Things

Okay, I have a major issue with blogging and working full-time. Plenty manage it but I struggle to find the motivation and energy. There's a reason why a lot of this blog was written while I was unemployed. Anyway, my passion for the sport is the same. I am recovering from wisdom teeth surgery at the moment but I aim not to need to be post-op to actually blog.

Anyway, Pac Rims! Nice of Flo Gymnastics to allow USAG to upload videos of their athletes 24 hours later I suppose, much better than trying to find secret uploads somewhere. Morgan Hurd debuted a fabulous floor routine, I feel it's a great match for her and she really gets into the music and sells the choreography well. Although it was always something she's been good at, it's great to see her develop and I'm excited to see what her routine will be like in 2020 as her potential continues to grow. Beam aside, (which USAG have not uploaded) I don't feel she was as sharp here as she was at American Cup. Which is no bad thing, she doesn't need to be and shouldn't be at the top of her game in April with the summer competitions ahead of her and worlds several months away. Her double-double landing on floor was lower than normal but it's one of the few American ones that are fully secure and not too low so that's fine. Bars seemed to me to be not as crisp and flowy as normal although still very clean and technically good, just some of the ease was missing. Again, fine for this time of year. It's the beam dismount that's worrying, I hope they scrap it immediately and go back to the double pike or try a twisting dismount. It's incredibly dangerous to have a gymnast compete a dismount that they cannot land properly as it means they have a much smaller margin of error were something to go wrong on take-off, which by all accounts it did in the team/AA, although I have not seen it.

Here it is from podium training. This just screams 'NO', it's so not worth the landing deductions. Her face is miles below waist level and her knees are taking a huge strain with her body that bent over.

And here it is from American Cup. A disaster waiting to happen, thankfully Morgan is fine and managed floor right after her scary fall at Pac Rims and withdrawing from EF was just a precaution but I hope this is a lesson learnt for her coaches. Impressively hard dismounts need to be landed safely to be impressive.

She is not the only gymnast, nor even the only American gymnast with a low landing on her beam dismount or a non-textbook set on take-off, but the difficulty of the dismount and the amount that's packed into it makes it far scarier.

Moving on. All in all, Pac Rims to me fell completely flat without the participation of China and Japan. A great pity Brooklyn Moors withdrew at the last minute but there were what sounds like (maybe I might get to see them at some stage?) standout performances from plenty of gymnasts such as Marcia Videaux of Cuba on vault, Nicolle Castro of Mexico on floor and Zoe Allaire-Bourgie of Canada on bars.

Jordan Chiles is going to have a very tough time fitting into a team line-up this quad. A vault/floor specialist when the likes of Jade Carey and of course Simone Biles will be in the picture is not ideal. Still, she's very enjoyable to watch on both events and is a good alternate option perhaps, although Grace McCallum is very strong also with incredible ease in her vaulting and tumbling. I don't know enough about Kayla DiCello and Jordan Bowers although the latter in particular is intriguing, anyone who keeps their legs and knees and feet together throughout a double front and a tucked full-in gets my attention. Super clean and light tumbler, and although she came to grief on beam and isn't quite as clean there, there were a LOT of beam falls anyway and her beam structure is fascinating and seems well within her grasp. Sunisa Lee on the other hand seems to be doing too much difficulty, I don't really get the point of stacking her bars and beam that high when she struggles to hit them consistently and gets sloppy in the effort. Dump the Nabieva, taper down all of her beam connections and re-focus on the basics and she could be amazing.

In other news, Mai Murakami has won All Japan Nationals! It is heartwarming to see her this good and this consistent and this high-scoring and seemingly still improving, sooo many years into her career. In 2011 and 2012 she showed high difficulty but weakness and inconsistency. Seeing her gold-medal winning floor and her medal ceremony in person in Montreal is a real highlight of mine. Her scores here probably have some slight bias in them, but she remains a huge AA contender, creeping higher now every year. Thrilled to see her go out and hit her full floor difficulty as if it's nothing, showing no signs of slowing down. Japan really are great at holding on to their gymnasts for years. Asuka Teramoto, Aiko Sugihara and Sae Miyakawa (who badly needs to medal on floor this year) all show no signs of going anywhere either.

Speaking of veterans, it was great to see Aliya Mustafina, Viktoria Komova and Tatiana Nabieva at Russian Nationals recently. Aliya in particular, given that this is her competitive debut since giving birth, was particularly impressive and showed her DTY, full bars routine minus the inbars and her double arabian on floor. In an absolutely unsurprising twist, her beam is still relying on the same dodgy barely-an-acro-series for credit and is the event she was the weakest on. Understandably, she noticeably tired as the competition went on and had the greatest issues on vault where she scarily crashed a 1.5 intended to be a DTY but this lack of stamina is not a worry whatsoever at this point, she is extremely well versed in pacing herself and will no doubt steadily increase her ability to withstand competition until worlds itself. Recent news of her divorce makes her performances at Nationals even more impressive. What an athlete. Viktoria is that bit more together in her preparation and seems more equal overall in her AA effort, it will be fascinating to see how they progress. Against the backdrop of the two greats coming back, it was just amazing to witness the triumph of Angelina Melnikova, with such huge potential and so often such massive falls and flaws, hit every single routine and sweep the golds. I really hope she can continue the momentum and hit when it counts.

While never doubting the ability of Simone Biles to bounce back and have her Rio difficulty ready to go, it is mindblowing first to hear that she has it back, and then to witness further upgrades, including never-before-done crazy-Simone-level ones. Her coaching change was always going to be interesting in terms of her bars, as before although they were very smartly composed and kept deductions to a minimum, they were never a piece she was going to consistently make finals with. Now though, she presents with a shap-half, new Jaeger and a Fabrichnova dismount. Her form and technique, bolstered by new difficulty, could absolutely propel her into bars finals. Being coached now by the Landis who would have the WOGA-focus on bars is also going to have an impact on the ease and her swing in the routine. These are upgrades we will more than likely see in summer as her bars are going to need as much competitive repetition as they can get, as it's more than likely going to be significantly different than her old routine. Beam looked the same, still the same impressive skills with the casual addition of a double-double dismount which has of course, never been done. I would imagine that it's not going to replace her current full-in, but will be prepared so that she can throw it in sometimes. Podium training at all competitions, competitively at one day of Nationals, again at camp and worlds quals and EF but sticking to the full-in for AA and TF.

On floor we see two new passes as well as a gloriously easy and high double-double and double layout. The Moors looks all too easy for her, although not on a competition floor. The front full into full-in leap is a very fun pass, it looks incredible and is of course very impressive for what will surely be her last pass. For the other 3 she has a double-double, Biles, full-in DLO and now a Moors to play around with so even in an era of Jade Carey, Sae Miyakawa and Mai Murakami, her floor difficulty will still be ahead of the pack. Vault, ha. I would have thought having the Mustafina and amanar back would be impressive enough. She has a TTY and Cheng. Good god. I cannot wait to see her compete again. The sentiment of 'ugh it's so boring when she wins all the time and now she's going to come back and take all the golds away it's so unfair' to me is absolutely ridiculous. We saw the best of all time, and now we have the privilege to see her again with added difficulty. It is the kind of prospect that will see me at worlds next year.

Next week will see the start of Chinese Nationals. I am really hoping to see a possible worlds team with a good few options emerge. Chen Yile will be the most nervewracking one to watch due to her absolutely massive potential. Curious to see what Shang Chunsong looks like, although of course she is competing to help out her province and her appearance does not signal any international comeback. Depending on what platform videos end up on, I'll go through the competition here when it's over.

The one where Shang Chunsong gets totally robbed

It just wouldn't feel like a proper AA final without some controversy over the medals, especially an Olympic final.

Not gold of course. Simone Biles, as we all knew she would, destroyed the competition, winning by an unheard-of margin of 2.1 points in an Olympic all-around final. It was an absolute pleasure to watch her in action, as it always is. She has been so dominant for so long and it's great to see her add Olympic success to that - the only way such an athlete can enter mainstream consciousness despite her worlds medal tally.

Nor silver - Aly Raisman definitively put the ghosts of the 2012 tie-break AA to rest by storming to second place, behind only Simone. I wouldn't have thought it possible that she could get better than she was 4 years ago since coming back to that level in the first place is such a hard ask, but she really and truly has. The footage of her crying after floor are just special.

But bronze. As great a gymnast as Aliya Mustafina is, that was not a bronze medal performance. It was for half her routines, but she had a bad time on floor and beam which her placement doesn't reflect. Not when Shang Chunsong had such a great competition, hitting everything out of the park. Yes, yes she has a super-weak vault but even with that she had a huge d-score advantage over Aliya. And yes, her frame gives her built-in form deductions with her knees and legs - I'd be the first to admit that she does not have the lines of some of her team-mates. But to lose by a tenth when she was THAT GOOD is a joke. Her beam and floor were fantastic and weren't rewarded enough. This isn't like Glasgow where she got 4th thanks to her vault when everyone else hit. Aliya's beam with no acro series and corresponding super-low d-score and weak floor with again very low difficulty due to non-completion of turns should have taken her out of podium contention. And more than likely would have done had she been anyone else.

I'm tired of the Chinese getting underscored, but Shang Chunsong seems to get it especially bad. It just seems petty, as if they don't like the way she looks and don't want to reward her because it's not something they want to promote? I could be completely off the mark there but it smacks of some sort of grudge, some sort of fear of underage because she looks so young. No excuse for not knowing her story now and there's certainly no excuse for lowballing her.

There has been so much argument over Nastia V Shawn, Jordyn V Vika, Gabby V Vika. But this is the one that has the most merit. This can't be dismissed as 'It's a subjective sport' or 'She marginally outshone her'. There is no reason in the wide world why Shang didn't merit a few more tenths. It would only have taken just over one. Her execution still has the Chinese precision, it's certainly a lot better than most.

Happy as I am for the rest of the podium - and I am happy for Aliya too, it's not as if she has bought the judges or anything - things like this really, really piss me off. As if screwing the Chinese in subdivision 1 of qualifications wasn't enough.

Highlights of Glasgow

Yup, definitely still wishing worlds was yet to come instead of finishing a few weeks ago.

Location

Glasgow is a great city, I really enjoyed it. Not exactly spectacularly different to Dublin...certainly they have the same mild at best-wet and cold at worst weather systems, but that's okay since I don't have much time for the sun anyway. I'm getting good at picking hotels and always aim for an old one that's not a dump. Our hotel was not only a spectacular Victorian behemoth of a building, it was right in the centre and above the train station, which was a whopping 2 stops away from the arena. Seriously convenient. Glasgow seems to have a bad reputation here, most people made a face and suggested Edinburgh instead, a very nice city which spectacularly lacked the main reason for going in the first place. I get the impression it used to be a rough place but you can tell a lot of work has gone into regenerating it and I always felt safe, even on Hallowe'en night which is a spectacularly dangerous night back home. Very friendly place.

The arena itself is fantastic, very fancy. The seats are tiered quite high and I'm not happy that the 'priority' seats released first afforded me seats in the upper tiers only, despite buying a few hours after release. Clearly I am dedicated, do not shaft me on this. I'll know next time not to go ahead and buy, I just thought that was the availability. Lol. Antwerp was very, very different. Anyway, the view was fine, I just suffered jealousy of the people with seating much lower down. But it WAS good to get a great overall view, and our best seats were for the AA which was most important to me.

Stage

I never realised that introductions were missing from worlds, but it really added a lot to the atmosphere and it was wonderful to see teams and individuals recognised like this, with their huge flag behind them and some very catchy music-sometimes even matching the gymnast in some way. Nice bit of hype-building and I really hope that's not the last we've seen of it.

Diverse finals/better depth

It was just great to see much more diverse finals than we are used to, echoing MAG almost. This hasn't been an overnight change, but was more noticeable than in past worlds I thought. It's a big jump from the last Olympics and will be interesting to compare to Rio's finals. Vault was as usual the most diverse, but beam wasn't far behind for once. Two Dutch girls. While beam itself has suffered bigtime this quad and inconsistency even among the best is still a major issue, the fact that it's less deep than last quad is balanced out for me by the refreshing different styles on display, afforded by the diversity of the finalists. If only they could stay on the beam.

Floor and bars are stronger than ever, which is very exciting and bodes well for next year. And that was a floor final without Aly Raisman. Considering the quality of this year's floor final, there were quite a few big names missing. When you think that next year we'll be expecting Simone Biles, a second American such as the aforementioned Aly though medal-winner Maggie was certainly a worthy finalist, Ellie Black, Giulia Steingruber, Shang Chunsong, Ellie Downie, Claudia Fragapane, Larisa Iordache/?? Catalina Ponor ??, Vanessa Ferrari, Sae Miyakawa, Ksenia Afanasyeva and more to be vying for places...

On bars, the standard has definitely been raised. There have always been routines of the calibre the 4 gold medallists showed (what a sentence) but not quite so many. And there are plenty that are right behind them. The fact that most routines are fairly similar and shap-heavy is a bit of a drag, but some managed to stand out, such as Shang Chunsong with multiple releases, and Ruby Harrold for her unique skillset. A great routine to cap off the final.

The AA rankings both in qualifiers and finals were certainly an unusual mix, it was great to see Giulia Steingruber qualify 2nd behind only the untouchable Simone Biles and even though a fall on beam put paid to a repeat in finals, it really bodes well for how far she has come as an all-arounder. A shaken Romania clawed back to great places in the AA, from which they were completely out of the top 10 in qualifying-Larisa Iordache of course admirably clawing her way to bronze and Laura Jurca showing her potential finally to finish in 8th after qualifying 22nd. The best though was seeing Mai Murakami completely unexpectedly finishing 6th. It will be great to see Russia have more of a presence in the AA next year hopefully, with Seda's inconsistency putting paid to any glory there, but it was nice to have the focus more spread out.

GB Bronze Team Final

I don't think anyone expected that, and it blew the roof off. To get their first ever team final medal on home soil is just incredible. Seeing their reactions when the score came in and the realisation that their vault scores had been enough - it looked like they didn't let themselves believe it could be even after Russia imploded- was just such a great moment, historical and heartwarming. I didn't think it was possible-they are still a team that are on the way, having made huge strides but still affected by issues such as depth and messy form lowering scores, and of course it's a team final that didn't have Romania in it and had Russia counting no less than 4 falls-but it comes to the same thing, it doesn't matter what you CAN do, unless you can put it together when it counts like in the team final, and GB certainly accomplished that.

Netherlands qualifying for team final

Up there in terms of achievements with GB's medal. Who'd a thunk it? Doubly fantastic since it means they've qualified a team to the Olympics. Their greatest achievement to date on worlds and Olympics stage was Celine Van Gerner placing 12th in the London Olympics. Competing singly for her country, since NL haven't qualified a team to the Olympics in a long, long time, if ever. And this isn't even through the Test Event, but directly through worlds. This is a team who I was hoping would individually make a final or two, so that I would be able to watch them in person, but I never anticipated team final. One of those elegant types to enjoy watching but withhold hope from. They definitely had some issues in team finals, which was perhaps not surprising, but were nevertheless glorious to watch from the very moment they came on stage and performed their stunning and elegant salute, encompassing all they are as a team.

Netherlands individual qualifying and finals

Staying with the Dutch girls, I was flabbergasted to see Lieke Wevers qualifying 5th into the all-around. In the best way. Considering her start values, it highlights how vital execution and expression can be to scores, and how seriously FIG can take it. Sadly, Eythora Thorsdottir was just barely knocked out of the AA herself, but snuck into the beam final. Of course, she proceeded to have the oddest fall there but she was in good company with 50% of the finalists falling and it was still great to see her in person. I didn't dare hold out hope that Sanne Wevers would hit in the beam final, after qualifying second but having a nightmare in team finals-no outright disaster but failing her connections and thus a composite requirement, but lo and behold, beam silver! Brilliant result!

US steadiness

When you see teams with enormous potential dealing with enormous flaws- such as mass inconsistency from Russia, chronic lack of depth, political issues and abysmal bars from Romania, lack of depth, politics and power from China, form issues, lack of depth and minor inconsistency from GB etc. etc....it is just so GREAT to see a team nail everything. 12 solid, hit routines. Not only do they show power and consistency, but confidence, and the skills are always secure, you never have to hope the gymnast will rotate it fully. It's refreshing. Their qualifications performance was just so jarring and odd, but never fear, they were back to their robotically solid selves when it counted.

Watching Simone Biles in person

History in motion, she is fascinating to watch and it's fun to think that I've so far been able to see her in action twice, considering she will go down as one of the most legendary and talented gymnasts of all time. It's just bizarre to be blown away by her routines and know that she still has more to give and the potential for yet more difficulty.

China

Getting their act together for team silver. I've become too used to falls and mistakes from them, and qualifications did not inspire confidence, so I was thrilled to see them so solid in finals. Not perfect, (why can you never stay on the beam Wang Yan??) but 11/12 and a really quite super vault rotation of all things is still not to be sniffed at.

Shang Chunsong 4th AA, general hit record

She has previously stood out at worlds for all of the wrong reasons, so to witness her hitting again and again (yup, fell off beam after waiting far too long for the judges in quals but...just quals) and coming so close to beating Larisa Iordache was wonderful. She'll always be let down as regards AA as long as she carries a flat FTY, but to come so close is impressive. It's also nice to see her become the face of her team, and gain a ton of fans. The spread of her story has definitely helped, and has helped explain her circumstances etc, but I do feel a bit uneasy about it considering how detailed it is, just wondering does she know or did she give permission for all of it. Anyway, to come away from worlds with 2 4th places and one of them undeservedly low is disappointing, but she still has great performances and showed more of her potential than she has previously on the international stage.

Russia

Coming back from being a complete nonentity in the all-around and a meltdown in the team finals to shine in event finals, with no less than 3 golds and 1 silver. Despite some qualms about colours of some of those medals, there's no doubt they were impressive and it's great they were able to make a comeback.

Harsh scoring

I definitely have some issues with individual scores but overall, I felt the scoring was harsh and fair. It was reassuring to see them come down hard on things, on a relatively equal playing field.

Last but definitely not least..

Meeting the Biles

Still feels bizarre to have been invited to meet them, and very flattering to have my blog recognised. I had a great morning to start off event finals day 1, lovely people.


I'll probably do a part 2 to this, with lowlights, routines, things like that. Definitely still more to talk about this worlds. What were YOUR highlights? Favourite unexpected hitters? Or moments from off the competition floor? Best hair bow?

Event Finals

I'm definitely still in the post-Glasgow slump. Hard to believe it's been and gone, when I've been waiting for it since the moment Antwerp worlds ended.

Anyway, last things first! How about those event final podiums?

I've gone through vault already, and my opinion hasn't really altered. I think the top two were deservedly close, but the edge was with Hong un Jong. When they are both performing the same vaults though with their own set of flaws, it's so hard to call. I'd like if the podium was slightly reshuffled, but I'm definitely not mad or anything. It was really sad to witness Giulia Steingruber injuring herself after already fearing the worst when she put up 5.8 for the second vault. Thankfully, it looks like she avoided doing any major damage and will still be good to go for Rio. I really love how diverse that final was- USA, China, Russia but also Mexico, Switzerland, North Korea, Great Britain and India. Another low point was Dipa Karmarkar's Produnova- looking forward to the day they are either removed or no longer worth the risk-and also Alexa Moreno Medina's lack of mastery of her vaults, they were really just about rotated and a complete scramble.

Bars though, definitely had crazy judging. A tie was justifiable, but not 4-way. The podium to me should have been Viktoria Komova-Gold, Fan Yilin-Silver, Daria Spiridonova-Bronze. Daria had a few too many handstand errors to be further up, while Madison Kocian is possibly justifiable for a tied bronze. I think that while she is very dynamic, she has too many tiny form errors adding up such as leg separations/bent elbows. I'm not sure if this was visible on any streams, but each time a score came in, the big screen showed it against the current highest score, which was pretty cool. For bars they used a different 15.366 every time as current highest, but when Vika's score came in, she showed up against herself as the score to beat. Highlighted how very weird the whole thing was. Interesting podium ceremony to witness too! Very curious to know if there will be repurcussions from this...hopefully not future tie-breaking at worlds.

I went into beam without any high hopes, knowing that most finals these days have a ridiculously high number of falls. Even with that though, I held out for Wang Yan to medal and the Dutch girls not to fall. Eythora had the unwelcome draw of first-up, and had such a strange fall. Looked from my angle and from watching it back that it was salvageable, but I'm glad she even made the final and it was still a glorious routine, though a bit frightening when her head veered back near the beam after dismounting. The biggest shock from Viktoria Komova's routine wasn't that she had a major error, but that she didn't jump off in resignation like we are too used to seeing time after time. A nice routine otherwise with the usual gorgeous form, although it was overly hesitant. I can't enjoy watching her beam because it's too nerve-wracking and she rarely flows anymore. What was somewhat funny was the shock and negative reaction to her score from the crowd around us when her score came in, who seemed to have forgotten the major save and how costly they are. I've seen some comments around that the best part of the final or the 'real victory' of it was her not falling, which is really quite sad. Anyway, back to business of beam finals with more actual falls, from Ellie Black on her full twist, Wang Yan on her layout and Seda Tutkhalyan on her layout full. None of these were a surprise, all 3 have been splatting regularly all year.  They all seem fully capable of their high difficulty, but seem to get a bit lost in landing of their hard skills in a competitive setting. Hopefully they can rework things a bit, even downgrade, to get proper consistency.

Thankfully, we were graced with some hit routines. Simone Biles pretty much nailed everything, I was particularly pleased her 2.5 wolf had no wobbles and her Barani-once a vulnerable part of the routine-was completely secure, everything after that especially the super-flighty BHS-LOSO-LOSO series and practically stuck dismount was a bonus. Considering how sadly used we are to seeing several wobbles, broken connections and really hesitant work if not outright falls from top routines, it is such a relief to see such clean, difficult work in a flowing routine. Lieke Wevers, as the second qualifier, stepped up to the plate and delivered a gorgeous routine. Not quite as steady as she can do it, but it was much closer to her lovely quals routine than the messy TF one. Pauline Schaefer also had a nice routine -plenty of little wobbles-but nothing serious. It's well composed and impressive even without her own skill in it. I love this podium, but that was a rough final. Far too many falls and major errors. I'm over this quad's beam and looking forward to whatever FIG have in store for it after Rio.

Floor was such a great final routines-wise, so deep. But the podium...not happy with it at all. Simone Biles had yet another great routine and claimed gold by a mile, no arguments there, but silver and bronze are questionable. Ksenia Afanasyeva completed her tumbling and leaps with ease, not so much her turns though. She received 0.3 in d-score for a turn she did not complete, bearing in mind Shang Chunsong did not receive credit for a turn she did not complete. Both were obviously not around, so where was the consistency there? Afan's routine was a bit lacklustre by her old standards, little expression or enthusiasm and just dull, but it was the d-score that I had the major problem with. It didn't deserve to be in the top half of the scoreboard as a result. I would have put Sae Miyakawa in second- she had a glorious routine, super clean tumbling with only 2 slightly short landings to mar it and really and truly deserved a medal. Shang Chunsong had the floor routine of her life-such a pity she didn't complete the turn, but even with that, she deserved a slightly higher score. It seems like they are killing her for her legs/knees in twisting passes (which isn't even clear in real time), but not killing Maggie Nichols, whose leg form is much looser/untidier in her tumbles. Both were great, I would have had them tie or Shang barely ahead.

What does your floor podium look like? Who would you have put ahead on bars? What are they going to do with beam to fix it? This time exactly a week ago it was all over....aghhh the realisation that the next European worlds are FOUR YEARS AWAY...

I definitely have more stuff in my head to post, moreso reactions rather than rehashing competitions, in the next few days.

Chinese Nationals AA results

I hate being too busy/worn out to blog. Hoping to make some changes this year that will have a positive impact. The first, and easiest, is buying a new laptop. This one after 5 years and even switching OS to linux to increase its longevity is now running so slow I expect to hear dial-up noises any time now. When typing, text appears in bursts. Fun...

Anyway, Nationals! Here are the results of the AA today,  translated by the wonderful Golden China

Source- golden-china.tumblr.com

Translating ain't easy and english-speaking regularly-posting great sources for Chinese gymnastics are extremely rare, so hurray!

By all accounts, we were not blessed with a hit-fest. Very, very few went clean. One of which, astonishingly, was Shang Chunsong with a very respectable score. I always expect her to come to grief on bars somewhere. Made up for that a bit with a very nervy beam, but all in all, a great day for her. Wang Yan was lucky to place second after she sat her beam dismount, left out skills, and then had some big error/possible fall on her double double on floor. I am waiting and waiting for her to learn to be a competitor since she has so much to give, and now that she's senior, I'm getting impatient. She could be so great! But, it's early in the season and I'm prepared to keep rooting for her. Chen Siyi is a nice surprise considering she has some health issues, although her scores aren't particularly outstanding. Liu Tingting had a meltdown on beam sadly but Mao Yi seems to have been quite impressive today. She's a super twister and is definitely one to watch.

Hoping to catch up on available videos sometime this week! It will be very interesting to see how the team is formed for Glasgow. Shang Chunsong is the only lock, I expect Wang Yan and Mao Yi/Deng Yalan to feature. The rest is very much dependent on health. In our top 10 from today, the top 5 are age eligible, plus Bai Yawen. Let us hope Yao Jinnan continues to be not in contention. Rio is far more important and shoulders are so pesky and fragile.

Overall, I'm uneasy about the amount of falls today. It's early, and there are health issues, but I continue to despair over how ill-suited China is to this code. And so injury-prone with their body types.

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? 

Worlds thoughts

It's almost here! And there have been some changes even since the predictions post.

In typical Russia fashion, their team has changed. In, out, in out...shake it all about. Maria Paseka is out. Ekaterina Kramarenko remains in despite sustaining some sort of foot/ankle injury recently. Viktoria Komova, who was never in but who could well have been chosen last minute, is officially out of contention. Ksenia Afanasyeva, who was briefly mentioned as a possible team member despite not being fully recovered, is also out of contention. Polina Fedorova and Tatiana Nabieva will be fighting for the last team spot. Edit: I believe it's been confirmed Tatiana won that particular battle, relegating Polina to alternate.

So, what does this do? It means no amanar. Aliya Mustafina will no doubt plant a strong DTY for a good score, but it's really a blow to lose Maria Paseka. Alla Sosnitskaya and I suppose Ekaterina Kramarenko will complete the vault lineup. Ideally to counteract a weaker than expected vault rotation they'd need some stacked bars, which they don't really have. Nobody, not even Aliya, has the difficulty displayed by the team in London. It's a puzzler to know what these changes will do to Russia's TF placing. Because of course, other teams are struggling too.

It's so odd to see USA weak. Especially for me as a new fan, not used to 'mid-quad slumps'. I am not surprised to see that Brenna Dowell won't be making the trip to China. Even if she was hitting AA at camp as rumoured I did think it would be too little too late for Marta who quite rightly highly prizes consistency all season long. Especially since Marta spectacularly showed last year that Brenna does not get breaks. No McKayla Maroney, no Elizabeth Price, no Brenna Dowell, no Peyton Ernst, no Maggie Nichols, no Lexie Priessman, no new Fierce 5 comeback. It's going to be very interesting but I believe they have the edge still.

Last night (this morning?) the Asian Games Quals/TF took place with a predictable massive win for China. Which was no surprise given that they sent their A-team, most others held off on doing that. Fascinating to see this team in action as a 'warm-up'. It is a little concerning given the closeness in timing between this and worlds, hopefully it won't have any impact for when their performances really need to count. First, congratulations to newcomer Chen Siyi for landing a very respectable DTY, a new skill for her that she has been crashing for most of this year. Shang Chunsong is dealing with some pain (strain is the word I think) in her hips for which she has needed Cortisone shots. Sensibly, she watered down on floor as a result. Disappointing to see her fall on bars and score atrociously in execution on beam, but hopefully she can bounce back and compete strong and pain-free in Nanning. Yao Jinnan also competed recovering from an injury which affected her training, but it was a while ago now and with any luck won't be an issue whatsoever to her by worlds.

I expected a bit more from China on beam (Bai Yawen for instance did not compete a routine worthy of the medal I gave her) and they weren't without headcase moments and substantial errors, BUT, overall it was a very strong showing. Vault is no longer a big worry for me (hurray for improvement there also from Tan Jiaxin) and bars will definitely pick them up and plant them well ahead of any other team there. They have no less than 4 routines at almost 7.0 which is phenomenal and is a big reason why they still have the silver edge in my view. Other teams being weak on vault too could easily get them over the hump of non-fantastic beam and floor. Although looking at Shang Chunsong's beam again and I don't know where they got 8.3 from. China seem to get the brunt of artistic deductions on beam when most everyone is guilty of poor rhythm and half-hearted choreography. Also, yes she brought her foot up. Not even high really. Everything else was so precise grrr.

You can find videos on this fantastic channel that needs to be in your subscriptions.

On the topic of Asian Games, Hong un Jong got together with Oksana Chusovitina and relived her glory days on vault. Much better vaults than we have seen in a long time from her AND with her difficulty advantage on Simone Biles, 0.8, she will really give the latter a run for her money if she vaults like that again. It also puts pressure on Mykayla Skinner who is at a big disadvantage since she may or may not score incredibly low for her Cheng what with the most bad-ass-but-worthy-of-harsh-scoring-block of all time. Could well be our podium, but Giulia Steingruber and Phan Thi Ha Thanh stand to gain bigtime if the judges give the one-armed Cheng the stink eye. Back to Asian games, where Chuso also unleashed a much better looking Rudi. All hail the vault elixir of youth she and Hong un Jong have been knocking back!

I'm struggling to place Russia, Romania and GB. The latter have not been doing that well on floor this year. A good bit will depend on the readiness of Gabby Jupp who I am THRILLED has made the team. Raer Theaker is a loss on floor, but Gabby with good bars and beam will more than make up for that. So much the better if she has floor too, but I wouldn't expect it and after so long out it would be wiser to hold off.

Have any of your thoughts about worlds changed recently? Predictions? What will crop up next in this mid-quad 'Who can suck the most' competition? Sorry, sorry, most impolite but um, somewhat truthful...

As an aside from worlds, but a very important one: wishing and hoping that Deanne Soza makes a full recovery from her recent eye infection. The last update was more positive, with optimism from doctors on her treatment and it mentioned that Deanne was able to distinguish a silhouette of her father. 

It must be incredibly hard for her to deal with, not least because she is so young, never mind the fact that she is a superbly talented athlete with enormous potential. Speedy and full recovery to her and her sight. 

Update: She's continuing to improve and was able to read letters from a screen today. SO THRILLED to hear this. Her vision is very blurry and it's too soon to tell about her right eye vision but this is so much less bleak than the first update or two so it's just fantastic news.

Copyright- Christy Ann Linder

 

A note on Team China

Making time for a quick attempt at clarifying!

Recently, news, videos and gifs emerged of fantastic upgrades from some of the girls. Shang Chunsong landed a beautiful and secure 3.5 twist on floor, Wang Yan threw a triple off beam and Chen Siyi either a triple or 3.5, Tan Jiaxin threw an amanar, Deng Yalan a 2.5 (!!) Tsuk and Yao Jinnan a full twisting DLO bars dismount..and other skills were on display also. No double doubles which I know I saw mentioned somewhere.

The key word is display. Many of the above skills were on trampoline or into a pit. The quad twist, if Shang Chunsong actually threw one, definitely was.

This was an internal verification of upgrades, not a competition. Essentially, kickstarting their new internal code previously detailed here - emphasising floor and vault, and harder skills in general. No full routines were shown. Songsong's 3.5 on competition floor does look good indeed, but ALL of the upgrades have to be put into full routines and it's worth bearing in mind also that basically, the girls are not really built to be able to massively up their difficulty and endurance. Not that none of the upgrades will appear or anything, but just to be aware that they were performed singly. The 3.5 in particular was a skill assigned to the girls over winter training to accomplish on trampoline. Other combinations were probably assigned individually.

Tan Jiaxin's amanar looks serviceable. In her case, she has a lot of adjusting to do from her previous status as a one-eventer. Hopefully she can perform well on bars, floor and vault as she is very, very valuable.

Yao Jinnan IS AN ALL-AROUNDER at this point in time. She had one upgrade to show, and showed it. There is nothing to read into what events she will drop in the future. Don't get me wrong - she could indeed drop vault and floor, but she will not be able to do that this year. They are going to have a horrendous time scraping together enough girls and alternates for Nanning and the vault rotation will be an issue - there is just no way a guaranteed DTY will sit on the sidelines during it.

Tan Sixin and Huang Huidan did not appear, which indicates no upgrades to show or none to show yet. No need to fear, they'll be back in action when appropriate.

Wang Wei may retire. If she does, hopefully she'll be very happy in what she chooses to do. She would have been very valuable on floor this year and possibly vault, so it's a blow if she does :/

Upgrades are good news, but should be treated with caution! :) I have noticed a lot of certainty in the reporting of them and also about Yao Jinnan's status so thought I'd try to make it a bit clearer (hopefully).

Best of 2013

I hope everyone's having a good Christmas/New Years/holiday season.

Here's my 2013 'winners'. They're deliberately in a sort of scattered order since that's how they occurred to me, and to keep you on your toes.

Best senior:
Simone Biles

Best junior:
Bailie Key

Favourite senior:
Simone Biles

Favourite junior:
Laurie Hernandez

Best beam:
Luo Huan, 2013 National Games, TF. No question.

Best vault:
Simone Biles, Vault 2, Antwerp quals The block and form...

Best bars:
Yao Jinnan, Antwerp AA. Honourable mention to Ruby Harrold, Antwerp AA.

Best floor:
I need a better view of Victoria Moors' new floor to hand her this. There's one routine I enjoyed more than Ksenia Afanasyeva at Euros EF and that is Simone Biles at Antwerp AA.

Best bars dismount:
Koko Dobashi  This is Jamie Dantzcher's dismount, one of my favourites. Eythora Thorsdottir also did a beautiful double twisting flyaway.

Best bars mount:
Just kidding, nothing to see here. If you have seen something other than a glide kip or jump to high this year, please comment!

Best beam mount:
Natsumi Sasada being a total badass. Honourable mentions to the prettiness of Shang Chunsong's and to Danusia Francis for bringing back the Silivas.

Best beam dismount:
Simone Biles, Nationals Day 1. What is this, a Simone love-in? That was amazing though, the form, technique, height on stuck landing. I also love how the pointed toes and technique of Luo Huan's double pike, above under best beam, make it look stunning.

Best dancer:
Laurie Hernandez. Just fantastic. I'd like if she refined her movement just a little without losing any intensity or originality, but even if she never does, I'll always be glued to the screen watching her dance.

Best music:
See above. Engaging, magnetic sort of music, and original. Suits this firecracker perfectly. 

Best form:

Source- Getty images/AFP

Noemi Makra. Just beautiful, stunning work. A joy to watch. And let us not forget, the piked full-in in its pure form. Honourable mention goes to Luo Huan, again.

Best leaps:
Andreea Munteanu. So refreshing. Fellow Andreea, Iridon, isn't too shabby in the leaps department either, i.e. also glorious.

Best new skill:
i.e. named this year. The sideways side aerial, named for Silvia Colussi-Pelaez but performed by Danusia Francis at NCAA Nationals. The fact that she unleashed it after hiding it for months, and the moment she chose to do it. Amazing.

Best old skill reinvented:
The Zuchold, done by Ruby Harrold. Yao Jinnan and her Mo are stiff competition, but it was just not clearing the bar enough or hitting enough so... Both of these are linked above under best bars.

Most improved:
Simone Biles fo' sho' BUT a much more dramatic and subsequently heartwarming improvement was Mykayla Skinner between Day 1 and Day 2 of Nationals. Amazing turnaround.

Most elegant gymnast:
Eythora Thorsdottir, who I link to all the time. Getting lazy now.. 

Best newcomer:
Well Simone Biles, again. Sorry, but she's just the obvious pick for half of this. Honourable mention to Roxana Popa who has had ups and downs this year, but is definitely blazing a new trail both in Spanish gymnastics and on the European circuit.

Best comeback:
McKayla Maroney. What with her list of injuries, surgeries and growing a few inches on top of that, few expected her to be so solid and make such a strong case for herself to go to worlds. She has indeed deteriorated on vault, but still got that crazy yurchenko block, has ADDED difficulty to her floor, and placed 6th in the world at Antwerp prelims in the AA. Not to mention retaining her world vault champion title. Not bad for someone doing yurchenko timers into a pit in March.

Most solid senior:
Kyla "no falls" Ross.

Most solid junior:
Bailie "the machine" Key.

Best leotard:

UCLA - Copyright: AP Photo/Alex Gallardo

Maroney - Source: coolspotters.com

 

HKX. Copyright: A’Min, Guo Chen/Xinhua News Agency

Huang Huidan (on right). Copyright- rkwy1212

There are a few others I can't find. Can't pick 'one'. He Kexin's is more than likely a case of the gymnast in the leotard. I really don't like nude mesh but it was beautiful on her and made her look like an angel. Fitting, for the queen of the bars. I'm a huge fan of blue- GAGE leos this year, Danusia Francis at Universiade, more of UCLA's..the list goes on.

Cutest Moment:
Songsong isn't having a half-hearted handshake! 

Best hairstyle:

Warrior queen Chantysha. Source- rtlnieuws.nl

Chantysha Netteb is fierce!

Best floor skill combination: 
Shang Chunsong's opening pass of 1.5 into triple full-punchfront. Fantastic. 

Best beam skill combination:
Norah Flatley. It's insane, in a good way.

Best bars skill combination:
Ruby Harrold. That is, the Van Leeuwen to immediate Zuchold. I had to disregard the Maloney-Bhardwaj, which was hard.

Cutest gymnast:

Source- Wu Jun

Wang Yan, AKA Yanyan, Potato, little bean. Powerful but adorable.

Best WOW moment:
Victoria Moors sticking the DDLO in Antwerp AA. I witnessed this live...the tension! You could have heard a pin drop in her run and then the explosion, just unbelievable.

Best OMG moment:
Mykayla Skinner landing really good Cheng's off ONE HAND. Shouldn't be possible.

Highlight of the year:

Source- Ling Jie's weibo

Shang Chunsong wins five medals at National Games in Liaoning. 4 individual medals- 3 gold (AA, bars, floor), bronze on beam....and bronze in team finals. It could well be a record. For her feat she received the approximate equivalent of $500,000. Shang Chunsong's family are extremely poor, so this money means a lot. No cars for her, it is being used to provide for her parents and her brother. She has also secured a top university place for herself, whenever she chooses. The ultimate victory, in the context of which, who cares how worlds went for her?

Best competition:
Um, worlds, since I was there :D There were loads of expected faces missing, no denying that, but some competitions were still deep and there was great gymnastics a-plenty.

Best medal:

Source - Yves Logghe/AP, Christian Thomassen, Zhou Lei/Xinhua

Huang Huidan is victorious in the bars final. Cleans up her form, doesn't let herself be affected by the favourite falling right before her- her teammate and friend at that. Great moment, and such a nice surprise for a gymnast who seemed like a total headcase at the start of the year. 

Who are your winners? I'd love to see other opinions. If you feel like answering each category, go for it!

Spread the Love for China

China are a little mysterious. A lot of news is closed, the juniors tend to only compete in internal competitions of which videos are hard to find if Piibunina isn't there...and there is just a general lack of news about them in the public English language domain. Not to mention that the mass retirement of China's veterans leaves a gap both in knowledge of the ones to watch in the next generation and also interest since the next generation are relatively unknown quantities. In this post I will look at who I think are the star juniors (thankfully I now know a LOT more about them than when I tried to do it more than a year ago :D ), starting with the list of the new National Team. I haven't forgotten the Mexican Open and Stuttgart but they will be amalgamated with Glasgow and inspiration has struck due to one or two posts I have seen wondering about the juniors.

Here's the new national team. I omitted the girl's provinces for clarity.

1. Coached by Xiong Jingbin and Zhang Xia
Shang Chunsong
Chen Siyi 
Lu Qiuying
Deng Yalan
Liu Ying 
Lv Jiaqi
Wu Jing 

2. Coached by Wang Qunce and Xu Jinglei
Yao Jinnan
Huang Huidan 
Liu Tingting 
Wang Yan
Zhou Linlin
Zheng Lin
Luo Huan

3. Coached by some male coach and Sun Haiou
Tan Jiaxin
Zeng Siqi
Xie Yufeng
Hong Ke 
Liu Jinru
Chen Chaohui
Bai Yawen 

4. Coached by some male coach and Zhang Haiyan
Tan Sixin
Zhang Jin
Zheng Wen
Yuan Xiaoyang
Zhu Xiaofang
Li Ziqi
Gong Kangyi

5. Coached by some male coach and Sun Ping
Wang Wei
Qin Chang
Li Haiming 
Fu Yuyao
Zhang Yuxin
Lin Jinyu
Zhao Wei 

Obvious missing girls from the above are Mei Jie, Fan Yilin, Liu Zhilin and Xu Chujun. That doesn't mean all hope is lost, for one reason or another it may not have been in their interest to attend the selection camp, they may be recovering or injured, having routines restructured or it's just thought they might do better training provincially for the time being. But, some have fallen off the radar like Zhu Siyan and Xie Wenwei.

In my last post but one I detailed China's new bonus system. Obviously it aims to strengthen areas in which they are weak as a country; but as I said then I think it will be fairly messy or not really that effective in the short term. Quite frankly they do not have the body types necessary. But change has to start somewhere and hopefully they become more accepting in that regard. Huang Yubin is the (still fairly new) head coach and he is starting as he means to go on.

Recently, the MAG and WAG seniors were given a challenge. For the women, they are expected to show a 3.5 twist on trampoline at the end of winter training next spring. Trampoline will be incorporated more into training, and this is of course a good idea since it does help in developing new tumbles, spatial awareness etc. But I'd have to question a 3.5. It's not a viable option on hard surface for the vast, vast majority. Only one gymnast ever did it justice, it's so difficult to get fully around. Of course, a double layout or piked double arabian could be a little cruel since there are definitely more twisters than tumblers. Never fear, Shang Chunsong was straight off the bat and received the prize of an iphone for being the first girl to successfully complete the task. She gave it to her mother, of course.

China do not have much depth this quad. The 'old guard' are all at university. The current seniors that would make a team are: Yao Jinnan, Shang Chunsong, Huang Huidan, Tan Sixin, Zeng Siqi (maybe?) and Tan Jiaxin. There is also Lou Nina, a new senior, but she has been injured so is MIA at the moment. Next year, Wang Wei is the only new senior of note. And that's the problem, since their home worlds is next year. The quad is far from a write-off though as there is a glut of amazing juniors who will make their debut in 2015 and 2016. It doesn't appear that Russia or Romania are in an enviable position either, so who knows, 2014 may be fairly evenly matched in that sense.

Picture interlude! I have a feeling this post will be loooong..

Shang Chunsong receives her prize. Source - Che Li's weibo

He Kexin kisses a dolphin. Source - weibo.com/haiyanjidiguan

The bed of a (UB) world champion. Source - weibo.com/xujingleiticao

And back to business with the upcoming seniors.

Name: Wang Yan
Turns senior: 2015
YOG elegible: Yes
Best event: Vault or beam
All-arounder: Yes
Skills: DTT, Rudi, Shawn Johnson's acro line on beam - BHS 2 feet, BHS 2 feet, layout.
Notable D-scores: 6.7 BB, 6.2, 6.0 VT
Why Wang Yan: Wang Yan is tiny and compact, but powerful. She has huge vaults, SERIOUSLY huge for China let alone a junior, but is far from a one-eventer. Her full beam d-score is 6.7 which I'll admit she hasn't hit this year, though she did get 6.5 at Chinese Nationals Prelims in May. Floor is not anything to get excited for yet, though her landings on tumbles are nice and high. Bars show potential, not great flow or handstands currently. She has had some issues with injury this year so didn't have a good National Games but thankfully looked a lot better at the Japan Junior, placing second behind Bailie Key in the AA, with 14.950 on vault and 14.7 on beam. At this competition she placed higher in the AA than Laurie Hernandez, Andreea Munteanu, Maria Bondareva, Maria Kharenkova and Kim Janas, amongst others. Little bean, as she is now known, also placed second on vault and third on beam. Not bad for one who seemed to spring up out of nowhere in the midst of well-known juniors. She's more than likely going to be China's representative at YOG next year so hopefully she will show more progress on floor and bars there.

She's had better landings than this (wasn't fully healthy here), but I can't find any others :( Youku is for obvious reasons impossible for me to search.

Name: Liu Tingting
Turns Senior: 2016
YOG elegible: No
Best event: Floor I think
All-arounder: Yes
Skills: Nothing worth mentioning so far. Her d-scores have increased dramatically since last year but it's moreso the potential at the moment.
Notable D-scores: 5.8 BB
Why Liu Tingting: Aside from lovely long lines and extension, despite being very short, Liu Tingting shows massive potential in the all-around. Her legs seem quite springy and powerful so she looks well capable of a good standard of difficulty in time, yet she's also very graceful. Fabulous execution on everything except twisting, where she unfortunately sickles a bit but even her double pike and tuck look amazing. It's so interesting how perfect execution on a skill can make it look quite different in a way to the norm. She had the highest beam execution score at Chinese Nationals Prelims this year and also the highest execution on bars last year at Nationals, where she scored 9.0 which is basically 9.7. She has a lovely swing on bars and the makings of a great routine there, and is similarly stunning on beam but I do think she shines on floor. Hard to pick really. 

Bars Beam Floor


Name: Luo Huan
Turns Senior: 2016
YOG elegible: No
Best event: Beam
All-arounder: Beam/bars specialist but..maybe
Skills: Lin, Lin 1/2 and Ling pirouettes, BHS-BHS 2 feet-layout, Onodi-sheep
Notable D-scores: 6.2 UB, 6.3 BB
Why Luo Huan: For this. The best beam routine of the year, without question. Such a pity she was three years too young for Antwerp. Luo Huan is another princess of technique, execution and extension. Just look at that Onodi and double pike, and the layout which hangs in the air..I think there's a tiny skip there but it's still massive. She has the same precision on bars, with no less than three lovely pirouettes and a sky-high Jaeger. Ignore the silly fall. She is essentially a joy to watch and amongst a nation of bars and beam queens, still manages to stand out. 

Name: Yuan Xiaoyang
Turns Senior: 2015
YOG elegible: Yes
Best event: Vault
All-arounder: Edit: Maybe. The 2.8 bars routine is not hers actually!
Skills: DTT, BHS-BHS 2 feet-Layout, switch ring leap.
Notable D-scores: 6.0 VT, BB
Why Yuan Xiaoyang: She's powerful, basically. Has a better build than quite a few of her fellow national team members, which is always helpful. Not quite as clean as the two above who are really quite textbook, but could be just as useful if not moreso since of course, vault is an issue with this team. Her inferior execution is explained by her late entry to the sport, she started off a diver no less, so hasn't had as much grounding in basics as the others. Her floor hasn't reached the same level as vault and nor has Wang Yan's actually, but I'm optimistic that both have the goods and the power to build difficult routines. Surprisingly, Yuan Xiaoyang is also good on beam, with a high difficulty solid routine. She may not be the most stylish or with standout execution but I have a feeling she might prove the old adage 'slow and steady wins the race'.

Beam Floor Unfortunately her DTT is not to be found, but it exists I swear..

Name: Lv Jiaqi
Turns Senior: 2016
YOG elegible: No
Best event: Beam
All-arounder: At the moment UB/BB but..I think she could well be
Skills: switch ring leap, BHS-BHS 2 feet-Layout-wolf jump-scissone, BHS-LOSO (go on, add another!), Lin
Notable D-scores: 6.0 UB, 6.3 BB
Why Lv Jiaqi: She's oldschool, I always feel like I'm watching a Chinese gymnast from the 90's glory days. There is an elegance and presence in the way she moves and performs that is beyond her years. Another who shines on beam and bars, but in a different way I feel. I thought last year she might be one of the fan favourites whose gymnastics is great to watch but who doesn't really get anywhere, but she has definitely shown this year that she means business. I'm hoping her floor and vault can progress too. And if your eyes watered at the killer dead hang below, the good news is she's in a good group to learn some shaps.

If you're looking for her on youtube, her name is Lv, or Lu with an umlaut (which stubbornly refuses to paste correctly..). Writing Lu will find the Lu (umlaut) videos though.

Bars Beam


Name: Wang Wei
Turns Senior: 2014
YOG elegible: No
Best event: Floor
All-arounder: Bars are not her thing..I'm going with no
Skills: DTY (?) DLO, tucked full-in, triple twist, round off-layout
Notable D-scores: 5.8 VT (?), 6.0 BB, 5.6 FX
Why Wang Wei: Two main reasons; she can tumble AND she's turning senior next year, when she is badly needed in the small pool of girls China have for Nanning. It's quite an impressive skill selection she has on floor, with some connections either from tumbling or dance, it would boost her difficulty higher still. Her vault, as seen above, is in question. There WAS a DTY. It has not appeared in a good while and has caused some issues with bad landings, so she has reverted to a FTY. She's still classed as having a DTY and it may well reappear (safely, hopefully!) so I will leave it as a mystery. Leaps are not Wang Wei's friend and they're in sharp contrast to the girls above, but I wouldn't write off her beam either.

Beam
Floor

Other juniors to nerd up on: Fan Yilin 1999, Qin Chang 1999, Mei Jie 1999, Xu Chujun 1999, Zhou Linlin, 2000. It might be difficult as youtube is not overwhelmed with videos of Chinese juniors. But, names to keep in mind. Fan Yilin is glorious on bars, Qin Chang's event is beam, Mei Jie beam and bars, Xu Chujun beam and floor and Zhou Linlin leans towards AA.

There is quite obviously a dearth of floor workers and vaulters, and a gap as the glut of new seniors will be 2015 and 2016 - next year is lacking bigtime. Of course, China spend longer on and care more about basics and flexibility, so skills are added later, compared to other countries.  I don't think they will be able to pull off great results next year under the circumstances. But I do expect the gymnasts mentioned here to make their mark. It's not unusual for teams to have off years and while China has deeper problems such as filtering by body type still, they can be up at the top again.