New Kids on the Block: Eastern Europe and elsewhere

Hungary

Hungary have not really had a break-out gymnast since Henrietta Onodi. Funding is an issue but there is definitely talent lurking.



Noemie Makra

Noemie needs a lot more difficulty to contend with the top few, but is a very good all-around prospect, strong on bars and floor in particular. Slight form issues, but could well go further than any gymnast from Hungary has done since Henrietta Onodi. Nice technique and form overall, and long lines. Noemi will turn senior in 2013. No photos of her.

Nice clean tumbling and classical dance. Needs lots more difficulty and better spin control.

Lovely to watch, such clean acro skills and she's very light and floaty on the beam.

Mistake aside, she has beautiful form here. Lots to build and needs to hit handstands but she has lovely bodyline and flight.

Her execution got her into the vault finals even though she didn't have the difficulty to really compete well. This is fabulous, legs glued together and more PERFECT form. Hopefully it translates well to upgrading.


Ukraine

Ukraine really need a few gymnasts with Lilia Podkopayeva consistency but it doesn't look like that's happening yet, sadly. They have issues both with money and with a lack of team spirit/unity from the coaches. The beauty is there and the difficulty is on the way..some more consistent with not falling than others, but hopefully it can gel together before Rio. Mariya Livchikova the fabulous senior has unfinished business, injured at worlds, injured for the test event to qualify to London, a dissapointing Euros and then a fabulous showing at Nationals. She definitely has more to give. Nataliya Kononenko and Yana Demyanchuk are strong too, though headcases abound in both the junior and senior ranks as usual! Cannot find photos of this lot.



Darya Matveyeva

Darya is especially fabulous on bars, but could definitely be a strong all-arounder. Unfortunately falls are not out of the question for her but the potential is all there, hoping she makes the transition to senior well and builds on her difficulty and consistency.

Tiny leg seperation here and there and some short handstands, but this is a beautiful routine with gorgeous lines. She could have knocked herself out had she hit the bar on that dismount! Bursting with potential here, she already has high difficulty

Lovely. She's usually quite wobbly here, but this one was really well done.

Weak difficulty, but glorious elegance and looks to have lots of room to upgrade

Darya Kloptsova

Darya Kloptsova is bursting with potential. Steadier than some of her teammates, and she has more time to work on it as she turns senior in 2014. Beautiful to watch on floor and bars and her beam has some nice touches.

Gorgeous! Obviously weak in difficulty, but she's quite clean and has beautiful choreo

More of the same issues here, handstands and lack of flight, but it looks great and can only get better.

Lovely work, needs much more attack of course but lots of potential


Olesya Sazonova

Olesya is more of an unknown, but she definitely figures into the equation because she has quite a lot of difficulty compared to her teammates on floor, and seems quite solid on beam too. A very valuable gymnast for them. She has improved dramatically since 2011 apparently, so let's hope she continues. Great power on floor and confidence on beam (cannot find bars or vault), she lacks finesse with landings and some leaps though. She turns senior in 2013.

Wonderful. She exudes confidence here, great choreography. Landings need work.

Great attack, wonderful to see from a Ukrainian. She needs to be more polished, but beam and floor are very strong. 

Other Ukrainian juniors of note: Olena Vasylieva



Belarus

Belarus has never figured since the break-up of the Soviet Union, although they were the nation that produced some fabulous Soviet greats like Svetlana Boguinskaya. It would be really wonderful to see them make an impact.


Dayana Hryhoryeva

 Dayana specialises in uneven bars, of all the juniors she is the best bars worker as she has phenomenal swing and form and makes everything look effortless. Very graceful to watch on floor, really exquisitite form and she is bursting with poise and artistry. She is another who could become an event specialist or continue building her difficulty up to be an all-arounder, although she desperately needs higher d-scores to contend in the future, she does not lack power or skill to upgrade so she should be able to keep up.

AMAZING. Impeccable form, even on releases, lovely bodyline and she effortlessly hits handstands and transitions. Huge potential here.

Fluke mistake here, but still lovely to watch. Recovers very well from the mistake, excellent form and choreography and does two double saltos from only one round-off which would imply she can fling much more difficult tumbles in the future.

Looks very nervous and fell obviously, but this does look fixable.



Canada

Canada will be hoping to continue strong after their best-ever result and first ever qualifying for team finals in London. They are losing their best senior, Peng Peng Lee to UCLA but they still have some strong seniors and a diamond in the rough coming up through their junior ranks.


Shallon Olsen

 Shallon looks to be the full package as a gymnast. She can dance, has good flexibility, clean tumbling- AND super high difficulty. In fact her level of difficulty is a bit worrying as she has only just turned 12- senior in 2016- and having that difficulty so early sounds like a recipe for disaster- either injury, burn out, or a huge struggle to retain her skills as she grows. Hoping she can stay at this fabulous level, she's very exciting to watch and certainly looks like one of the strongest all-arounders if she can keep going for another 4 years.

Love her dance and confidence. GREAT tumbling- what a first pass for an 11 year old! (11 at this competition) Needs more finesse with her leaps and toepoint but this just screams future floor star.

Lots of difficulty here too. Beautiful flexibility and her acro skills look amazing, but this lacks fluidity due to her pauses and excessive bending before skills. Probably a bad habit as she certainly does not lack power.

Bars look to be her weak point, but look as if they could be really good and absolutely not bad enough to hold her back as an all-arounder. Toepoint is really obvious here and she doesn't hit her handstands or hold her leg form well enough- but she's very speedy and flighty and with some hard work on form, these could be special.

Nice DTY, lovely upright landing and she holds the form very well. Again, wow at the difficulty from one so young. She needs to be coached extremely well and paced better to remain at this level.

This is much lower and I'm not sure what it is- one in the Khorkina style obviously but I don't know it's worth. If she gets more height this would be great to see, vault certainly needs diversity.



Brazil

No country is more in need of fresh young talent than Brazil, as their team was too aged in London to really shine. Funding will probably be more forthcoming as they are hosting the next Olympics so let's hope they can make more of an impact for their home games.


Rebeca Andrade

Rebeca is an unbelievable floor worker who gets crazy height on her tumbles and leaps. Her double tuck and pike have Daiane Dos Santos height, and her twists are reminiscent of the height McKayla Maroney commands on hers. Beam looks really good, her power translates well. Bars are unsurprisingly weak with bad toepoint, but check out her release! Vault is very powerful DTY. Bursting with potential, especially if she can fix her bars and she has lots of time as she will not turn senior until 2015. Wonderfully exciting gymnast who will have all eyes on her to bring glory to Brazil's gymnastics programme for Rio.

WOW. The idea that she would struggle to upgrade is laughable..unreal power and height. Leaps are fantastic too and she can certainly dance.

Super DTY, great height and form, and what an upright landing.

Not her best event, but this is really good. Lovely and floaty and her power serves her well- a standing full twist would be a cinch for her, and a Patterson dismount.

Here comes the weak point! Nevertheless, she has a Comaneci and it is amazing. Lots of form errors like toepoint, but with work this wouldn't be able to hold her back.



I can't find anything concrete on Japan, sadly. They do have plenty of strong seniors, including the as yet untested Mai Murakami of the insane floor upgrades and potential star vaulter, and the wonderful beam worker Natsumi Sasada..not forgetting tiny dynamo Asuka Teramoto as well as veterans Rie Tanaka and Koko Tsurumi, neither of whom look laboured or burned out in the slightest. Japan are the masters of preserving their seniors, which is probably one reason why their juniors are not that big a deal. I know I have missed other countries, but these are the gymnasts with the most potential in MY opinion who come from countries outside of the top 4.





 







 

Subdiv 1 breakdown: Pena doesn't die!

Subdivision 1 is just over. Brazil were the only team. Notable individual gymnasts were Kristina Palesova CZE, Dorina Boczogo HUN, Gomez Porras GUA, Yamilet Pena DOM, Elsa Garcia Rodriguez MEX and Vasilliki Milliusi GRE. E scoring was pretty harsh, especially on beam I thought. I confidently predict that they are going to be harsh with Aly Raisman. Not of course that she is alone, Ponor and Musty are form offenders too. Some absolutely beautiful routines in this subdivision, sure difficulty is low but there is such confidence and maturity in their gymnastics.

Brazil have an incredibly scrappy team, they ran out of alternates after injuries and and Jade Barbosa fiasco. However, they really were focused and 'together' as a team, which was great to see. Unfortunately I missed the first rotation, where they were on floor. Looking forward to Dos Santos who apparently performed well there. Hypolito choked a bit apparently. She looks wrecked and has extremely scary eyeshadow on- all three of her national colours. But she's 27 and competed all-around! Very good beam from her and she kept it together on bars. Very odd to see Dos Santos on bars! Bad enough form, but such energy! Freitas, the last minute stand-in fell off beam and had another huge wobble but the rest of that routine was lovely.

Highlights

- Kristina Palesova's bars! Brilliant form and swing, unfortunately very low difficulty.
- Dorina Boczogo on floor. She stepped OOB, but anything she does looks beautiful. Unfortunately she sat her 1.5 yurchenko.
- Ana Sofia Gomez Porras on beam. It was great, so solid and so elegant. It looks a little low to make finals, but scoring is harsh in general..
- Millousi on beam. Just perfection in her movements
- Pena getting a score for her Prod! She sat it but got her feet down first. Her DTY was AMAZING and she got a bit choked up, as did her coach, lovely to see. She has sooo made vault finals, high enough score in the 14's when averaged.

Unfortunately either I missed Elsa's beam in the first rotation or it wasn't shown. The colouring isn't near as harsh as you'd expect, it looks okay. BBC commentators are just great to hear, nice and objective. Now, subdiv 2 almost starting! I like the Brazil leo, good mixture of their colours. Millousi takes the prize for understated elegance and general great leo- white is always a winner. The rest were pretty boring.

Podium Training news

The good

- USA looking ready to go on basically everything
- Maroney nailing her amanars (still with the step but even so..) and her Mustafina
- Musty looking very sharp and clean on all four- sticking DTY's
- Hannah Whelan has a DTY! That will help her out, especially when the new code kicks in
- Pena not dying on vault. Prod still questionable but she's not crashing them completely
- Millousi and Preziosa rocked their awesome beams
- Victoria Moors great on floor
- Vika landed amanars well
- Beth Tweddle looked awesome on floor
- Great bars from Huang Qiushuang, Gabby, Kyla, Vika and Grishina
- Huang Qiushuang in general having a great day
- Russia had a surprisingly good beam rotation
- Aly pointed her toes on bars! Stronger bars than her usual. This will help her out IF she manages to qualify for AA
- Afan was fantastic on floor..so impatient to see this routine!
- Jenni Pinches looked really good on floor, maybe she has found consistency?
- Campana, the last-minute substitute for Deagostini of Italy had a really good comp and confirmed the justice of her selection
- There's not just Vika and Aly's Patterson's- Elsa Garcia of Mexico nailed loads of them!
- Daiane Dos Santos lands a full twisting double layout and a double layout. Now aged 29, it doesn't look like any gymnast can ever top her tumbling power.
- Romania looking great on floor which they really need with the partial loss of their star. Diana Bulimar could really shine now.
- Lovely bars from Rie Tanaka. Will have to look up her difficulty but it would be so great to see her in bars EF
- Cata has a full twisting double layout! Really making her case for floor EF medal now
- Izbasa throws her Cheng and a beautiful Mustafina! Vault silver??
- Chelaru does what appears to be a timer for an amanar. Intriguing!
- Iordache did a full beam and bars, and did some vault and floor work (very light). Such determination when she is clearly in pain. Maybe this fire can help her compete strongly

The bad

- No floor from Maroney, who is being preserved and only doing vault. A beautiful routine which will be missed at these Olympics
- This means using Kyla in prelims, her score can be dropped but it makes it more annoying that it has such a stupidly low SV when she has such potential
- Rebecca Tunney hurt herself on a tumbling pass and cried BUT she did vault after so it doesn't seem serious
- Canada had a really crappy time on vault
- Lauren Mitchell had a really rough time, messing up badly on both floor and beam
- Aly had issues with her first tumbling pass
- Koko Tsurumi after throwing some low and dodgy tumbling on floor landed on her head on one, and was unable to continue on floor. However, she did compete afterwards..
- Paseka crashed her amanar more than once, the only thing she is on the team for- though stood them up all week
- Grishina's Silivas not looking competition ready
- Yao Jinnan had a pretty rough day and does not look on top form. UPDATE: Rumours of a thigh muscle strain :(
- Deng Linlin still wearing a back brace and looks to be in pain
- France who have a pretty scrappy team after being plagued with injuries looked rough and not ready, as they have done all week
- Brazil having issues with vault, Hypolito in particular
- Gabby sat at least one amanar and had problems on beam...not a suprise but both are her weak points if she's going four for four
- USA had an unbelievably gross leotard. Not only was it a disgusting pepto pink shade, it was also way too shiny with tacky looking silver stars AND mesh cut outs and weird stripes in the chest area. If Maroney cannot make it look good, it's an eyesore. 
- Not one but TWO leopard print sleeveless leotards! Rotten Tina Erceg of Croatia and Laura Svilpaite of Lithuania were the offenders.

The injuries

- In heartbreaking news, Bitang has confirmed Larisa Iordache will not do the AA. Terrible news for her and her team and B&B- but also the Olympics as a whole, she has very exciting routines and was a top contender for the AA. Devastating. She will compete on bars and beam but it still means Romania are almost certain not to medal now..Bitang said the same too.UPDATE: Iordache's AA status now said to be 50/50, with the decision up to her. It is possible if she gets through prelims that she will have rest and pain relief enough to do the AA..nerves of steel just as important with a decision like that. Hopefully she can, though not at the expense of her health!
- Adrien Gomes of Brazil is out and will not compete. Brazil has been plagued by bad luck and injuries this year, and are pretty much out of replacements at this point. They are extremely unlikely to qualify for TF
- McKayla Maroney is competing on a broken toe and is in pain. Although it is brilliant and very lucky for her team that she can vault and did so today, her floor is a big loss and she also has a decent beam routine.
- As I mentioned before, Anna Li is unable to train as she will be in a neck brace for the next few weeks. It appears that she landed on her neck on her bars fall..very very scary! USAG seem to have a different meaning for 'fine'- what an absolute disgrace. 

14 days to go! And some news

It's really flying by now! Apologies if this comes across as gloating but I am delighted that after suffering severe sleep deprivation watching Classics, Nationals and US Trials...I am in the same timezine as London! I also get to hear BBC commentary, pleasant AND informative.

Here is NBC's schedule.
http://www.nbcolympics.com/gymnastics/results-schedules/index.html
Here is the BBC's.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/2012/schedule-results/list/gymnastics-artistic

It's worth noting that BBC's prelims on Sunday have a 5 minute headstart on NBC's, though I doubt it will be significant stuff, just marching in or whatever and rosters.

London is in GMT. East coast American time is 5 HOURS behind. West coast times are 8 HOURS behind. I know that it is not really practical for people who are working to commence watching at 4.30AM etc. and that plenty of you will be avoiding the gymternet and waiting for the NBC tape delay in primetime. Please avoid this blog too while you're waiting! I am not going to liveblog as I don't want to miss anything. But I will have results and breakdowns and opinions etc. in between sessions. I'll put a spoiler alert in those post titles anyway. Just in case, as most of my readers are American!

Lais Souza of Brazil and Tatiana Nabieva of Russia are injured and both out, of the team and as alternate respectively. Brazil are a little bit screwed now, they've already lost Jade Barbosa and Daiane is past her prime, form is bad but wow she can still knock out the difficulty at 29! Nabieva is actually quite a good stand in. Russia don't have much of a back-up left, Sidorova is injured too. Bebs (I really can't spell her name) is suffering with her growth and certainly not at her best. This means Pavlova could take the alternate spot! Souza will probably be replaced by Ethiene Franco. Injury count is now at 9. Let's hope Marta doesn't break any! Romania seem to have the smartest approach in not burning out their athletes, everyone should learn from them.

AA d-score post is now updated. Huang Qiushang is well up there, but Vika has pretty much taken over from everyone. More pressure on Iordache to take all of her full upgrades. Anything can happen! In an interview with China's coaches it was said that Yao Jinnan has greatly improved her bars. This probably means that 7.2 bars are not just a rumour but more of a definite possiblity. Lots of amanaring going on. Rodionenko has stated he believes China will bring 3 amanars. WTF?? It really does seem like 1 and 2 DTY's. You just never know with China (or Russia, or Romania for that matter). Russia have upgraded their floors and beams nicely, with 3 amanars and that lovely bars advantage they are out for blood.

Mai Murakami is now training a triple twisting double layout. NOT on a competition floor, though it looks like it could be, she landed totally upright. This means she now has a double double on floor, a double layout, a triple full, a triple twisting double back and a triple twisting double layout. Well, has or is training. Let's not forget she has killer vaults lining up too. Drool.

A photo of Musty shows her doing a switch ring on beam. This ups her d-score by 0.2 meaning her total beats Komova at 26.1!

Jade Barbosa- WTF

In non-USA news and probably the most retarded gym-related news I have heard all year, Jade Barbosa has kissed her Olympic place goodbye. Not because of injury. Jade refused to sign a contract binding her to wear the leotards and warm-ups of the team sponsor, rather than her own sponsor and also did not attend a selection meet. There may be more to this than we are hearing. Maybe her sponsor put her under a huge amount of pressure not to sign- if so, shame on them for forgetting to put her first. Maybe it is a case of if she signs and joins the team she will have absolutely no money to live off afterwards due to breaking with her sponsors- who knows? This news is such a WTF is she seriously jeopardising her place over THIS but I will hold off on that until it's certain who is to blame and whether there are any other factors at place. Regardless, she was an asset to this team and her vault especially will be missed.

A great emotional gold medal win

Daiane Dos Santos gets a lot of flak for her landings. I think it is a bit out of proportion. She has phenomenal tumbling, the highest and most powerful we have ever seen AND she has a great sense of rthynm. She senses the music far more than others do. I can forgive her often not-stuck landings easily when I see a floor routine like hers. Admittedly her tumbling form has deteriorated recently but at age 29 she is still displaying a double layout AND a full-twisting double layout as well as her ever-present great dance, impressive stuff! Very sad that she is most remembered for the two tumbles named after her and not for winning copious amounts of floor titles, due to plenty of OOB's and over-rotations. Plenty have landed her Dos Santos I, but never as high and as upright on landing. Nobody has dared her Dos Santos II yet!  Here she is clinching gold in 2003. It's always great to see someone from a non-gymnastics country win, but especially here in hindsight that she never achieved a victory of this level again.