness of Romania on those events is not even in evidence. Hopefully the multiple people involved in Romania devolving into a Ukraine-type situation can stop playing the blame game and actually change things.

Moving on to US juniors, I've a good bit of catching up to do there. Saddened that Morgan Hurd struggled on beam and threw away the lead, would love to see her bouncing back at Nationals. Her bars in particular were fabulous, with such a surprising dismount - Fabrichnova- from one so tiny. Jordan Chiles has a nice advantage over the rest of the field with her amanar boosting her difficulty, but her power was to her detriment on floor when her huge, high tumbles sent her bouncing out of bounds twice and again on beam when she bounced back and fell out of her dismount. A great day for eventual winner Irina Alexeeva though her status remains murky and I heard she can't compete at Nationals, which is such a shame if true. I'm going to have a fun day going through the rest of the playlist.

And last but certainly not least, Euros! I missed the juniors entirely with work, sadly. A cracking senior team final, even if my stream was super glitchy. I'm not sure why it's still surprising when Aliya Mustafina after looking awful in podium training and dodgy in qualifications, pulls it out when it counts. I've every faith she'll be much improved still in Rio with her passes back on floor. It was great to see Giulia compete in front of a home crowd, and despite the same old consistency issues on beam, she really nailed it. A great Euros for her. I'm seriously in love with her Silivas, that thing is crazy high and fast. Her floor in general is so much better than it used to be, it was quite clunky and now everything seems so light. Her leaps are dreamy also.  I'm also impressed with Miss Consistency Angelina Melnikova. Talk about team player, the girl is a much-needed rock for her team. The equally talented Seda Tutkhalyan has her work cut out for her now in terms of Rio, her flakiness on beam in particular continues to plague her. GB had quite an up-and-down meet, though mostly good. Poor Becky Downie had 2 falls on beam in team finals, only to redeem herself with bars gold - beating the formiddable Daria Spiridonova and Aliya Mustafina. Although GB qualified first, they did well to finish second, counting other falls and mistakes too. France were seriously impressive, my highlight was Marine Boyer's beam and also Alison Lepin's beautiful bars. Stunning work.

A lot watched, a lot more to watch. Not sure exactly why I haven't posted in so long, but anyway, I'm back :D

Have you successfully watched ALL of Euros and Classics? Favourite junior/senior? Highlight routines? Best use of co-ordinating hair ribbon and sparkles?

Round-up of awesomeness

First; this picture of Xiao Sa from 2010. She is not Xiao Sha, and was injured and seems to have totally faded away.

Source- Gymjiajia

WOW does not cover it, I've never seen oversplit like that from an artistic gymnast. Just a work of art.

Here is Laurie Hernandez' DTY in training. Not explosively dynamic, but well done and she's still so very young anyway.

Vanessa Zamarippa doing a Lopez vault. This was McKayla Maroney's second vault from 2011. Amazing laid-out form on this. This is why I love PGC, gymnasts who don't have the inclination or endurance for full-on elite routines, but who can still bust out amazing skills, some of which they haven't attempted before.

Catalina Ponor doing front walkover, Kotchetkova and Omelianchik! BAMF as always.

Anna Pavlova with a stunning double stag and what's down as a Ruflova. I'd moreso call it a full-turning Korbut than full-twisting, but lovely nonetheless.

Speaking of Anna;

Source- n134

It looks like extensions, but whatever. What a goddess.

Here is a report from the PGC. I can't wait until some kind soul uploads the whole thing, it's airing (if you live in the US) soon.

This is part of Mykayla Skinner's new bars routine. It's old now but I just saw it this week, she's improved quite a bit though the full routine would need to be seen first. Impressed by her handstands and the height on her release.

Quick round-up

Sadly the rumour is true, no Larisa Iordache at LRSY this weekend. This makes it her fourth missed world cup. She is still slated to compete at Doha and Cottbus world cups, and is expected to be a certainty for Euros. I'm not sure why they bothered overloading her with assignments as now they face more indignity in pulling her out of this one- and at a very late stage too. A slight injury was cited as the cause, I'd be more inclined to believe her March and April schedule is packed enough moreso than an injury. If it is, then hopefully it's a very swift recovery. We have to see her this year sometime..she can't withdraw from everything...right? Maria Paseka is not there either, the reason seems to be another visa problem- which makes it the third in quick succession, Mei Jie could not attend Massilia and Andreea Iridon could not attend Gymnix for the same reason. Sort it out, major gymnastics federations...

The good news is, Diana Bulimar has been added to the LRSY floor line-up. She is also down for Cottbus, Doha and is another almost-certainty for Euros. However she has less pressure on her and is not as of yet a brilliant all-arounder- though she has upped her game on vault. Really looking forward to her floor. The impressions from training report states that she is using her choreography and music from London. Fine by me. You can read it here, in French. I'm proud I understood without translating. Finally!

Update: What a splatfest. Really sad to see gymnast after gymnast come to grief at the hands of bars, vault and beam. Not to mention Janine Berger and Kristian Thomas who injured themselves on vault. The prognosis on Janine is that she will be out for two weeks. I was most dissapointed to hear that Becky Downie had a disastrous time on bars and that Diana Bulimar fell off beam twice. Bars and beam were a case of whoever doesn't fall, qualifies. Well done to Ksenia Afanasyeva for hitting both of her routines. However, I am disgusted she was wrongly awarded 0.5 CR for a front/sidewards element on floor as she did not perform it, she left out her front aerial. Her turn combination was beautiful though. I was a little dissapointed with her beam as she left out a very pretty connection from Russian Nationals. The routine seemed like a fight, it wasn't anywhere near as graceful as it could have been, but there's plenty of time to iron that out, hopefully. Ugly dismount too, sigh. Afan's floor being judged incorrectly means that Diana Bulimar should have won floor by a landslide. Which would have been nice considering her beam. I didn't see anything wrong with her leaps, two of which failed to get credit. Will have to rewatch. Although Anne Kuhm's beam was a meltdown, her BHS-LOSO-LOSO looks like it will be absolutely beautiful. Carlotta Ferlito's beam was another highlight, very strong and it looks like she has absolutely nailed the new arm-swing rules. Her acro line was totally Li Ya-esque in its lack of arm swing, brilliant to see. I've no idea how this rule physically affects gymnasts, but it seemed like it set Marine Brevet off balance..

Our winners are:

UB- Giulia Steingruber
VT- Giulia Steingruber
BB- Carlotta Ferlito
FX- Ksenia Afanasyeva

Afan fell off beam, handing the title to Carlotta. I haven't seen Afan's floor yet (issues with the livestream..) but she did have an aerial in apparently. Didi scored just one-tenth lower, I don't know yet if she had her leaps credited. Her tumbling was a little scrappy, especially in slow-motion. Bit of a dissapointing competition given all the falls and some odd judging. Here's to Jesolo being better!

And for the day that's in it (it's a disaster zone and I avoid it like the plague here. Tip: If you're ever visiting Ireland, don't coincide your trip with Paddy's Day); here is Kim Zmeskal with the best example of an Irish music floor routine that I've seen yet. I really love this music, and it works so well. She even has little movements inspired by the dance..not many, just the ones after her second and third passes, but still. She changed this routine for nationals and had different music. Boo. This one rocks.

I'm too late for the old news that Beth Tweddle has won Dancing on Ice. I wonder if the gymnasts lucky streak will continue for Aly Raisman though. Really looking forward to seeing her first dance. I think she will at least initially face the same criticism Beth did- too much focus on technicality, not enough on losing herself in the dance and her presentation. I think it's hard for gymnasts to do the opposite of what they do so much of- keeping the body tense and being incredibly focused on technicality. Obviously not that hard, since they're winning everything they enter, but still..

I am so thrilled at the vast improvement of Andreea Munteanu. Andreea is a 2014 senior, whose strengths are floor and beam..no surprise there for a Romanian. Thankfully, she also has superb toepoint, leaps and extension. She stood out on beam in particular last year at Junior Euros but has really come on since then. I could look at her 1/4 straddle all day long. And she already has a (nice and high) tuck full! Much as I enjoy Larisa Iordache's superb beam work, her toepoint is severely lacking and her leaps aren't a patch on Munteanu's. So I'd have no problem for her to be surpassed on beam by the girl with superior form. Really great to see her comeback after a vastly dissapointing TF and AA and take the beam and floor titles and a bronze on vault. Hopefully Laura Jurca can recover quickly, she aggravated an old injury on floor and then scratched vault..the reason why they finished last with 2/3 in their vault rotation. Andreea herself would have easily claimed the AA had she not had a disaster on bars. A modest score of 12.8 would have given her a generous lead. Sigh.

This is the greatest thing I have seen on twitter, ever.

Looks like me with my teammates from Olympics hahahah twitter.com/CPonor/status/…
— ponor catalina (@CPonor) March 14, 2013

There's a meet in May that I've never heard of before, but it sounds very interesting. The Professional Gymnastics Challenge will pit two groups- USA Vs The World- of mixed gymnasts against each other. Gymnasts will compete head-to-head in an offence against defence format where the first group devise a skill or series and the other team must better the originators effort in order to be the new offending team. Tumbling is one category, there are plenty of others. I can't wait to see how it pans out. It's not new, but it is to me! On the US side will be Jana Bieger (still training..?), Anna Li, Kat Ding and a whole bunch of big enough MAG names. The international team includes Oksana Chusovitina, Anna Pavlova, Jade Barbosa, Jessica Lopez and Lisa Mason. Jade's gym has dropped their professional programme and fired a whole bunch of staff, leaving her, the Hypolito's and a few more in the lurch. (It's not clear how this affects Rebeca Andrade who is too old for the recreational programme for younger kids which is being kept, but is not a senior pro and is not named as being affected. Nevertheless, the coaching situation will impact her if nothing else). So if Jade has not withdrawn as of yet, hopefully that's good news and she has somewhere good to train. The website is here, for a better explanation of how the competition will work. I'm most excited about Anna Li as there is an uneven bars bit..and Jade Barbosa anything.

Chantysha Netteb and Noel van Klaveren will compete for the Netherlands at Euros. Absolutely thrilled Chantysha rebounded quickly from her scary fall at her first attempt to qualify, but dissapointed they are not sending more. After all, they're sending six MAG. Sanne Wevers (queen of turns) still scores high on beam and Daphne Slingerland could do with the experience. Hmm. Elizabeth Seitz, Tabea Alt and Sophie Scheder will compete at Chemnitz. Sophie is the reigning junior Euros bars champion, looking forward to seeing what she has up her sleeve for her senior debut, and Tabea too. Mariya Livchikova and new senior Darya Matveyeva placed first and second respectively at Ukrainian Cup. Presumably both will be headed to Moscow. Darya was very flaky last year at Junior Euros, though very promising as is usual with Ukraine. Let's all pray to something that Mariya can stay on the beam as her original and daring routine is probably worth more in this code...

Two New Skills and Demy BB

Really exciting stuff this week, videos emerged of no less than two new skills. The first is a double double laidout, performed by McKayla Skinner of USA.  Though we have seen an arabian double layout, and a pretty loose double double by Ebee, nobody has yet done this. Would be great to see it even at Nationals. Though she is using a mat, it doesn't look like she really needs it. Decent landing, and hopefully with time she can force her legs straighter. The second skill is a double layout dismount off beam, performed by Catalina Ponor of Romania. She is supposed to be retired! This was rumoured to be done by Armine Barutyan (yes, of GAGE) of USSR in training, but no video ever emerged so it is not widely credited. Clearly she is doing it into a pit so it's nowhere near ready, she gets spotted and she's below the floor before she's upright...but it DOES look very possible. Even if it never materialises- respect!

McKayla's double double laidout

I can't believe when pondering the possibility of this skill a few days ago, that I couldn't figure out exactly what it would look like. Eventually it struck me that it would look exactly like Elise Ray/Shawn Johnson's bars dismount. Duhh.

WOW! EDIT: This video was only uploaded yesterday, and several good sources are similarly reporting it as new. Others are saying its from last year. Point still stands regardless, Cata is awesome and this could well inspire another gymnast.

Anna Dementyeva's beam routine at Voronin last month caused a stir, and scored extremely highly- in excess of 15.6 if I remember right, must recheck. A video has been anxiously awaited, and here it is! Such a beautiful gymnast. I hope she gains more fluidity with this and one or two of her connections are a little tentative, but this is lovely and difficult work. Well done Demy!

2011 Balance Beam Final

I don't think I've ever seen such a 'beauty and the beast' lineup. Power- Ponor, Raisman, Wieber VS artistry Komova, Yao, Sui. Fascinating to see all of the different styles that will be on display. Komova has the burning desire of revenge, Wieber and Raisman are at a peak level and coming off team victory AND Wieber the AA victory. Sui Lu of course can never be counted out. The 2004 beam champion Catalina Ponor is in the mix, along with surprise AA bronze winner, newcomer Yao Jinnan. Exciting stuff AND I have BBC coverage for this.

They do a run through of the Wieber VS Komova rivalry all week which is well done..except for spelling Wieber wrong. Unforgiveable when they've been looking at her all week. Something about this arena seems quite dull and bleak, maybe just the colours they're using.

Catalina Ponor Switch side leap, wobbles slightly. Round off-layout, great height but another small wobble. Beautiful Onodi right into another acro line, steady. Serious speed in her hand movements. Another wobble on an aerial, brings her leg up. Sticks her full in dismount but very low. A very good routine for a comeback but too much hesitation. Gross leotard, her favourite black that she wears so well with sparkles only there's two nauseating maroon panels fighting with each other on the front that totally ruin it. 14.241 Very low even with her errors, but the reasoning is her very low difficulty, 5.7

Yao Jinnan Starts with a standing full twist, nicely done. Foot comes off when she lands but not too far and she easily gets it back on. Perfect acro line- BHS-RO-LO. Great precision. Nice leaps. If that aerial was supposed to be connected to that sheep jump there was way too much of a pause in between. Nice front somersault. Great spin and Yang Bo. Just the dismount left..double pike with a step back. Great routine, pity about the missed connection. Red leotard with some yellow swirls on the bodice. It's eh fine. 15.233

Aly Raisman Nice acro line straight off the bat, pounds the beam. Really crappy split leap with turn, does not hit 180. Pike front into a LOSO, slightly choppy form. Another not great leap but it probably achieved split. Looks like she's too afraid to really go for it on leaps. Into a pike front but as Christine says, 'she didn't make any attempt to join them'. Tiny wobble on her aerial. She is always perfect on her tuck and pike fronts though. Another tiny wobble on her turn. Aly can be much steadier and precise than this, dissapointing from her. Great double arabian dismount, tiny hop back but really well done. I'm conflicted about this leo. Red body which suits her so well, then dark blue sleeves with sparkles..but it's not the full sleeve, it stats from her neck and skips the shoulder. It's weird. 15.055

Viktoria Komova Nice roll onto the beam in straddle position- anything is better than just sitting on it as a mount. Lovely tuck front. Here comes the 1992 acro line- BHS-LOSO-LOSO! Great stuff, no hesitation. So floaty. Standing arabian, foot comes off but just like Yao gets it back on, no damage done. Nice L turn into walkover and she has a true connection to her sheep jump, but foot comes off again. Side somi, one of the most elegant ever done but wobbles slightly. Double spin and comes off. Ughhh. She could have fought for that at least somewhat..didn't seem bothered. The forerunner of things to come, that giving up. Nice double tuck but takes a step back. Just looks underpar and performs like it too, coming off injury. Nice dark blue leotard with some white, elegant but a bit dull. Loses some of her difficulty score too- 13.766

Yulia Inshina  Nice mount, press to handstand into a roll. Great split leap into a tuck back. Tiny hesitation but doesn't wobble. Sheep jump but her legs are too seperated on it, not pretty. Good leap combination, no hesitation here. Okay that was a really nice side somi. (?? side somi? nice?). Fabulous L turn. Steady in the free cartwheel. Good Yang Bo, only brings her head back for the smallest fraction of a second. Very nice routine, but doesn't have the difficulty needed either. Wearing the same leotard as Komova, but it suits Yulia better. 14.525

Jordyn Wieber She is so 'on'. Straddle mount, yawn. Nice free walkover, straight into one-handed BHS and LOSO. Very steady. Extremely effortless hitting her splits in her leaps, great pike front. Side somi, fine. Very slight wobble on her straddle jump, but she is working very well. Standing full twist into back walkover, tiny hesitation on the landing. This is just packed with acro and I don't see why it was changed for the worse. Ughh. Ha I can hear McKayla going nuts in the stand. Great 2 and a half twist dismount, just a slight hop. Super stuff from Jordyn, much more attack than Yao and Komova but no less dynamic and exciting. Wearing the berry pink 'tie' leotard, suits her. 15.133

Sui Lu Komova's fall is her opportunity as the second highest qualifier. Great pike front into Korbut. Tucked barani, wobbles slightly on landing. This is amazing stuff, acro line with a back walkover into tuck back. Turn into turn combination. Love it. Side somi, solid. Wolf jump into split leap, no problems there either. Great sheep jump. Another split leap variation into tuck back, tiny pause in between. Double pike, sticks it! WHAT a routine. 15.866 WOW

Amelia Racea Ooo a full twist in acro line, lovely! Wobbles and leans to the side but controls it well. Great split leap with turn, very effortless. Great straddle leap, they're rare. Free cartwheel into a side somi. Windmills her arms and her fellow Romanians shriek so loudly you'd imagine she'd jump off in fright but she's fine now. Lovely 2 and a half twisting dismount, takes a step. Lovely routine but too weak in difficulty. I seriously love this leotard, lilac body with white structuring stripes. It's beautiful. 14.533

1. Sui Lu
2. Yao Jinnan
3. Jordyn Wieber

Interesting competition. Amelia Racea and Yulia Inshina had the best composed and most elegant and fluid routines, a shame they didn't have higher difficulty. Aly should have been able to beat Jordyn but just wasn't solid and 'on' enough. Komova was recovering from injury here, but nevertheless showed how she does not fight for landings. Glorious routines from Yao and Sui and a good comeback from Catalina Ponor. Such difference between the routines!


I am pretty much done with old competitions. Sadly there is still not enough to talk about otherwise though.

News and stuff

Romania's senior team are moving from their base in Izvorani to Dinamo club in the capital, Bucharest. This is for a few reasons, according to Mariana Bitang. One, education. They need access to better education for their gymnasts (this comes after a bunch of them failed part of their BAC this summer). Health, they will now have better access to a doctor with less concerns about travel etc. They also feel they will have better equipment. Unfortunately the club is a little rundown so they need to do some work first. This is the second move, back in the day they trained in Deva which now hosts the Junior national team. It appears that it has not been officially written off on as a decision but it is something they are determined to do and they are already there 'and hoping to stay there'.

North Korea are officially back this month after their long ban. I really hope something emerges! Aside from using underage gymnasts, they are also known innovators- Pak salto, counter Kim, double front vault and for using hard skills like the Def and vaults like the Amanar and Cheng. I laughed my head off when someone enquired on the USAG Facebook page as to whether Hong Un Jong is still in training as if anyone has any insight into the country at all, nevermind its gymnastics programme. Hopefully we will see them at worlds next year and before then.

Sandra Izbasa and Catalina Ponor are set to perform at the Univ Gym Gala in the Netherlands in December. Looking forward to videos appearing, especially as I doubt it will contain any LMFAO shuffling.

Kennedy Baker's withdrawal from the Mexican Open is down to a mild calf injury- a tweak I think. So it is more precaution than anything else. On the subject of meets this year- not sure about Voronin Cup. The Russians are withdrawing from the Stuttgart World Cup but the word in interviews is that they are not going to compete this year, which would also rule Voronin out. Remains to be seen.

There is a South American Championships taking place this week. Competing will be one of my favourite juniors, Rebeca Andrade of Brazil. Rebeca won the Brazil Trophy meet recently ahead of tipped favourites Jade Barbosa and Daniele Hypolito. Considering she is 13 and is still has quite a way to go building her difficulty, that is amazing. I will stick up a few videos when they're up.

McKayla Maroney is flying to Oklahoma City with Kyla Ross. The tour is currently there, looks like she's rejoining soon..

Origin of London's difficult skills

All commentators stress the difficulty of certain skills. Certainly some of them are more prevalent now in competition than they ever were before, but extremely few were invented this side of the millenium which shows how innovative the 80's and 90's were when it did not pay to break the mould and perform a super-difficult skill. Here are the ones seen in London and their origins.

The Double Double/Silivas

This double double is currently a G skill and will be a H under the new code. In London it was performed by Jordyn Wieber, Victoria Moors, Larisa Iordache, Vanessa Ferrari and Anastasia Grishina. Though it is named after Daniela Silivas of Romania who performed it at the 1988 Olympics, it was first done by Aleftina Priakhina of USSR in 1986. Neither had great landings, but they were using a crap old floor.


Double Arabian beam dismount/Patterson

An exceptionally difficult beam dismount which requires a lot of height and speed. In London it was executed by Aly Raisman, Viktoria Komova and Marta Pihan-Kulesza. Carly Patterson of USA was the first to perform it, at the 2003 Worlds but Corey Fritzinger also of USA did it first in 2001. 

Standing Full twist- beam

A move which elicited awe when Shawn Johnson did it but it's much older than that. Usually has quite a low landing due to the difficulty of fully rotating it in time. In London it was performed by Gabby Douglas. This is another skill done first by Aleftina Priakhina of USSR, again in 1986.


Tucked full twist in acro line/combination

This one is more common as it provides more momentum to get the twist around, but is just as risky otherwise. In London it was performed by Larisa Iordache. The inventor is Ecaterina Szabo of Romania who performed it in 1983.


Full twisting double layout

This is the other skill to be awarded H status in the code. Performed only by Daiane Dos Santos of Brazil but although Catalina Ponor of Romania warmed one up in podium training she never competed it. Named after Oksana Chusovitina of USSR (at the time) who performed it in 1991. It was first done by Tatiana Tuzhikova of USSR in 1987.

Li Ya Jaeger-Jaeger combination bars

Performed only by He Kexin who despite growth has managed to keep this. Often called her original skill but it was first done by Li Ya also of China who competed it in 2006.

Tucked Barani/Grigoras

My favourite acrobatic skill on beam, it's quite rare. Sui Lu of China performed it in London and it was invented by Cristina Grigoras of Romania in 1980. Chellsie Memmel had a nice one too.

Amanar vault

The most common difficult skill/vault. It was performed by McKayla Maroney, Gabby Douglas, Aly Raisman, Jordyn Wieber, Maria Paseka and Viktoria Komova. First performed by none other than Simona Amanar of Romania who did it at the 2000 Olympics.

Produnova vault

This was performed (read: sat down feet first) by Yamilet Pena Abreu of Dominican Republic in London. It is the hardest vault with a difficulty of 7.1 Notoriously difficult as it requires immense height and a powerful block. It was first attempted by Choe Jong Sil of North Korea at the 1980 Olympics but she completely crashed it so credit goes to Yelena Produnova of Russia who most notably landed it totally upright in 1999.

Def release- bars

The Def is a one and a half twisting Geinger, first performed by Jacques Def of France. His name has carried over to WAG as the first woman, Snejana Hristakieva of Bulgaria who first performed it in 1991 has a much less catchier name. It was done in London by Elizabeth Seitz of Germany. Interestingly, both perform it very sloppily but is IS possible for it to look neat- check out Cha Yong Hwa and Elena Dolgopolova.

Double Double bars dismount/ Fabrichnova

One of the hardest bars dismounts, this was performed by Beth Tweddle and Viktoria Komova in London. It was first done by Oksana Fabrichnova of Russia in 1993, and remains fairly rare.

Piked Double Arabian/Dos Santos I

This was performed by Aly Raisman and Beth Tweddle. The originator, Daiane Dos Santos of Brazil who first performed it in 2003 was in London but has not been doing it recently. It is one of the hardest floor tumbles and should be rated higher.


Full-in beam dismount

Having watched the 1996 AA all over again just recently, this was more common then. Performed in London by Catalina Ponor of Romania. It is was first done by Albina Shishova and Natalia Frolova both of USSR in 1983.

If I have missed any others in London who performed these skills please let me know. I did watch every single subdivision but some things can be forgotten easily. I have real issues about the standing full..there's no way it was just done by Gabby. As for the originators, I stand by all of them as being correct.

 

 

Official: London judges actually on crack

The judges report has been released and it makes for interesting reading. Some very questionable and downright mad judging going on.

Qualifying

Floor

Lauren Mitchell got an 8.0 and a 9.0 in execution for this routine. Seriously a whole point between two different judges?

The 9.0 judge gave Afanasyeva and Raisman the same execution score, when every other judge rightly had 0.1-0.4 difference in favour of Afan. Interestingly, gave Tweddle her lowest execution score too. So you hate artistry or not?

Bars

One judge gave Tweddle a 9.2 execution score and Komova an 8.5! Not surprisingly, this was Komova's lowest execution score by three tenths. The same judge gave Mustafina an 8.3, also her lowest by three tenths. Going to go out on a limb here and suggest this judge doesn't like Russia?

Douglas, Mustafina and Jinnan all had an 0.7 range between their execution scores.

Beam

One judge saw a tenth in the execution difference between Deng's and Sui's routines. Another saw a full point.

Jordyn's scores ranged from 8.2 to 9.0- 0.8 difference.

Two judges gave Raisman and Ross the same execution score..

Vault

One judge gave Douglas a higher score than Maroney's amanar by three tenths. WTF. The same judge also scored Jordyn's and Aly's amanars two tenths higher than Maroney's amanar.

Actually, only one judge thought Maroney's amanar was better than Jordyn's.


Team Finals

Floor

Victoria Moors was lowballed, receiving 0.7 less than Raisman for execution by the same judge. Not one judge scored her higher than Raisman.

Vault

One judge thought Douglas and Wieber deserved 9.6 for their vaults and Mustafina a 9.5. No, just no. All three have form and technique errors. And had just two-tenths between Maroney and Douglas..

Bars

One judge has 0.7 in the difference for execution between Tweddle and Jinnan, and 0.8 between Tweddle and Qiushuang, both in Tweddle's favour. ???

Beam

One judge gave Iordache and Ponor 9.0's and Sui 8.3!

Kyla Ross' scores have jumped from qualifying, for the exact same routine.

0.7 difference in Asuka Teramoto's score range.

A full point in Hannah Whelan's. Also the difference between Hannah's highest score and second highest score is 0.6.

All-Around

If the reference judges scores were used, Komova would have won the AA.

Floor

One judge gave four scores over 9. The rest only gave one each. The same judge gave Komova a 9.5! Also gave Douglas a 9.3 which devalues it a bit.


Vault

Douglas received THREE 9.5's for hers


Raisman received a 9.6!

Mustafina's lowest score was a 9.4

Bars

Mustafina's scores jump dramatically.

Douglas jumps too, and has 0.7 range in her scores

Beam

An 0.7 range in scores for Raisman and Komova

Komova received a 9.4! The same judge gave Deng four tenths less.

Douglas' scores have inflated again.

Floor Finals

The same judge who gave Raisman and Mustafina 9.3's gave Ponor an 8.5. This was Ponor's lowest score by SIX tenths.

The e-panel's score gave Ponor one tenth higher overall execution. The reference judges gave Raisman two tenths higher execution. Because of the difference between the e-panel and ref judges of Ponor's execution- 0.4, it was averaged between the two. If it had not been averaged, Ponor would have received 15.4. Still would have lost though.

Ferrari was lowballed completely.

Beam Finals

One judge gave Ponor and Raisman the same score.

One gave Deng a higher execution score than Sui   

Vault Finals

Paseka received no less than two 9.0's for her (not a) amanar.

Berger was lowballed and got an 8.5 for her Rudi.

Maroney's amanar received a 9.8 (before the neutral deduction), despite being noticeably not as good as the team finals one.

One judge have Pena an 8.0 for her unbelievable mess of a first vault. Another gave her 7.0- another point difference.


Overall

- Far too much disparity between scores, several instances where there was an 0.7 range and a good few where there was a full point. Regardless of the highest and lowest scores being dropped, this shouldn't be happening in the first place.
- Vault judges all on crack. An amanar once actually landed on the mat nevermind what direction it was facing or how much the gymnast came off the mat afterwards was totally gifted. Not near enough deductions on vault in general- dynamics, height, block technique..all ignored. Not near enough difference between Maroney and others.
- Too much inflation going on. Raisman in particular was gifted a lot of her scores, but few remained consistent throughout the whole competition for much the same routine.
- Some gymnasts were totally screwed, Ferrari the most obvious. Qiushuang another. Sui Lu in team finals beam, and Deng in the all-around.
- What subdivision you were in in qualifying greatly affected your score.
- Overscoring a big problem. Hard to believe that everyone thought crappy amanars were going to get slaughtered and that beam and floor were going to be harsh.




 

Thoughts on London's podiums

Not literally podiums, though the team finals one could have been bigger of course and they reminded me of Cadbury's (way way nicer than American chocolate). Moving on..

TEAM FINALS

USA on top looked like a foregone conclusion earlier this year, until USA's amanar advantage suddenly seemed to be eaten up by Russia's 2 confirmed and 1 possible amanar which along with their bars advantage made them a formidable threat. This only increased closer to the games when beam and floor upgrades started emerging practically every day.  Romania's resurgence with such a small pool of talent was realised probably most forcefully at Euros, which they won. Obviously dismal on bars, the huge start values on beam and floor and the videos of an amanar and cheng made their case for potential gold, especially if mistakes were forthcoming from the other two teams as consistency has long been Romania's greatest weapon in the hunt for medals.

Only a few days before prelims, disaster struck when the news of Larisa's very painful injury came to light. She was immediately struck out of the AA, then reinstated. Doubt over her ability to perform at her best was realised when she watered down in prelims and fell on floor. Romania on the whole played it safe and did not unleash all of their potential upgrades, which lessened their chances of gold or silver even before team finals. Russia did quite well in prelims, but played it safe too and had a good few wobbly beams and a weak floor from Komova to contend with, as well as being one amanar short of USA. USA on the other hand despite showing some errors like Kyla hitting her feet off the low bar (please stop growing Kyla..) and Gabby running out of bounds on floor, fulfilled their promise and stayed ahead of the pack. A great advantage to have going into team finals, even though it did not do their men's team any good in the end.

In the end of course, USA got it together and even though their team had a giant headcase, made no big or even medium errors. Gabby was clearly coached to peak for the right DAYS. Russia had to count a low-scoring amanar from Paseka, very wobbly beams and not one but two disastrous floors from Grishina and Afanasyeva. Romania had a subpar star, who could not do the amanar her team needed to push ahead further, or produce an excellent floor. Bulimar did a beautiful job in Larisa's stead, but counting 5.8 SV when you had a potential 6.7 is galling. Both Russia and Romania played it safe again, while USA fired ahead with all of their long-term upgrades. A closer fight would have been great, but there's no arguing with the final result. Had Russia hit 12/12 they would have gotten a LOT closer, but a 5 point lead is too much. A well deserved win, even if it was heartbreaking to see Russia crumble and Romania unable to fight as hard as they could have done with Larisa at her peak.

Too long, didn't read: Well done USA on a very decisive win, pity Russia and Romania weren't able to give it their all.


ALL- AROUND

This AA was much less exciting than everyone expected heading into the games. In fact, it was anti-climatic and a bit boring. Frustrating too, as overscores were blatant. Not that Gabby was the only culprit- hers were the worst but Komova, Raisman and Mustafina got some gifts too. Larisa Iordache, who could quite convincingly have taken gold had she been able to perform at her best with full difficulty, was placed in the second group. Yao Jinnan fell foul of the two-per-country rule, a thigh injury prevented her from being anywhere near her best, and Deng Linlin and Huang Qiushuang both qualified ahead of her. Not forgetting reigning world champion Jordyn Wieber who also fell foul of it, but much more controversially as she placed 4th, not 19th and did not have an outright 'bad' performance at all. So all in all, a deflating start to the competition, minus three possible stars. Gabby and Vika were always going to be top contenders, as long as both did not headcase in prelims and face the likelihood of being ousted by another all-arounder in their respective teams. Doubt was in evidence as to whether Mustafina had it in her to medal, a bad performance at Euros and a difficult road of recovery being the main reasons fuelling the speculation. Raisman was expected not to qualify at all, with a slim likelihood she could have done so if Gabby had messed up. Surging ahead of Gabby and placing higher than her in prelims, which knocked Jordyn out as she placed behind Gabby- was a huge suprise to everyone. Miss Raisman obviously worked intensely hard to improve her form, and that's all it took. Unfortunately, it also meant she faced a backlash from the media for knocking out the world champion (even though technically Gabby did) and huge attention was placed on Jordyn's plight while Aly's triumph was ignored. Not a great start to the biggest competition of your life.

Gabby retained the quality of performance she showed at team finals, her headcase label was nowhere to be seen. A strong amanar, a steady beam set, great bars and staying in bounds on floor was all it took, 4 great performances in all. Komova unquestionably would have taken the title off her IF she had performed at her best, but she couldn't get it together. A bad landing on her amanar right at the start sunk her, as she scored a huge four-tenths less than she could have done. Great bars, a very strong beam and THE best performed and most beautiful floor of the quad, which nobody thought she had in her..was not enough, she fell just short of Gabby's enormous total. We can argue all day long  about whether Komova's higher standard of beauty in her gymnastics should have swung the gold in her favour, but I don't think so..not with THAT vault. Although Gabby got some sickening scores like the second highest beam score from the whole competition, outscoring all of Sui Lu's and Catalina's magnificent team finals beam, and an insane score on bars, Vika was quite frankly gifted in some of her scores too, most notably beam. I would not blame the judges for marking her execution higher there because of her exquisite form and leaps, but it's clear to see that it wasn't just one gymnast being overscored.

Moving on, wow a tiebreaker. The first of five, but we weren't to know that. And how heartbreaking, especially as both Aliya and Aly had to bear the knowledge that they both had big errors. If either had hit all four, it wouldn't have been an issue. Had they both hit, it most likely wouldn't have been either. But to know that if you were in a tiebreak situation because you didn't do your best is really tough. Aly's big error on beam did her in, as it meant her bars had to be counted. Every other time, her beam could be relied on for a nice high score, but not this time. Aliya had to handle the fact that she fell off beam, staying on would have put her substantially ahead of course. Every tiebreaker sucked, this one the worst I think. Both deserved the bronze. Aly had to go back with the knowledge that she missed out on a medal she earned thanks to a ridiculous rule, and knowing there would be lots of smug fuckers thinking 'Should have given her place to Jordyn'. All in all, a very dissapointing competition. Gabby and Vika's positions were correct thanks to the latter's errors but a tiebreaker really sucked the fun out of it in the end,

Too long didn't read: Gutting that Jordyn, Larisa and Yao weren't in it. Gabby's gold deserved due to Vika's crappy vault. Tiebreaker sucked.


VAULT FINAL

There are no words to describe the horror of this event final. It is almost reassuring to note that the biggest proof of Maroney's talent is not that she still managed a silver, it is that had she repeated the amanar she performed in team finals again here, she would have gotten gold. Gold with a fall. That's incredible. It received a three tenth deduction of landing on the red (fascinating to note that the FIG don't care if your vault landing is so bad you have to come off the mat entirely and practically hug the judges- just as long as you land on white there's no deduction!) and another for landing offline. Anyway, it was very dissapointing that the fantastic Giulia Steingruber failed to qualify after falling on hers, that Maksiuta fell also and that Ti Phan's struggles this year were very much in evidence as she bombed as well.

Disaster struck early on when Elsabeth Black crashed her vault and got a zero. Clearly injured, she had the unbelievable determination to line up again for her second vault. Luckily she realised that it wasn't worth it and she ran past the vault, subsequently being treated for her injury. Very sad to see. Tension struck again when Pena arrived to cannonball her way to a deep squat, the best that could be hoped for. Her coaches clearly believe that instead of correcting her technique- she has the power but it is converted into unneccessary distance instead of height- the best way was to teach her to always get her feet to touch first to avoid a zero. Brilliant. Usually thrilled to be alive after her vault, Pena was absolutely devastated, which was not only saddening to see but also to realise that she must have had insane pressure to medal despite the fact that she had never stood up any of her life-endangering handspring double-front's. It should have been a lesson when not even Produnova managed an upright landing more than once.

On it went, with Chuso being the beast she is and landing both of her vaults. The second one was actually really nice in the air. Her Rudi has deteriorated in form but since we are all in awe that she can handle the pounding of vault there's not much you can really criticise. WHAT a career she had had. Janine Berger proved her selection by landing two really well done vaults, the same as Chuso's but much better performed. She has a lot of power, so much that she could not control the landings well. One to watch. Here comes Paskeka with a 2.25 amanar! What a joy it is to note that the judges DID do their job and award it as a DTY but a certain ex-Soviet Nellie Kim overruled it and gave it as an amanar. Oh Nellie. What an absolute travesty. There's also a furore over Paseka's second vault, which although lovely to watch is being debated as to whether it was laid-out or not, the general consensus being that it wasn't. And up comes Maroney and because she nailed the best amanar ever in team finals, it was almost dissapointing to see her amanar here lost a little form on its usual perfection, was offline and landed out of bounds. But no matter, she'll still win..except the unthinkable happened. Although her Mustafina is much lower than her amanar, she herself stated she has never crashed it. Of her vaults total, she crashed the amanar once as a Junior in competition. It was extremely hard to process that she was sitting in the middle of the mat. So what a huge surprise it was when she found it hard to come to terms with and didn't grin like a maniac afterwards. Sandra landed two very good vaults afterwards and her gold was deserved. But it doesn't change anything about Maroney's status as best vaulter in the world, especially since even with the fall a better amanar would have put Sandra in silver and it doesn't negate the horror of seeing crashes, an injury, a death-defying vault, a wrongly awarded amanar and a deserving bronze winner being screwed over.

TL; DR: Awful, awful, awful. Nellie Kim screws Berger over, numerous crashes and an injury. Worst vault final ever. Gold and silver deserved, rightful bronzer winner robbed.

BARS FINAL

How refreshing, and what a deep field. Komova the defending world and euro's bars champion, He Kexin the defending Olympic champion, Beth Tweddle former world champion and Mustafina and Douglas, both national champions. He Kexin proved the doubters wrong, Jinnan redeemed herself after a miserable experience up until then, and Mustafina showed just how valuable all of the extra time she spent training on bars when she was too injured to tumble or vault has been. Crushing to see Vika miss out again after a fluke mistake and to see Beth's steps on dismount cost her a higher medal- but she is very lucky to hold onto that bronze, for which she can thank Komova! Lovely to see her finally medal, great moment.

Not much else to say here, this was a fabulous final even with Vika and Gabby's errors. Fully agree with this podium.

BEAM FINAL

Quick, women's haven't had a tiebreaker in a while! After the awesomeness of bars final, hopes were high for another final with fair scoring and few errors. It was not to be. Iordache, controversially subbed in for the may-or-may-not-have-been-ill (cough low difficulty..?) Bulimar, fell off. Komova gave up entirely, failing to fight to stay on and then sitting the Patterson. A clearly knackered Gabby who had been fighting inconsistency for so long prior to the bars final, returned to her former hit-or-miss self and fell. The veteran Catalina showed nerves and had an error and wobble-filled routine, breaking hearts everywhere. Afanasyeva gave a gloriously elegant performance without much of a chance at medalling due to her low difficulty. Fabulous to watch. Deng Linlin and Sui Lu nailed EVERYTHING, but they got the order wrong..Deng's routine was stiff with too many pauses, compared to Sui Lu's sensational exercise. Lu was robbed. Oh, and they couldn't even get Aly's d-score right, and Mihai was too dense to contest it. Luckily the Karolyi's saved the day and got his ass in gear by screaming at him from the stands. Certainly not the best beam she's ever done, but it deserved bronze in light of the amount of disasters in this final. Along with vault in particular, a huge argument for ONE-TOUCH WARM-UP!! I agree with the three on this podium, but silver and gold should have been switched.

FLOOR FINAL

A mixed final, though not with quite the same disaster level as beam or vault. I had high hopes of Afanasyeva's amazing routine medalling, Raisman or Ferrari clinching the bronze and either Sandra or Cata taking the other medal. A redemption by Jordyn for her non-AA appearance would have been great too, although her difficulty with uncredited leaps would effectively have thrown her outside of the medals anyway. It was tough to see her not at her best, going out of bounds and lacking fire in her eyes. Afan did well to maintain her stamina and land everything, but those out of bounds were a killer. Very dissapointing for this wonderfully choreographed and exciting routine. Crappy to see Sandra fall on her last pass after doing so well also. I would not have put Aly in gold medal position  but her performance was mindblowing, amazing landings, the first showing of her phenomenal first pass these games and she had such a sparkle and surety in her oft-contested leaps. No question here, Aly killed it and deserved that medal. Her difficulty was very tough to beat, especially as Cata did not do her full-twisting double layout and the other two main contenders faltered.

Beautiful routine by Mustafina, but Ferrari was really destroyed here. She deserved a higher score. Graceful dancer she is not- but neither are Raisman or Cata. She is furious over being in a position to lose that tiebreaker, which is no surprise as she really was screwed. The fifth tiebreaker, and probably the scabbiest one of all, especially as Aly went on to her own glory after her AA dissapointment.

In case you couldn't tell, writing overly long sentences is an ingrained habit of mine and which required heavy editing of all of my essays in university before printing..ah the frustration before deadlines when I realised there were were sentences of six or more lines. Anyway, I'll try to be more cautious of this in future but I'm too tired to edit it here!

2012 podiums pre 'new life'

The 1992 Olympics was the first one to use 'new life', where your prelim scores did not affect your scores in any of the finals. Practically the first gymnast to benefit from it was Tatiana Gutsu, who fell from beam in qualifying and then won the all-around after being subbed in. New life rewards those who have off days in qualifying, but does nothing to reward consistency. spezi3 on intlgymnast forums calculated what all of the 2012 results would look like in the old days of carrying your prelim score over. I've thrown in the actual placing of the top 3 gymnasts beside Spezi3's calculations. It looks like this:

'Before 1989 all-around and individual event champions were determined by their scores in both the preliminary and final rounds. There were no New Life finals. Just for fun, and because I'm a bit of a numbers nerd, I wanted to see how the 2012 Olympians would have scored using the old system. I actually did 2 analyses:
1. Adding the preliminary and finals scores. Before 1989 the preliminary score counted for 50% of the total score.
2. Dividing the preliminary score in half and adding the finals score. Because pre-1989 meets used both compulsories and optionals in the preliminaries, the preliminary score was (C + O) divided by two.

Some of the results, especially in the event finals, were interesting and a bit unexpected. There were some differences depending on whether I used formula 1 or 2. Here are the results for the women's all-around competition(actual placement in parentheses). All scores have been rounded to the 3rd decimal place.

Preliminary + Finals Score  Actual placing
1. Komova (2): 123.605      1. Douglas
2. Douglas (1): 122.264      2. Komova
3. Raisman (4): 119.957      3. Mustafina (t-t-t tiebreak)
4. Mustafina (3): 119.532   4. Raisman
5. Deng (6): 116.397            5. Izbasa
6. Izbasa (5): 116.365          6. Deng
7. Ferrari (8): 115.931          7. Huang
8. Huang (7): 115.822          8. Ferrari
9. Iordache (9): 115.765      9. Iordache
10. Teramoto (11): 115.197 10.  Seitz
11. Seitz (10): 113.381
12. Tunney (13): 113.323
13. Van Gerner (12): 112.864
14. Lopez (18): 112.165
15. Pegg (17): 111.222
16. Gomez Porras (22): 111.031
17. Steingruber (14): 110.863
18. Ferlito (21): 110.598
19. Little (15): 110.263
20. Tanaka (16): 109.965
21. Pihan-Kulesza (19): 109.830
22. Brennan (20): 109.564
23. Malaussena (23): 104.565
24. Whelan (24); 97.698

50% of preliminary score + finals score/ Actual placing

1. Komova (2): 92.789          1. Douglas
2. Douglas (1): 92.248          2. Komova
3. Raisman (4): 90.587          3. Mustafina
4. Mustafina (3): 89.549       4. Raisman
5. Izbasa (5): 87.599              5. Izbasa
6. Deng (6): 87.398                6. Deng
7. Huang (7): 86.969              7. Huang
8. Ferrari (8): 86.965               8. Ferrari
9. Iordache (9): 86.865           9. Iordache
10. Teramoto (11): 86.265     10. Seitz
11. Seitz (10): 85.598
12. Tunney (13): 85.128
13. Van Gerner (12): 85.048
14. Lopez (18): 83.833
15. Steingruber (14): 83.506
16. Pegg (17): 83.394
17. Little (15): 83.014
18. Gomez Porras (22): 82.965
19. Ferlito (21): 82.848
20. Tanaka (16): 82.799
21. Pihan-Kulesza (19): 82.648
22. Brennan (20): 82.448
23. Malaussena (23): 77.366
24. Whelan (24): 69.849

VAULT:

Preliminary + Final           Actual placing
1. Maroney (2): 30.883      1. Izbasa
2. Izbasa (1): 30.507           2. Maroney
3. Paseka (3): 30.099          3. Paseka
4. Chusovitina (5): 29.591
5. Berger (4): 29.499
6. Pena Abreu (6): 29.215
7. Rogers (7): 28.966
8. Black (8): 14.366

50% Preliminary + Final    Actual placing
1. Maroney (2): 22.983       1. Izbasa
2. Izbasa (1): 22.849            2. Maroney
3. Paseka (3): 22.575           3. Paseka
4. Berger (4): 22.258
5. Chusovitina (5): 22.187
6. Pena Abreu (6): 21.866
7. Rogers (7): 21.698
8. Black (8): 7.183


BARS:

Preliminary + Final            Actual placing
1. Tweddle (3): 32.049        1. Mustafina
2. He (2): 31.899                  2. He Kexin
3. Mustafina (1): 31.833     3. Tweddle
4. Yao (4): 31.532
5. Komova (5): 31.499
6. Seitz (6): 30.432
7. Douglas (8): 30.233
8. Tsurimi (7): 29.999

50% Preliminary + Final      Actual placing
1. Tweddle (3): 23.983          1. Mustafina
1. Mustafina (1): 23.983       2. He Kexin
3. He (2): 23.916                    3. Tweddle
4. Yao (4): 23.649
5. Komova (5): 23.583
6. Seitz (6): 22.849
7. Douglas (8): 22.567
8. Tsurimi (7): 22.483



Fascinating. It shakes up every single podium. I for one prefer these to the real podiums we did get. I think it's fairer. Not sure what the problem would be in reinstating this..it's not exactly extra work or extra time like bringing compulsories back (I'd like that too). Why was it scrapped in the first place? Giving someone who falls in prelims a fresh chance is not a good enough reason I think. But there are arguments for both sides. The calculations above are argument enough for me.

In other news, Catalina has said she is retiring. She has said that before, but I doubt she'll renege on that. What a wonderful career she's had. There are also rumours that she is engaged to Puerto Rican gymnast, Tommy Ramos, who trained at Izvaroni! (Izvaroni is where the Romanian senior elite team train. Deva, the old centre, is where the junior team now train) Congratulations to them if true! Maybe some super gymnast babies down the line..?

Beam and floor event finals

Two more event finals, two more tiebreakers! FIG need an overhaul, and a huge kick up the arse. Moving on.

Beam had quite a few top contenders, Sui Lu and Cata Ponor the top favourites, with Deng Linlin, Aly Raisman, Gabby Douglas and Viktoria Komova relagated somewhat but still top contenders.

Sui Lu  Up first. She has the old school beam grace, fluidity and form. Although the Chinese are awesome at beam, she's the best they've produced in quite a while. I could watch this over and over again. Her tumbling line is my favourite, incredibly difficult and she stuck it cold. Gorgeous leaps and toepoint. Tiny step back on a pike back. So close to perfection. Very nice red glittery leotard 15.5

Catalina Ponor After being incredibly fierce in the team finals, she loses it and returns to her qualifying routine. Overcooked a turn, wobbles everywhere. Fierce otherwise, chucked the full twisting double pike but it was incredibly low. Unfortunately not at her best today. Wearing a fierce black leotard with lots of silver swirls, decent enough but the silver kind of killed it 15.066..too high, that was a crap routine by her standards

Deng Linlin Total precision, great form and an incredible combination..almost ran out of beam when she stuck the Korbut on the end. She doesn't have the grace of Sui Lu and didn't have great rythmn, too many pauses. White leo with some colour swirls, decent. 15.6..too high, Sui Lu has been robbed already.

Larisa Iordache Larisa did not qualify, she was the first reserve. Diana Bulimar qualified ahead of her and was pulled. Sounded like a Bitang and Bellu stunt of old, but it has emerged that Diana is injured. Regardless of whether this is true or not, Larisa is quite clearly injured herself. So much so that Marina Bitang said she regretted allowing her to do the AA at all. Anyway, Larisa comes off on her tumbling line, which she has struggled with since her injury. Fought hard to stay on. Rest of the routine was lovely, beautiful jumps and total precision in her standing fulls and connections. Gorgeous triple twist with a small hop. Sigh. Larisa really regained herself well, but it was a mistake to allow her to compete in the state she's in. That was a heartbreaker. Brings back her yellow Pikachu leo from Euros and it is fabulous. 14.2

Ksenia Afanasyeva She of the amazing floor routine delivers again here on beam, lovely long lines in her tumbling and a fabulous full turn tour jete leap. So lovelyly but her difficulty kills her, 5.8 against 6.5/6.6. Wearing the bland but absolutely not offensive or ugly Russian team leo. 14.583

Gabby Douglas Here comes Gabby! Huge roar from the crowd. Has delivered strong beam routines THREE times in a row now, plenty are predicting it's too much to ask of her and her former headcase-ness to deliver again. Lovely lay-out step-out's, she has become more graceful I think in the last while. Leg up on a standing full but she fights it back on, but it bodes ill for her as she misses her foot seconds later, clings onto the beam and puts a foot down. Wow. Not nice to see- although I was afraid of her emdalling as I believe she is outclassed here and has been overscored on this event, I don't enjoy seeing falls from her, or anyone. Recovers well and finishes strongly. Can't help but mention she is wearing McKayla's vault EF leo and I'm surprised. It suits her more than McKayla but with the choice available she went for an unlucky one. Hmm. I can't see any of them going for white again, especially her and M. BBC's feed was really kind to her, the slow-mo recap showed absolutely nothing except her fall. Three times. 13.633

Viktoria Komova Can she put her unbelievably shitty Olympics behind her and deliver? Strong contender for a bronze. Wobbles on her first skill. Such extension and leaps, divine. Looking rattled and far from composed. Great sheep jump and lovely tumbling series. Huge wobble on a punch front, fights to regain control and comes off anyway. DAMN. Vika is pissed and rattled now. I would not have been surprised if she stormed off and gave up. Anyway, continues and goes for her Patterson, which she sits. Wow. Stupid move to go for that, she quite clearly had neither the frame of mind or energy to land it properly. Wearing the lovely red and white AA leotard. Vika should be watched, that is too much for her to handle. 13.166

Aly Raisman I thought Aly had only an outside chance at a medal but Vika and Larisa have just handed her an opportunity, as has Cata with her underpar routine. Wobbles and misses a connection but she fought fiercely to regain her rythmn..you could almost hear her thinking 'You must be joking if you think I'm going to fall NOW'. Rest of the routine is typical Aly, nails all of the rest of her connections, tumbling and leaps. Obviously a totally different style to Vika and Sui Lu etc. but so enjoyable to watch her attacks and she really has cleaneed up her form. Great stuff from her. She is so determined here. Rocks that Patterson, small hop forward. Yes! Wearing the patriotic flag leo seen in a press photo a while ago, and which trampolinist Savannah Vinsant wore the other day. Suits her really well, though it's not fabulous. 14.966, well harsh. Didn't have her full d-score due to the missed connection but that thing deserved around a 15.1

Annnnd Mihai files an inquiry. D-score lowballed. And it's successful, Aly jumps to 15.066 and ties with Cata. Aly's execution is far higher due to her really clean routine and she has the bronze!

Deng Linlin takes gold, Sui Lu silver and Aly Raisman takes bronze ahead of Catalina Ponor on a tiebreaker. Wow. Deng had a great routine but it was too slow. Sui Lu deserved that gold, she was only a shade off absolute perfection and had the difficulty behind her. She's in absolute bits, and I'm not surprised or critical. She was robbed and she knows it. Deng was a VERY worthy silver, would have had no issues with that. Catalina was just not on form today, she looked like she knew it too from right after she finished. Gifted that score and Aly deservedly took her bronze. Another tiebreaker- and another huge mistake from the d panel whose ONLY job is to calculate d-score.

Vika is getting huge criticism for her attitude. She probably is too fragile, but she really has had a miserable time of it. Let's just hope she can get some sports psychologist and regain her consistency and her potential to be the most fabulous gymnast in the world. Sui Lu, McKayla Maroney, Vika Komova, Mustafina last week are all being called horrible names. It's such a shame, the work that goes into their routines, their huge potential, and their age and crushed dreams...it's a disgrace that they have to face public outrage because they did not look thrilled in the process. I say, good for them for not being fake. Vika though needs help to get through this, as she is now showing she's as fragile as porcelain. I hope she can take a leaf from Mustafina's fierce bitch book and come back fierce. (Disclaimer: Fierce bitch doesn't mean 'bitch')

And after that heartbreaker, what a FANTASTIC high bar final. Horton and Leyva did really well but this thing belonged to Hambuechen and Zonderland. Amazing stuff.

And onto floor. Ksenia Afanasyeva is the artistic favourite, though lacking in d-score a bit. Romania's Sandra Izbasa and Catalina Ponor are favourites, but Aly Raisman with a complete first pass is right up there.

Ksenia Afanasyeva Oh, Ksenia. Great double layout but goes OOB. LOve this music and her choreography is just amazing, best floor I've seen in a long time. Lovely two whips to triple. OOB on the third pass, she's lost it now. Good finish, but that was really costly 14.566

Jordyn Wieber Girl with a point to prove. Jordyn seems a little skittish or just not as 'on'- Geddert has said she is carrying a stress fracture. How crap for her. Great double double but has to hop back, and a leap on another pass brings her out of bounds. Devastating. Gets through the rest of the routine fine and nice double pike at the end. She's miserable, really sad to see such a star falter at the games. Looking well in the same flag leo as Aly. 14.5 Ouch :(

Aly Raisman Hopefully that bronze and Jordyn's errors have inspired her. Needs that layout! She's on fire, sticks the first pass WITH layout. Fabulous double piked arabian with a leap. Showing her determination in her choreography, she has improved here. Lovely triple full, stuck. Enormously high double pike to end. Form issues as always but she has improved, that was the best floor she's ever done. And what a reward, 15.6! That's too high, even for how great that was and how high her d-score is. 15.4 would be perfect.

Catalina Ponor Needs to really top Aly here, but her difficulty is lower. Throwing a Chusovitina first pass would help but she stays safe with the double layout- stuck! Wow, fire in her to beat Aly after that tiebreaker. Sticks her triple twist but it's still quite fugly with leg form. Great routine, she really brought it. 15.2 That's correct, too high with her messy legs in her triple perhaps considering she has already lost three tenths to Aly on difficulty. Romanians in the crowd are pissed and boo! Too bad, they're not looking at the d-score and after a fabulous crowd all through these games, that shit is annoying.

Lauren Mitchell Has had issues with a tear in her stomach muscle but that was at podium training..she's definitely improved on that, really strong tumbling and great double arabian. Unfortunately she sticks a leap on everything and they are quite low and fugly. Not cool. Though she is not the only one by a long shot, it she is the inventor and the worst offender and it artifically boosts her d-score to within range of Aly. Code's fault, not hers. Great floor from her and possibly her last performance at this level, so well done to her for hitting when it counts. Wearing the Aussie team final leo, pink with a cobwebby sleeve pattern. One my my least favourites these games. 14.833, that's fair.

Vanessa Ferrari Wow. I was waiting for her to compete individually to really bring the ugly back to leotards and she has delivered more than I ever thought possible. The AA one was actually really nice, until you spotted the cut-outs on her shoulders. But she stepped it up a notch here. The body of the leotard is really nice, blue with some glittery pink siz-zag pattern on her sides. Works really well. And then...it's one-sleeved with a shoulder cut-out on the other sleeve! Why Vanessa why! On to her routine, lovely double double and full twisting double pike to back tuck. Fast enough to get credited. Decent choreo and some great leaps. Best she's been in a long time. 14.9. ROBBED It's as if they deducted for lack of sleeve. There was nothing overtly wrong with that routine.

Aliya Mustafina Interesting to see how she contends. She has really matured on floor and this music is really growing on me. Must find the Cradle of Filth song that the start and end come from, Dani Filth would be proud. This really showcases how dramatic and fierce she is. Anyway, textbook double arabian to stag jump- which is my favourite leap out of a pass, and a great leap in general. Falls out her turn, DAMN. That's expensive. Very messy legs on the triple full, but judges don't seem to judge that too harshly here. D-score downgraded to a 5.9 and she gets a 14.9! It's a well deserved score as she really was great here, but..Ferrari is screwed on the tiebreak. Yes, another tiebreak. Wearing the red and white leo again. She's thrilled! Ferrari is gutted, feel for her as she totally screwed over on her own score.

Sandra Izbasa It's not over yet! The defending champion is here to knock someone off a medal, probably not Raisman as she doesn't have the uber-difficulty to contend with that score. Beautiful tumbling, great full twisting double pike to start. Going well and she brings her front tuck with a half twist to her hands and knees. Crap. It was her last pass, she didn't get enough purchase on the ground before she launched into the punchfront but she was too far advanced to stop it. Very sad to see, but she certainly has done so well here already. She looks very accepting of that. Wearing her vault final leo in turquoise. 13.333

Two tiebreaks and two more people screwed! I hope immense pressure is put on FIG to change that. Everyone would like a modification to the two per country rule too, or its abolition. For the AA, it would be nice if the third girl per country could qualify if she has over a 58. For event finals, a score over a 14.8.

And..no more gymnastics :( At least, not artistic. Beam was a heartbreaker, tough to see so many falls and errors. And very sad to see more overscoring and underscoring. Sui Lu is absolutely justified. Jordyn stands out as someone with just as much cause to be as devastated as Vika- Vika doesn't have TF gold, but she medalled in the AA Jordyn wasn't able to even compete in. Really wanted to see Jordyn end on a high note, and we didn't get that either today. Injury or not, she peaked too soon.

Russia and Romania teams named!!

Team Russia: Komova, Mustafina, Grishina (like duhh), Afansayeva and..Paseka! Wasn't sure if Afan could do it, but Inshina and Bebelo were dissapointing and Sidorova was injured, so..good for her! Paseka is in a way a surprise, she crashed both her vaults at the Russian cup. Apparently she verified them, including the amanar, the other day. This means Russia have two amanars, maybe a third (though Musty only did a DTY at the verifying), killer bar routines and really good beams, though staying on is slightly questionable. Floor is a bit of a weak spot with this team- Grishina and Afan have beautiful floors, but not with amazing SV. Komova's is weak, Musty's is a tad unusable.

Team Romania: Ponor, Izbasa, Iordache, Bulimar (duhh) and..Chelaru! This differs from the victorious Euros team, replacing Haidu with Chelaru. Haidu has better bars than her, but Chelaru is safer. It doesn't matter a huge amount because the first four are so strong. No amanars or Cheng's were competed at the meet today- their being flung for the first time in comp in London is terrifying.

Romania and Russia bring their A-game

Competition is hotting up a bit now. I still think USA will get the gold, but it will be tough especially if Russia don't fall off the beam, a skill they have been showing for quite a while now.

Sandra Izbasa has a Cheng vault, Larisa Iordache has an amanar and Viktoria Komova has one too. Mustafina is extremely likely to have an amanar, and was shown doing a timer for one. All of these were pretty going to happen anyway, but here is the proof. What does this mean for America? Unfortunately it means that Russia's massive bars d-scores and now amanars mean the gap is closing bigtime there for America's vault advantage. However, everyone still has weaknesses. Let's look at them.

America- Has no obvious weakness. Yes, bars are not a strong point but they are very decent in comparison to Romania. It would help if Gabby could up her D-score to 6.9, but nevertheless, even Jordyn's d-score is now a 6.4. Beam is good and strong, and nobody is likely to headcase and fall off. Two aggressive routines with high d-scores, and one beautiful artistic one. Vault obviously one of the strongest points- McKayla's vault will score more than 16, NOBODY else will touch that. Her vault will make shit of sloppy amanars elsewhere, which is great for her score. If she wasn't there, amanar scores would be more generous. Jordyn's amanar is very reliable, with great form and landings. Gabby's is getting better all the time, a bit flat but well landed with good form. Floor another strong point- Aly has the highest d-score of all with an AWESOME first pass, one of the most difficult ever. Form likely to take a hit, lucky the difficulty is massive. Jordyn's is strong, clean and difficult. I do think McKayla's should be here, and it's a 6.0 with artistry, it will score well.

Romania- It's amazing how much they have come on. Iordache is decent on bars, everyone else is weaker. They will fall down bigtime here. Vault has picked up a lot. Iordache's amanar looks clean and safe and fully rotated, with not a bad landing. It doesn't look sloppy. Sandra's Cheng looks messy and low, unlikely to break more than a 15.7 as it stands, but the video wasn't made yesterday and she has time to improve it. Same goes for Iordache. It's unknown whether they have a second amanar, but Bellu has hinted at more than one. Ponor appears to be the likely candidate for this. If not, they have a big deficit there against USA if they have to count a DTY. America will outscore significantly on vault, as they have the best amanar in the world and two very clean ones. Beam is their strong point- very high SV's, Iordache is probably the best beamer in the world right now, along with Sui Lu. Beam is traditionally awesome and Ponor and Iordache in particular will do very well here. Floor looks good- Iordache is likely to outscore Raisman as she has better form, and is only one tenth down in diffculty. The two routines will match America. Consider floor equal, beam better, bars and vault worse. However- consistency is their midde name, they can win if someone else falters.

Russia- Here we have extremely strong bars, more than a point over USA and even more over Romania. Not even China can get close. Komova and Mustafina both have beautiful 7.0 bars that will score extremely well, possibly breaking the 16 mark. Grishina's are a very respectable 6.5, which Romania would kill for. Vault is a bit more up in the air. Komova's amanar is neat with very good form, it is likely to outscore pretty much every other, except Maroney of course. Certainly it looks like it can rival Jordyn, Gabby and Larisa. It looks like Mustafina will have one too. Mustafina of the clean DTY, frightening helicopter-legs amanar and of the ACL on the same skill. Let us hope she can land it safely every time, with NO locked legs. Even before the injury she was doing that. It will be shot in execution, but the 0.7 is has over the DTY isn't to be sneezed at but even so, it's likely to be the messiest one we'll see in London. It is unclear whether Russia have another amanar. If not, using a DTY and Musty'a messy amanar will hurt them and seriously eat into their bars advantage. I predict Romania to score higher on vault, and USA to outscore Romania by a comfortable lead. Likely beamers are Komova, Musty and Grishina. Both Vika and Grishina have fallen off beam a LOT in the last year. Their beams are beautiful, if they fall it will  hurt their scores a lot. If they stay on, they are a massive threat. Musty's looks better every time, but she is uncertain on it too. Floor is a weakness. Musty's tumbling isn't near as clean as it used to be, and that twisting ability has really deteriorated when it was already bad before. Komova's floor is weak and she has low landings which will cost her. If Afan makes the team she will go ahead of Musty I think, but although her and Grishina's floors are awesome, the SV is several tenths below what USA and Romania are bringing.

In short:

Russia- Vault- Good, Floor- Weak, Bars- Super strong, Beam- Potentially strong
Romania- Vault- Strong, Floor, Strong, Beam super-strong, Bars- very weak
USA- Vault- super strong, Floor- Strong, Beam- Strong, Bars- weak

In short, I think Russia could take it if they counted no mistakes, but they are the one country where it is almost a certainty, much more so than the other two. I still see USA taking the gold. Romania is uncertain- they are stronger than ever and will be fierce challengers. How exciting! I cannot WAIT!

In AA news, this means that Gabby, Jordyn, Larisa, Vika, Huang and almost certainly Musty have amanars. Yao Jinnan is unknown, China have only confirmed Huang. I predict Larisa and Vika will fight the USA fiercely here, it's impossible to call. I no longer see both Gabby and Jordyn as podium almost certainties.

My Olympic EF podiums

Bars

Beth Tweddle so deserves this gold. Under the modern code, bars do not get more difficult than hers. Of course she does not have a Counter-Kim or Gaylord I or II (check out Zhou Duan's uneven bars for the Gaylord II...incredible) but since these moves now incur a deduction because they will end in a dead hang, it is inadvisable to do them (unfortunately). Sadly for Beth, her form and handstands are not as crisp as others and for that reason I do not see her getting the gold. Silver

Viktoria Komova and Aliya Mustafina have amazing bar routines. Beautiful lines, transitions, releases. It's all there. Komova will pip her team-mate for gold, leaving Aliya with the bronze. She is just that bit crisper.

Vault

This is a lock for McKayla Maroney. The most certain gold of any we can expect. Although she is the reigning world champion on this event and has a much more difficult second vault now, she is not a certainty for her team. However she has a brilliant chance at taking that fifth spot.

The other two spots are a little up in the air. Chusovitina is still in the mix amazingly, but her vaults recently had quite low landings. With her age it is of course astounding she can still throw difficult vaults at all. In a small reversal of Worlds standings, I see her taking the bronze and Phan Ti Ha Thanh of Vietnam taking the silver.

Floor

This is much harder to predict and will be very exciting. There is one US gymnast, Sarah Finnegan, who could so easily medal here ahead of her US teammates, yet she is fairly unlikely at this stage to make the team at all. Larissa Iordache clinches it for me. Her floor is just so difficult and exciting, I see it making it's way to the top for gold. Anastasia Grishina does not have the same clout as most of the other contenders for team Russia but her floor is ahead of the rest, even Afansayeva. Grishina's beautiful artistry so prevalent in this exercise will take silver. Bronze is a bit tougher, at this stage I see Jordyn Wieber clinching it but that might change.

Beam

Sui Lu of China takes gold, her beam is just a work of art. Iordache and Catalina Ponor also of Romania will fight for the other two spots, Cata I think landing the silver.