I've been expecting to hear this news for a while, and although hope dwindled entirely last year that she would truly get it together and shine, it still sucks when someone so young and with such talent retires.
She had a great beam routine at Doha last year but then declined throughout the year, falling on almost all beam routines and struggling elsewhere, culminating in a spectacular meltdown at the Mexican Open. Zeng suffered an ankle injury in late 2011 and never fully bounced back from it, rapidly losing her DTY and making no progress on floor. I would imagine that it's a big factor in her decision, coupled with general loss of enthusiam for her sport. Edit- another factor I keep forgetting about is the loss of her coach, He Hua was fired last year. It's probable she did not adjust well to the coaching group she was subsequently placed in.
I don't use weibo/baidu myself or as a source for obvious reasons but here's some backup. Disclaimer - No, not a 100% verifiable bavkup but I think it's the only one saying anything about her return to her province. However, I do not make stuff up or state explicitly when I am unsure.
Many people in the know have confirmed this, and they are the source. Not a forum. Wonderfully expressive dancer.
First, here are some of the Chinese juniors I was discussing. Google images doesn't have a clue who they are...yet.
Copyright- ZhouYouShiJie
Luo Huan, master beam and bars technician.
Copyright- ZhouYouShiJie
Liu Tingting, the light and floaty all-arounder.
Copyright- ZhouYouShiJie
Lv Jiaqi, old-school fabulousness. How striking is she?!
Copyright- ZhouYouShiJie
Wang Wei, tumbler extraordinaire.
Copyright- ZhouYouShiJie
Wang Yan, the star.
Copyright- ZhouYouShiJie
Yuan Xiaoyang (on right. Lv Jiaqi on left), diver turned powerful all-arounder.
We will hopefully see some of them at Pac Rims.
Moving on to (somewhat) recent competitors before it gets too hazy in my mind..
Ebee
Back to the AA with a bang. Really great to see her in action after US Nationals where she just wasn't ready. The amanar looked great in the training video, at Stuttgart and...at Glasgow too. She looked to me to have the height to land it there also, but I'm sure it will only improve. Lovely open double double, some awesome bar work especially the Church to bail but I think she most surprised me on beam. Her routine at Glasgow was just awesome, I don't think she even betrayed a flicker. Interesting composition also. The battle between her and Larisa Iordache was very interesting to see, however, I thought they would be closer. Ebee gets hit for her switch half leap I believe, and she was penalised on bars at Stuttgart for not hitting handstand in her bail, but other than that I thought the scoring was a little harsh on her. Or maybe not, but in comparison to some others.
Fantastic comeback performances and I'm very interested to see where she goes from here. Her bars alone are very valuable, though she is committed to Stanford starting next year. She could always defer..but then maybe conservation for college is better than staying in elite and getting injured.
Larisa Iordache
What a heartbreaker this girl is. The last time she hit in the AA was at Euros. At worlds of course she hadn't returned to training long enough to be consistent. But since then she has fallen more than once, with one fall at each of Stuttgart and Glasgow. Bars has majorly improved, when she doesn't rush through the routine. But consistency has dogged her before the injury that nearly kept her from worlds, and the plandular fasciitis that dogged her Olympics. It's strange, she doesn't seem like an inconsistent gymnast but when you look back at her record..
Anyway, I'm very pleased with how her bars are looking, and it looks like the 6.7 beam if not the 6.9 is well within her reach. I thought her vault was noticeably worse at Glasgow but then she went right after a balk so maybe she just got a bit nervous. All in all, she did very well to beat Ebee at Glasgow and looks to be set on course for a good year. Especially if she can gain more consistency.
Roxana Popa
I was absolutely thrilled when she won Mexican Open AA. And not surprised at all. This girl is on fire with three events out of four, and beam, her weakest, is getting stronger I think. Floor is just fabulous, her second pass is fantastic and her Memmel is surprisingly good. Bars have some technical issues letting them down, they really are so strong otherwise. On the back of that win over not one but two Americans (granted..both of them fell), I had high hopes she could hold her own in Glasgow and fight for bronze. But it wasn't to be when on her first event, vault, she balked and threw a layout yurchenko worth 4.4 instead of her usual dynamic DTY. A very smart decision since she obviously felt something was wrong in her block or approach, but still very sad. Her bars score was I felt criminally low, but I'm no COP expert and apparently there are deductions there and quite a few. Maybe the angle isn't the best for me to tell as well.
So quite an up-and-down few weeks for her. Hopefully beam and bars can be further worked on, and the latter upgraded. I feel she has a lot to show and can make an impact on the world stage as well as Euros.
Asuka Teramoto
That Rudi came out of nowhere at Glasgow! She had been having issues with the DTY and a video was shown of her training a DTT..but a Rudi was totally out of left field. No, it was not super clean but it looked serviceable and a good foundation for further improvement. Sadly, she injured herself on it at the Toyoto Chunichi World Cup. Hopefully it's minor and she's back on track with the vault and her other upgrades, like beam, in time for Pac Rims at least.
Asuka in general is not as clean as the typical Japanese gymnast, but so very impressive nonetheless and her form doesn't stand out as bad on the international stage. Hopefully she can sparkle next year, like she did at her international debut (to the mainstream) in London.
Bailie Key
Is reassuredly human. I begin to think she's a robot of consistent clean routines, but she has counted two falls now this year, beam at Japan Junior and now floor at Mexican Open- though both off-season, of course. Not to mention that she seems to have grown a lot. Nonetheless, she managed to win the Junior AA Mexican Open, remaining undefeated in the AA for the entire year. What a gymnast this girl is. It's thrilling to think of what she will be like as a senior. In particular, I'm looking forward to seeing her bars develop, she's well capable of more, though I do admire her pacing so easy bars from her now isn't a bad thing.
Peyton Ernst
Peyton has been dogged by falls this year, and Mexican Open was no different, with one on beam and a fluke fall on floor. It's always hard to know, especially with the injury rate, who can make a major team but I can't see Peyton on one. She does not stand out enough on any event except maybe beam, but her execution lets her down somewhat. Maggie Nichols
I see more hope with Maggie though. I'm not sure exactly why...she's cleaner and more solid but still doesn't stand out. But sometimes it's the quiet ones.
Zeng Siqi
Why is she getting assignments. She needs serious conditioning and excellent coaching to be of use again. In fairness to her, she is hindered still by an ankle injury she picked up two years ago. But her beam going downhill to the point that she now can't stay on it at all is a separate issue. Her beam at Mexican Open was not exactly surprising, but so sad. She has a beautiful beam and is a lovely dancer, but I can't help but write her off.
Edit- I may have forgotten Stuttgart's team competition...
A win for Team China is always going to be fabulous news in my book. Unfortunately, it was very much an A team against a lesser calibre from Russia..minus Aliya Mustafina of course, and she only competed one event. A little bit of 'who can fall less' was in evidence. Yao Jinnan and Tan Jiaxin's falls were heartbreaking though the latter was not surprising. Good news lies in the fact that Huang Huidan and Tan Sixin hit some beautiful routines on beam. Speaking of beam, Aliya Mustafina appears to have been fired up by her new worlds title there, producing yet more steady routines. Which have been changed, again..it's like she gets bored having the same routine for more than a few weeks. BUT I'm really loving the new front aerials..they're very precise and well done. An Onodi is classed as a front element so she was credited for a CR in team qualifications that she didn't do. I hate that..it's happening a bit too often in my book. Thankfully she snuck in a BHS in team finals. This little team showdown highlighted the fact that I think Nanning is going to be a very scrappy team finals since depth is non-existent except for the US, and I don't believe even their team will be really stellar.
Glasgow was the only competition that I was able to watch from start to finish. And what a splatfest it was. I suppose that is not surprising given the time of year, but it was so disappointing. Ruby Harrold and Raer Theaker coming to grief in front of a (pretty much) home crowd, Asuka on beam when it was all going so well and she looked like she could snatch bronze, Roxana and the troublesome vault, Ebee and the amanar, Larisa on beam...
Bring on next year :) Especially March and April which look to be crammed with competitions...
Who stood out in a good or bad way from the recent competitions? Should Ebee and Larisa have been closer like I thought? How annoying were the Glasgow announcers?
First up since it's freshest in my mind is the Chinese National Games prelims. This competition will have team, AA and event finals, with a limit of two-per-province for each non-team final. Prelims have already told us a lot, relying on translated quick hits as the livestream did not function for me and videos are unlikely to surface today (time difference, it's quite late there now).
- Yao Jinnan hit an excellent bars set, scoring 15.567 with 6.7 difficulty. No Mo salto but there's still time for that and her 7.0 routine is said to be ready. She connected a Chow-Pak-Chow 1/2. She landed low on her full twist on beam, had wobbles and then fell on her layout :( Her floor was extremely watered down and she seemed to hurt herself on her DTY. She may have exacerbated an injury she was already dealing with.On seeing the video, that definitely looks to be the case.
- Shang Chunsong HIT 4/4, sticking her FTY, nailing her floor set with the first pass done well and in bounds, earning 14.634, wobbling but staying on the beam and a great bars set earning her a score of 57.101, which is huge in China. She did have an upgrade on bars but did not do another connection, so the 14.9 she got there should hopefully be higher in the future. Lost some of her start value on beam due to wobbles, but her full potential is 7.0 UB, 6.6+ BB, 6.1 FX and 5.0 (training DTY, unlikely to appear this year though) VT. Watch out..
- Tan Jiaxin was a heartbreaker. Hit a DTY and full twisting Tsuk (FTT- same vault set as Larisa Iordache and plenty of others) but she crashed her full twisting double layout bars dismount, placing ninth and therefore needing someone to drop out in order to prove herself.
- Huang Huidan HIT bars and beam, highly unusual. Her bars score was a huge 15.5! I can't help feeling more confident now about her. Third qualifier to the AA final too.
- Zeng Siqi had a disaster, falling on beam and sitting her dismount, as well as wobbles and downgrades. She did not come close to qualifying for event finals as a result. Bars, vault and floor were okay, but she is really going for one event and one event only and this has very much jeopardised her worlds spot..especially since while the routine may have been a fluke, her lack of endurance is not and the dismount has long been a problem.
- Huang Qiushuang fell on beam, but hit bars. We'll see her in both the AA and bars finals.
- Sui Lu had a great day, 1st on beam and 2nd on floor. Who knows, she could maybe be persuaded to go to worlds..
- Fellow veteran He Kexin hit her bars, scoring 15.367. They were reported not to be to the best of her ability however, but still a fantastic score.
- It was not to be for Deng Linlin who sat her beam dismount, unfortunately, and was devastated.
- Wu Liufang touched the beam during her routine and fell on bars. This is not going to be a worlds where she is unfairly left behind, I think she is done as regards big competitions.
- Junior superstar Lv Jiaqi did really well, fourth qualifier to the AA and will compete in beam finals as a major challenger. She is a whopping 8 years younger than Sui Lu..
- Some other star juniors were hampered by injury, like Wang Yan who fell on beam but hit a new double twisting tsuk, and Liu Tingting who also fell on beam and had a very messy floor. Others like Mei Jie were absent altogether.
- Gorgeous Yang Yilin-esque Fan Yilin had a killer bars set, scoring a huge 15.234! Right in the medal hunt.
- Tan Sixin fell on bars but hit beam.
So, Shang Chunsong solidified her place on the worlds team and even lessened doubts over her consistency into the bargain. We have seen some super-solid beam sets from her this year so I'm confident she can do that in at least one of the all-around and beam finals at NG. Yao cemented her place for bars alone..hopefully she can do the all-around but it's not looking good. Huang Huidan did herself a lot of favours for one of the most inconsistent gymnasts they have, and her spot on the team which was provisional as they all were, now looks even more likely. Zeng Siqi though is teetering on the edge. If Sui Lu can be persuaded to put off her retirement by about a month, that spot could well be hers.
Some videos already! Here. Hopefully more from either this channel or another. No Piibunina this time! The long two hour video is subdivision 2, which includes Yao Jinnan and Huang Huidan, amongst others. You might notice that the beam doesn't look right..because it wasn't, tilted to the right near the dismount mats. Lots of complaints about it, and lots of falls in the one place/one side. Frustrating to say the least. I heard the link above has taken down individual routines, so there is another link here. Running it through translate, from left to right, row by row- He Kexin FX, Wu Liufang BB, Yao Jinnan FX, Yao Jinnan BB, Deng Linlin FX, Deng Linlin BB, Guan Wenli BB, Shang Chunsong (whose name translates as providers Haramatsu??) FX, Zeng Siqi FX, Shang Chunsong BB, Zeng Sigi BB, Shang Chunsong UB, Jiang Tong VT, Sui Lu BB, Tan Sixin BB, Tan Sixin UB, Wang Wei FX, Yao Jinnan UB, He Kexin UB.
At Interland, Diana Bulimar won the AA title. Unfortunately, her difficulty remains much the same. It's extremely disappointing that a gymnast with such ease in her floor and beam routines has routines that won't get her anywhere near event finals. I will still hold out some hope...there is still Romanian Nationals as well as worlds itself. On a more positive note, she's got a new floor and I really like it! Nice and quirky, not childish but still fast-paced. It has been suspected for a while that Sandra Izbasa would only do floor, which indeed was exactly the case. Her floor in qualifications/AA was watered down but she made some upgrades for event finals which was nice to see- a very respectable 6.1 difficulty. It will be interesting to see if she can bring back the front full instead of the front layout, or any dance upgrades. I'm not a fan of her new choreography yet, I love the music but she seems to have little interest in the routine and it's dull and lacklustre. Hopefully she can sell it more.
I was so thrilled that Noel Van Klaveren hit in the all-around, but she was back to her inconsistent self by event finals. That 1.5 tsuk upgrade is causing problems, probably best to downgrade for the moment. Her beam was beautiful, really nice work. Chantysha Netteb won vault and wisely had her beam dismount downgraded. These two are obvious locks for the worlds team. Sanne Wevers had a 6.2 beam but some difficulty with it...not sure if she could be in contention for a spot or not.
The British girls were a bit of a mixed bag. Thrilled Rebecca Tunney is bursting with potential and new upgrades including a Bhardwaj because..why not, but she was having a good few problems and didn't qualify for either bars or beam finals as a result. Being out for so long with injury and recovery undoubtedly set her back, hopefully she can come back fighting at worlds. Hannah Whelan majorly impressed me with her beam including my favourite series- aerial to two layout stepouts (think Dudnik), and so did Ruby Harrold with an amazing bars routine in event finals, which was not only hit but more flighty and cleaner than it has been. Becky Downie was 50/50, big errors on bars both days but she seems to be back to her best on beam. That will be an interesting team to pick..
TCG have got a lovely post about event finals with all of the best routines, here. The sponsors of the meet have made a great video edit, just like they did at EYOF.
Dun dun dun! Russia have named their worlds team. Aliya Mustafina, Tatiana Nabieva, Maria Paseka and either Viktoria Komova if she's ready or Anna Rodionova if not. First things first, while Ksenia Afanasyeva's surgery was not serious, it was ill-timed. She'll be fine by December apparently, so she just about misses out. So disappointing as she has looked better this year, her sixth year as a senior, than ever. And....that was the sound of the floor title being blown wide open and Maria Paseka getting very lucky to get her spot. Paseka's vaults have been very hit or miss lately, so she's a bit of a gamble. Komova if she's ready will do beam and maybe bars. Rodionova if she goes will just do beam. The third bars spot if Komova doesn't do them goes to Paseka. Where is Anastasia Grishina and why on earth is she not down in place of Rodionova? Good question. Either her back isn't fully there yet and she is being wisely rested, or she has joined Anna Pavlova in the dungeon of beautiful unwanted gymnasts. Rodionova is delicate, injury-prone, inconsistent and has low difficulty. Despite all that her gymnastics is beautiful but when you add it up like that..she's not a great prospect, this year at least. The major problem I have with this team is the huge pressure Aliya Mustafina will be under, as the expectations on her in proportion to the rest of the team will be immense. She's not a gymnast who would shy away from that and will probably thrive to some extent under the strain..but it's still a lot for one person!
Brazil and Ukraine have also joined the ranks of naming their teams. Brazil will send Danielle Hypolito whose first worlds was in 1999 and has competed in almost all to date, Laetitia Costa and Jade Barbosa. It is not known yet if Barbosa will actually compete, it depends on how her injury is doing. Ukraine are sending Angelina Kislaya, Krystyna Sankova, Olesya Sazonova and Olena Vasylieva. No worlds for Daria Matveyeva. Kislaya is pretty good on bars, and Sankova and Sazonova have good potential on floor but their entire WAG programme is so fractured I would be very surprised if any of them made an event final.
News just in- the Netherlands have named their team. Chantysha Netteb, Noel Van Klaveren, Wyomi Masela and Sanne Wevers will go. The first two are locks, and will do the AA. I'm very glad about the last two, Masela because she had the London spot and lost it and Wevers because her beam is nothing short of awesome. A really nice team.
And Australia are sending...nobody! They upped their qualifying standards I believe across the board, but it's bad timing for a post-Olympic year and a gymnastics programme that it's in the process of rebuilding. In a way it makes sense, but it's a wasted opportunity for their new seniors. Maddie Leydin and Kiara Munteanu show huge promise, as indeed do some of the older girls. Only two showed up for trials, with the others crying off from injury or inability to hit the standards which were..wait for it..6.3 difficulty on balance beam with a score of 14.8. Optimism to the point of foolishness. I suppose they would have needed an amanar too.
I'm sure plenty of people are aware of this but it's news to me as a new gymnastics fan, and presumably others too. At worlds qualifications in Antwerp, (and any post-Olympics worlds) only 3 gymnasts per country can compete each event. This means that there isn't room for 3 gymnasts to battle it out for the all around final and have a fourth specialist compete for her chance in event finals. First of all, this truly makes Maria Paseka redundant this year since Ksenia Afanasyeva can equal or better her vaults while also being a floor favourite, whereas Paseka can only challenge on vault. Unfortunately for Afan, this also means that she's highly unlikely to compete all-around if Viktoria Komova and Aliya Mustafina are fighting fit, unless they only bring these three gymnasts. This is now an ideal opportunity for Anastasia Grishina to impress on beam and bars with some upgrades- I wrote her off before since without upgrades she cannot challenge for a medal anywhere, and while she probably still won't they'll be happy enough to give her the chance I think.
It's no bother to Romania who are only bringing three girls but it makes US Nationals more important as it will effectively decide their second all-arounder, as they also cannot have Simone Biles, Kyla Ross and Brenna Dowell/ Peyton Ernst/ Elizabeth Price battling it out in qualifications. This makes the inclusion of a beam/bars specialist like Peyton Ernst/Abigail Milliet or a healthy Katelyn Ohashi more likely than I previously thought as a team dominated by strong vault/floor workers makes less sense than ever since they can't all compete for the chance to qualify, let alone qualify. For me, despite her strong performance and some floor upgrades, it also betters the case of Kyla not competing the all-around since if you think about it, her floor and vault spots are practically a waste when you consider what the US have in store on those events. Not a particularly popular opinion and I will absolutely shed it IF Kyla has more upgrades in store and really closes the door on anyone else doing the all-around in her stead. Of course, Simone Biles could implode completely as an all-arounder and have to fight McKayla Maroney for a vault/floor spot...there are a lot of possibilities.
For China, it is a golden opportunity for any floor/vault specialists for they cannot have a team where they're all vying for beam and bars spots. If Tan Jiaxin and Sui Lu do well at National Games and if the latter is happy to delay her retirement, they make the most sense since Tan has two strong vaults (DTY/ Tsuk 2/1) as well as a very good hope of making bars finals for which she can battle Yao Jinnan and Shang Chunsong for in qualifications, while not interfering with Sui Lu's chances of similarly battling Yao and Shang for a beam finals spot and potentially floor. Zeng Siqi is still a logical pick for a beam spot though she will need to be back on the National Team by then, but she's not useful on another event..so in short I'm really looking forward to National Games more than ever.
Let the various Nationals/Cups begin!
The good news which is widespread by now is of course that Chellsie Memmel will be competing in power tumbling, aiming for a worlds spot. Chellsie, despite being substantially decorated, never received her rightful Olympics experience thanks to injuries and also never received her due from USAG despite saving them at no less than two world championships team finals with some individual medals- including two world titles- thrown in for good measure. She was of course unfairly treated last year, and I had thought with her subsequent retirement, barely-there Pro Gymnastics Challenge appearance, long career filled with injuries and last but not least, upcoming wedding, that we had seen the last of her in a competitive gymnastics way at least. But underestimate her at your peril! I'd love to have been a fly on the wall when certain people in USAG got wind of this. Power tumbling worlds is pretty close but presumably, she didn't begin training just last week or when she broke the news. Really looking forward to seeing how she gets on in her training and if she doesn't make the worlds team, rest assured CFM remains more of a BAMF than ever. I don't usually use acronyms and I tend not to swear here...but these ones just flow when mentioning this inspirational, incredible gymnast. Go Chellsie!
So, with just less than 5 months to go and coming back from a fairly dissapointing Olympics last year, how are China fixed as regards Worlds? And in general, what are the future prospects towards Rio? The National Games Prelims were a great chance to have a look at where they stand.
- Deng Linlin, He Kexin, Huang Qiushuang and Sui Lu have all said they will retire after the National Games, which will take place in September. This is very very close to Worlds and the East Asian Games, for which they might be persuaded to hold out that little big longer, particularly He Kexin who has a very good chance of making the worlds team. The fading of the old guard is of course sad, but neccessary to pave the way for the focus to be on their new talents.
- China's greatest hope, Yao Jinnan, is regaining her form steadily. She has said herself that she is about 70-80% 'back'. Floor is probably where the most work needs to be done, as she has her DTY and her beam and bars are pretty difficult. Her beam has a 6.7 potential with all connections hit, and while she did have issues with the standing full, it is similar to Aliya Mustafina's beam issues in that she looks very capable of ironing out the problems. Her bars are stellar as always, very sharp and clean work. I don't see any potential for the DTY to become anything else, not least because she injured herself doing a DTY last year. By contrast, floor was watered down quite a lot. If she can get it back similar to how it was during 2011 then she is a major medal threat in the worlds AA, though probably not gold given the lack of amanar, sadly.
- Shang Chunsong is bursting with potential and is definitely staking her claim as China's best all-arounder after Yao Jinnan. Her bars are extremely dynamic, containing her own move- the piked Hindorff into immediate Pak salto and her tumbling is extremely strong, especially her amazing first pass of 1.5 twist into triple twist-punchfront! Her beam saw her become the deserving beam champion and she did it perfectly during event finals. She does have a DTY in training, though just like Asuka Teramoto I think she will need to grow a bit in order for it to be a totally successful venture and for it to score well. Both girls are quite slight and don't have the push off the table that similarly short but extremely powerful girls like Simone Biles do. She's also a little inconsistent and shaky, though she did banish that in event finals. Unfortunately her fantastic tumbling is accompanied by a travesty of a routine choreography-wise that I'm sure most fans want to see binned fairly quickly. Hopefully being the new beam and floor champion as well as coming second in the AA will bolster her confidence. She's strong and small and could have great longevity for that reason alone.
- Tan Jiaxin unfortunately did not have a good competition. However, she has still upped her game as she now has an excellent DTY in her arsenal as well as an insane bars routine. That makes her a good bet for worlds, especially if HKX definitely retires before then and given that the bars fall is not characteristic for her.
- Tan Sixin has clearly come on a lot even since the winter training video emerged. Lovely beam as always, but I don't see her as important enough to make major teams.
- Zeng Siqi inspires worry that she'll be relegated to being a specialist, instead of the fabulous all-arounder that she could be. Her endurance and stamina are still so low that although her beam is a thing of beauty and very difficult, her dismount is always a problem. She shows no signs of regaining the DTY she had before her injury in 2011, though that is relieving given how almost frail she is. Her bars dismount remains more likely to be splatted than landed and while her floor does have difficult tumbling in it, it all looks a bit much for her.
- Wu Liufang looks set to continue fading into the background, unfortunately. Still has beautiful gymnastics, still woefully inconsistent and still not enough of an asset to the Chinese team.
- Huang Huidan stepped up and hit a cracker of a bars set in event finals with an enormous 6.6 difficulty. The fact that she beat bars-champion-since-2007-HKX must have been a good boost too, though the latter did make an error. Sadly HHD's hit record is still far from inspiring and her chances are still running out, reigning bars champion or not.
- Liu Tingting, a 2000 baby, was solid as a rock and placed FIFTH in the AA. Her extension, toepoint and general amazing execution are staunchly in evidence in everything she does and thankfully her difficulty has come up since last year. Slow and steady wins the race, she has incredible potential as as well as having the execution bit down, she is also quite springy and powerful.
- Yuan Xiaoyang, a 1999 baby, astonishingly took the vault title. She benefited from injuries and falls from the favourites as her vaults are quite low in difficulty, but still she is very impressive on more than this event.
- Wang Yan, probably born in 1999 or 2000, has a 6.7 beam routine. It contains the acro line made famous by Shawn Johnson- RO-RO-LO, a plethora of extremely high and well landed punchfronts and back tucks and an absolutely perfect please-upgrade-me double pike dismount. It's no fluid beauty but it's an incredible routine. She also shows promise on floor and vault, looks like she could develop into a strong all-arounder.
In general, beam and bars continue to be the dominant strength with gymnasts like Yao Jinnan, Tan Jiaxin, Shang Chunsong, Huang Huidan, Zeng Siqi and juniors Luo Huan, Mei Jie, Fan Yilin, Liu Zhilin, Liu Tingting, Wang Yan and Lv Jiaqi adequately covering all bases.
The vault and floor situation is as always, more questionable. They do have a few DTY's; Yao Jinnan, Tan Jiaxin, Luo Peiru and junior Wang Wei. They also have vault specialists Li Yiting, Yang Pei and Jiang Tong. However, there's no sign of their top two all-arounders flinging amanars which in this day and age is bad news. Shang Chunsong at least looks capable of nailing the DTY she already has (in training) and of all the girls, Tan Jiaxin looks able to give an amanar a go. But this area will still be weak by comparison to others. As far as floor is concerned, Shang Chunsong, Yao Jinnan and Zeng Siqi are the best bets, with Wang Wei and Liu Tingting looking like very good future prospects. Again, they don't have a depth of talent here and will really have to hone the routines they do have. And start Alla Sosnitskaya/Ksenia Afanasyeva'ing turn combinations, stat! And as Rick from gymnasticscoaching just pointed out, the ideal situation is that the top all-arounders have strong vault and floor, not that they just have strong vault and floor girls to go with their crowds of bars/beam girls. I'm hoping that will come in time. After all, the great Cheng Fei herself is coaching.
The worlds team will contain (if healthy) Yao Jinnan, Shang Chunsong and Zeng Siqi. The fourth place could go either way, vault specialist or bars specialist. At this point I think Tan Jiaxin will take it. So this potential team will have
- Yao Jinnan AA, BB, UB
- Shang Chunsong AA, BB, UB, FX
- Zeng Siqi BB, FX
- Tan Jiaxin UB
I know there's too many bars and beam qualifiers, hard to know what could happen there though.
In short, China are in desperate need of mini Cheng Fei's as they're still lacking in the power event categories, with an overemphasis instead on their pet events. They do have springy powerful looking young girls like Wang Yan and Liu Tingting but still crying out for depth in the power department. The last time they won a team title, the code was in their favour as it glorified bars and pirouette-heavy routines. They also did not have to contend with an amanar fest as their biggest rivals fielded one amanar, a Rudi and a DTY versus their own offering of an amanar and 2 DTY's (they had planned a second amanar, Jiang Yuyuan but she lost the ability at the last minute) and the American advantage of 0.5 on vault was swiftly lost after bars. Now, the code is against them somewhat and their bars have taken a nosedive in start value. Thankfully they have adapted to this and they already have dynamic release-release and release-transition routines, but it's not enough. I don't see AA gold appearing in the next two years, or the team gold next year. But they are moving in the right direction and have already appointed a new head vault coach with this in mind. Hopefully their results will continue to improve in other areas besides beam and bars event finals.
Who do you see as China's greatest hopes? On their team? Can they get it together and start to challenge outside of beam and bars again?
Check back for Russian, Romanian and USA versions soon :)
Videos are here and won't embed for me. If I had to pick just to a few to recommend they would be...Wang Yan, Shang Chunsong and Liu Tingting on beam, and Huang Huidan and Yao Jinnan on bars. Youku has more, there's a good selection here. These are, in order left to right (until they become duplicates of the YT videos) Lv Jiaqi FX, Luo Peiru BB, Liu Tingting FX, Liu Tingting UB, Jiang Yuyuan FX, Liu Tingting BB, Fan Yilin FX, Zhu Siyan BB, Wang Yan FX, Chen Li BB. Out of this lot you should watch Wang Yan FX, everything Liu Tingting and Lv Jiaqi FX at least. I still need Tan Jiaxin's everything and Shang Chunsong's UB. If anyone has links please leave them in the comments.
Presenting the top qualifier to the Chinese National Games Quals AA! Considering she had one or two little errors on bars, a watered down floor and missed connections on beam as well as the traditional extremely harsh execution scoring present in internal Chinese competitions- scoring a 57+ is amazing. Her injury last year kept her from performing anywhere near her best in London and it was said this year that she was having trouble with her hip. So it's great to see (or read, as the case may be so far) a strong performance from her. Tied for second were Shang Chunsong and Huang Qiushuang. Zeng Siqi biffed her bars dismount, again, but happily was the first qualifier for beam, just ahead of Sui Lu. He Kexin hit bars and vault, but it was a sad day all around- so.many.falls. Saddest of all was Tan Jiaxin the UB superstar, who fell on a Jaeger and then had some sort of disaster on floor, with an even 5.0 for her d and e scores. Wu Liufang crashed her layout on beam. Good news from my favourite bright young things, Lv Jiaqi and Liu Tingting have both upgraded and scored very well with execution. Liu Tingting, a 2016 senior, placed fifth in the AA qualifiers, and Lv Jiaqi placed tenth. The fight for the second AA-er at worlds will be interesting. Yao Jinnan is the obvious choice for first, if healthy. Shang Chunsong hopefully for the second, but she's still a flake. And THAT floor choreography is a disgrace. Huang Qiushuang may yet make another major team! Especially since one of her mistakes was so ridiculous- she incurred an enormous 0.5 deduction on vault for running more than 25 metres. You can never predict what silly mistake she'll do next but I doubt she'll repeat that one. Shanghai (including Sui Lu and Tan Sixin) beat Guangdong (including Wu Liufang and Huang Qiushuang) into second and Hunan (including Zeng Siqi, Tan Jiaxin and Shang Chunsong) into third, helped along by an utter disaster of a bars rotation by Hunan.
Never underestimate what Huang Qiushuang has up her sleeve! Today in theAA final she repeated the exact same mistake, starting her vault run from too far back, again carrying a massive 0.5 deduction. Smooth coaching there. She also brought her bars dismount to her knees, which is apparently a new mistake for her, and placed outside of the medals. Yao Jinnan fell on her standing full on beam, but still won gold with a 56.701, which wasn't exactly surprising given the enormous amount of falls and major errors, again. Shang Chunsong placed second and Zeng Siqi was third. Shang nailed her very difficult 6.7 bars routine, but had some very expensive wobbles on beam and an OOB on floor. Zeng Siqi generally had less difficulty, she is rumoured to have a DTY but did not do it. I really don't think she has it in her anymore, but at any rate I don't want to see one from her until she looks stronger with better endurance.I'm really sad that Huang Huidan looks to be falling off the radar, just like Wu Liufang. Huang had a nightmare on bars, her pet piece, so too did Deng Linlin. Liu Tingting placed sixth, an amazing result for a girl so young. She is the most promising junior all-arounder that China have. She consistently gets execution scores in the 8.3 range, which in China is like a 9.3.
Gabby Jupp has had her ACL surgery. Wishing for a very speedy recovery. In more ACL news, Yvette Moshage of the Netherlands has torn her ACL for the third time, after a heroic battle to comeback the first two times. Really devastating. This is the third ACL tear so far this year, the other besides these two being Mariya Livchikova.
Kohei Uchimura's wife has given birth to a baby girl. Her name is not released. His parents were gymnasts and his sister is too, so hopefully his daughter will at least try it out with genes like that!
China are holding a regional competition, and snippets of news are emerging though it is closed to the public. Tan Sixin, Tan Jiaxin, Jiang Yuyuan, He Kexin, Zeng Siqi, Luo Peiru and a bunch of juniors- Luo Huan, Wang Wei, Xie Wenwei, Yuan Xiaoyang, Lv Jiaqi, Fan Yilin and more all competed in qualifications today. News comes from YangYilinAAandUBGold and another very helpful personon IGF who got it via Weibo and Baidu.
- Tan Jiaxin has a DTY and it's apparently great- scored 15! And high execution scores are not given out like candy so it must at least resemble the Bailie Key and Kyla Ross school of DTY's. She did not compete bars but she did floor, where she has a big mistake, no idea what. Still, this is very promising. I don't think she's the second coming of Cheng Fei or anything but she does have a lot of power and endurance, things which are still lacking among her teammates. And speaking of Cheng Fei, she's a National Team coach. I hope she find and mould gymnasts to emulate her.
- Luo Peiru and junior Wang Wei also have DTY's. There were some others performed too which is always good to hear. Luo Peiru is lovely on bars. Wang Wei also showed a double layout on floor.
- He Kexin did her old bars routine, which is now out of 6.8. It had issues, only scoring 13.95..a large step on the dismount and a pause apparently. But it's a long time to National Games all the same so she doesn't want to peak too soon.
- One of my favourites, junior Lv Jiaqi who is stunning to watch, now has 6.0 bars and 6.2 beam. She is quite young still, though elegible for Rio, so it's great to see make strides in her difficulty.
- It looks like Li Yiting nailed vault, she qualified first with 14.75
- Sadly, Jiang Yuyuan had a meltdown on bars. So did Zeng Siqi who fell on her Tkachev, hit the low bar and crashed the dismount. ZSQ also missed a connection on beam and took a large step on her dismount. I really hope she can get it together as her work is beautiful, but wow is she fragile.
- Tan Sixin had a mixed meet. She nailed beam for a monster score of 15.15, placing first. It also appears that she hit floor, though with quite weak passes. However she had trouble on bars and only vaulted a FTY. I hope she can become more relevant again.
- Sui Lu looked a bit sluggish, and missed her leap series on beam which decimated her score. She's another like He Kexin who has to be careful not to peak too soon.
Some videos:
Luo Huan UB Beautiful, great flight on transitions and I love her release (Deltchev? I suck at recognising some). A little pirouette heavy for a code that won't reward that as much though. Tan Sixin BB Very steady set from her, I'm in love with her layout and dismount. Some very nice leaps too and her connections looked secure. Wang Wei FX A pity about the punchfront but the DLO and the rest of her tumbling was gorgeous. Her choreo is a little scrappy, but the quiet bit in the middle is well done. One to watch. Tan Jiaxin FX I can't wait to see her vault! Anyway, this is her first time to compete floor in quite a while I believe, and it's a strong effort. I wouldn't really be put off by her landing deductions and fall this early in the season. I liked the dramatic music and choreo to match.
Some of the videos won't load at all for me so I'm not going to link them. There's more in IGF on the China thread. EDIT: Apparently some videos have been made private. Hopefully some others still work?
Mariya Livchikova has torn her ACL, the other one this time. She was the poster girl for the Stella Zakharova meet, and then didn't compete. The source for this is a Ukrainian video, which you can see here.Inna Korobchinskaya, a Ukrainian coach says that the results of the MRI are 'not soothing..it looks like a complete tear of the ACL'. She goes on to say that recovery time differs between athletes of course, but she is definitely out for 6 months. Mariya tore her other ACL at 2011 worlds, and consequently missed the London Olympics as she could not contend for the single spot at the Test Event. This year she will miss Euros and Worlds. Awful. There are of course gymnasts who have bounced back from tearing both ACL's, but it's still incredibly difficult and sadly Mariya is part and parcel of an underfunded and now fragmented programme.
The Tokyo World Cup takes place this weekend. Former b-list gymnast Peyton Ernst has really upped her game and is expected to take the title. It will be interesting to see Shang Chunsong and what she does though. She was definitely seen training a piked Hindorff which has not been done before, and is rumoured to have a layout full on beam. She is apparently connecting the piked Hindorff to a Pak and still has the Tkachev-Geinger combination. She has a shap variation too into another Hindorff? Sounds awesome, looking forward to a video. Sadly she fell on it today but bits of it are new and it sounds exhausting, hopefully she'll get used to it.
Peyton Ernst is leading after day 1(vault and bars) at Tokyo. Second is Asuka Teramoto who vaulted a DTY...she looks too tiny for one! Sadly Shang Chunsong is in 6th after falling off bars. Huang Qiushuang only vaulted a FTY but she got through bars without incident I think.
Old news by now, but Aliya Mustafina won the AA at the Stella Zakharova meet despite a fall on floor. Her beam looks better than ever, the connections have definitely gotten better. Enormous pause to set up her dismount but I doubt she'd do that in major competition. Similarly with floor, we'll definitely see a better version at Euros, then again at Universiade and by the time Worlds rolls around it should be magnificent. No point in pushing herself too hard right now. It looks like it will be an interesting showdown at Euros though..
There's an exciting rumour that Yao Jinnan has a Mo Salto on bars now. I would pretty much be foaming at the mouth if I saw that materialise randomly in Antwerp. Unfortunately, there is also news that she hurt her hip and is in constant pain. Hopefully that clears up fast :( If she does have a Mo Salto it's likely it was learned in winter training, pre-injury.
I was anticipating a great showdown on floor, but I'm a little surprised at the result. Delighted for her of course, who would begrudge the adorable Didi a spot at the top of the podium? But even so, Larisa Iordache had a 0.2 difficuly lead on Diana Bulimar. Larisa threw 0.1 of that away for going out of bounds on her double double, but it would not have given her the victory had she stayed in. Both girls bounced out of their landings, and both had strong leaps. I would have given it to Larisa though, as her tumbling was cleaner. Diana is absolutely strong on floor, but her double layout has quite the leg seperation going on and her piked full-in was scrappy to say the least. I would have thought the cleaner tumbler with the difficulty lead would have won. That's not to say Diana's floor wasn't great, it was, just in my opinion slightly overscored compared to the silver winner. Larisa's scores have sure been interesting- she was slammed on bars and execution was a little harsh on floor, but she was overscored on vault and beam..
Both routines are here, I'll try to embed them if it will work later on. Who do you think should have won? Scores were 14.625 for Bulimar and 14.425 for Iordache.
In other news, Larisa threw a tucked full and layout full for a monster 6.7 d-score and 15.5 total, easily winning gold. The layout full does pike, but later then Katelyn Ohashi's I think, it's also higher in my estimation. Strong routine, very steady and she still has the triple full dismount. Katelyn does have the difficulty lead, and execution I think too- Larisa does not point her feet near enough. But it should still be close and interesting later on at worlds, as Katelyn's routine varies from 6.8-7.3 and she's not as sure on her feet as Larisa. Diana and Gabby nailed strong routines, Diana penalised a little harshly on executionI thought. When Gabby's routine is on youtube, wait for the slow motion part of her BHS-LOSO-LOSO. It's just perfection! The star of the show was Zeng Siqi (or Ziggy as the commentators call her) who nailed a glorious set with beautiful lines AND high difficulty- 6.6. Unfortunately, her double pike saw her bent in half and she took a three-tenths step, handing Larisa the victory. She also managed to get through floor without incident, though I fear for her legs on every tumble, especially the piked full-in. Hopefully she can build up her strength, but all in all a great week for China, gold on bars, silver on beam and bronze on floor. Gabby Jupp was edged to fourth for another very nice routine, though she too fell victim to the bouncy floor and stepped out. She and her coaches will be happy though with her placing here, and her bronze on beam and bars. The floor is a new bouncier type and will be used in Antwerp so they had better get used to it..hopefully some more competitions will use it in the meantime. Last year the Karolyi Ranch outfitted itself inGymnova especially for London, but that's very expensive to do and worlds is not as important.
Ilaria Kaeslin, who is not a relation of Ariella Kaeslin, had beautiful work on floor and beam. Difficulty nowhere near enough to challenge, but so enjoyable to watch. Such a pity she fell out of bounds on floor, her Memmel and switch ring were just stunning. I also really liked Kirsten Beckett of South Africa, who had really nice dramatic choreography, and a great double arabian. Speaking of which, the slow motion of Gabby's one showed up how neat it is, it's Anna Myzdrikova neat.
It's been a fabulous two days of gymnastics- with the above and Tan Jiaxin's bars, Giulia Steingruber and Phan Thi Ha Thanh on vault and Gabby Jupp and Ruby Harrold on bars.
Who else watched? What was your favourite beam- Iordache, Zeng or Jupp? Bars- Jiaxin or Harrold? Vault? Floor? How awesome was Iordache's leotard today?
If you haven't seen any Doha finals- and certainly the timezone did not favour America, all finals have been uploaded. You can see beam here, floor here, vault here and bars here.
There's a cute video here of Larisa and Diana being interviewed. Check out Diana's great English! And her translation for Larisa was so cute. I also loved how as soon as she was finished beam, Zeng Siqi was straight over with congratulations and a hug. It's going to be so much fun when Zeng appears at an international competition like worlds, she looks so young which will definitely be picked up on.
I'm exhausted just watching her. Hindorff-Geinger, Jaeger, Tkachev-Pak, full twisting double layout. I know that the new bars code will see sloppy release-release and release-combination connections but this routine, Ruby Harrold's and Becky Downie's make me absolutely not care at all. Now obviously her form is not exactly brilliant, she has nice lines but her knees are soft in some skills, her Pak is dumpy, some handstands are suspect etc. She essentially does not have the precision of her famous uneven bars specialist predeccessor, He Kexin. Maybe that will come- she's in the same coaching group as Wu Liufang and Huang Qiushuang so hopefully her coaches can work some magic on her form. It seems less forgiveable for a Chinese gymnast to have anything less than perfect form on bars compared to other nations somehow. She is also less useful than Kexin because she only competes bars, Kexin had a DTY and a somewhat decent floor. Word is that Jiaxin is training both events, so that would absolutely increase her likelihood to make major teams. As it is, if she performs like this all year then she should take a spot at worlds. She has a huge amount of strength and endurance, wherein her value lies as that doesn't come around everyday for China. For now though, let's just bask in a Chinese gymnast hitting..qualifying first and then taking gold, and with a spectacular routine at that. Edit- Jiaxin's missing transition from the video is a toe hecht to high, you can see an uninterrupted version here but it's a bit smaller and not as good quality I think.
Here is the excellent silver medallist, Ruby. Delighted to see her pacing working out..she's been named to the Euros team and her bars keep improving as it gets closer. Only a slight arch after the Zuchold this time, and she planted the troublesome double front, which was beautiful. Automatically I'm more forgiving of her form errors than Jiaxin's, and I'm not sure if it's my imagination but the leg seperations don't seem as bad as quals and British Championships.
Sadly, would-be bronze medallist Zeng Siqi crashed her dismount. She doesn't seem to have half the strength and endurance of her teammate, but hoping for a decisive beam victory from her tomorrow.
Vault gold medallist Phan Thi Ha Thanh showed two exquisite vaults. Minus some foot crossing they were beautiful in the air. She has improved quite a lot since her 2011 worlds bronze win I think.
Videos are going up here. I was hoping Diana Bulimar and Larisa Iordache's bars would be better. Larisa at least looks capable of a stronger bars routine, the composition is not her friend and leaves her open for deductions they should be able to avoid.
In other news, GB have named their Euros team as Gabby Jupp, Becky Downie, Ruby Harrold and..Charlie Fellows. Great to see someone new get a chance, but I thought Hannah Whelan would get the benefit of the doubt owing to her veteran status, despite being plagued with falls so far this year.
Alexander Alexandrov is in Brazil this week, with a view to forming a contract to coach their senior National Team. Brazil already poached another ill-treated Russian coach, Oleg Ostapenko, who coaches the junior team. While this would be beyond fantastic for the team leading into their home games...it would be a great shame for his personal student, Aliya Mustafina, who has already been dumped by her personal coach before. (Not Alexandrov..) So I'd be happy for Alexandrov to take up this oportunity, or indeed any fabulous opportunity that comes his way as he is an excellent coach and deserves it. Just after Mustafina retires would be preferable.
A video of the Chinese National Team training has emerged, shot by some Australians who were beyond lucky to even be there...though it's hard to call people suffering through Beijing's poisonous levels of air pollution lucky. Sui Lu can be seen on floor at the start. Shang Chunsong is the one on bars doing the lovely Hindorff to uprise. Zeng Siqi and Tan Sixin are tagged. It's great to see that Tan is back on the National Team and in full training, though it's obvious she has deteriorated. Hopefully just growing pains, she should be able to adjust. Zeng looks great, lovely connections. The other two on beam towards the end are Wang Wei and Yuan Xiaoyang, two of the most promising juniors. Wang is the one who falls on the layout and then nails it. It's private so I can't embed, watch it here.
Videos are circulating of Beyond the Routine- a Gymnastike documentary following Mary Lee Tracy at her gym, CGA. I find it hard to watch, from the dog on the mats to her beratement of the younger girls, the explanation of Amelia Hundley's nickname, her condescension to her gymnasts, favourtism, obsession over some stupid clock all the way to her dangerous driving. All in all, it confirms what I had already thought about how she operates, and then some. In a much more uplifting documentary (and this time free, so I'll link), we get a look at the daily lives of elite gymnasts. Very excited about this one! It's called Off the Mat and first up is the lovely Nia Dennis. The first episode focuses on her family life, the morning routine, her interaction with her cutiepie little sister Mya, and how her parents balance her gymnastics with quality family time- like her dad's conversations with her on the way to gym. An immediate impression is created of a great supportive family, it's nice to see. Next will be looking at her daily gym routine I think. The first episode is here.
Here is yet another great interview with McKayla Maroney, at the Metroplex Challenge where she signed autographs for 3 hours and only left because she was made to- I like hearing stuff like that. McKayla insists that she's not done and will be gearing up for worlds. She has an automatic berth for Nationals given her Olympian status, though if she misses it and verifies routines before Worlds, she would still stand a very good chance..particularly with a TTY or Y double back.
Alicia Sacramone has officially retired. Given the excellent shape she was in last year after another injury in late 2011, it's a shame, but she's definitely been around long enough and has a lot of medals to her name. She's not a gymnast I particularly like or enjoy watching, but I appreciate her enormous talent and longevity. I'll miss the fierceness of her beam certainly.
Here's Beth Tweddle's third performance on Dancing on Ice. Sadly her expression regressed a bit, though I can't blame her for entering wooden gymnast mode given the huge complexity and difficulty of her routine, which she nailed. Hopefully she can polish her performance more in the weeks to come.
None of this is particularly new because the One to Watch post took me 3 days or so, so news got old in the meantime.
BUT this is new- Romania will only have 3 girls at Euros! Dropping a place is a little ominous. I'm thinking Larisa Iordache, Diana Bulimar and Stefanie Stanila. There's no team finals, much like worlds, though I'm not sure if there's an AA. If there is, I don't think Iordache will do it because she will have done so at LRSY a month before. Germany will not have Elizabeth Seitz or several other elites because of the timing, right in their exam season apparently. Edit- Diana Chelaru is returning to the National Team and Sandra Izbasa is in full competitive training for this year so both of them are in the mix. I'd like to see Daniela Andrei get the nod for Euros though, especially if they don't want to tax Iordache and Bulimar.
Ellie Downie will compete at the WOGA Classic. She is the younger sister of Becky and has some lovely work, looking forward to seeing her. Also Jordan Chiles, who will be competing optionals in her bid for elite.
Danusia Francis won beam at UCLA vs Stanford! Nice. I.want.videos. Time difference kills me.
Introducing team North Korea! Hong Un Jong is the one looking fierce third from left. I would imagine the three new girls who were only recently registered with FIG are the one on the left and the two on the right. WAG competition does not start until tomorrow, so these are just podium training leos. Interesting that they look straight from the wardrobe of Nastia. In more exciting news, Hong Un Jong unleashed an Amanar and Cheng! Seeing as both still have their 6.5 values, China's Li Yiting has some stiff competition.
I will update this with more news as the competition unfolds..and hopefully some videos. China's CCTV are covering some of the comp, so that will help. As of now, I predict that China will win team, and Zeng Siqi and Shang Chunsong will medal in the AA. Li Yiting and Hong Un Jong will place on vault, China will dominate bars and beam, while Japan and North Korea will have more of a say on floor.
China are a bit up and down in team finals, though since they can drop a score, they should still win. Shang Chungsong fell on bars, it looks like Luo Peiru fell on beam judging by her e-score, Huang Huidan fell on floor and went out of bounds, Luo Peiru fell on her DTY and Li Yiting crashed her second vault. Hmm. Vault and floor d-scores were very low, with the exception of Shang Chunsong on floor and Luo Peiru and Li Yiting on vault. Bars seems to have been exceptionally strong, with Huanh Huidan in particular scoring a huge 15.4 there. Likewise, Zeng Siqi put up a monster 15.3 on beam. Very interesting!Zeng Siqi has an AA total of 57.4, which will be hard to beat. Shang Chunsong is not far behind, with 56.45.
Team:
1. China
2. North Korea
3. Japan
4. South Korea
China's lead was sizeable, something like 10 points, but well done to North Korea for placing second in their first outing in quite a while.They also had very impressive vaulting on the mens side, as well as two Cheng's on the women's- a vault that was not seen this year in competition.
Event finals results are not out yet, I am a bit confused about time and I'm not sure if they are underway/have taken place/yet to take place. In any case, as mentioned before, vault is a toss-up between Li Yiting and Hong Un Jong, beam should be easily won by Zeng Siqi and Huang Huidan should do the honours on bars. Floor is a bit more undecided, but Japan's Risa Konishi had the highest score there today. Shang Chunsong will place too. Great competition for China, and for Zeng Siqi in particular who is cementing her place as a top AA-er (certainly in Asia, but she obviously needs to get her DTY back to really contend elsewhere). Wonderful to watch, and cute as a button. I think I'm not alone in waiting with delight (not) for all the 4 year-fans to claim she's 5 years old once she gets on the scene internationally.
Here is most of today's competition, with the sad exception of Huang Huidan's bars, but we'll see them in EF anyway.
Event finals are a bit shocking! Phan Thi Ha Thanh won. Ri Un Ha, Hong Un Jong and Li Yiting all had falls. So did Risa Konishi. Also, Wu Liufang won bars! Huang Huidan had some form issues and problems with her dismount it seems. Hong Un Jong's vaults were both underrotated, but it looks like she can fix it. Ri Un Ha's first vault is a DTY and not an amanar as previously reported. She's a little sloppy but quite powerful. Zeng Siqi appears to have fallen (must look up videos soon) off beam, as she only managed a 7.9 e-score in EF. Enough for bronze though! Shang Chunsong won gold in both beam and floor.
In other news, Anastasia Sidorova who has no luck at all has partially torn her ACL. It seems she will be out for only a few weeks, but she is missing the Massilia Cup anyway. Hope to see her fighting fit soon! She is being replaced at that event by junior Viktoria Kuzmina. It also appears unlikely that Yulia Inshina will compete as she is scheduled to do, but no word on why there is suddenly such doubt about it.
Danusia Francis is learning one of the most awesome and incredibly rare beam acro moves..a free sideways cartwheel. The second one looks ready to go.
You can see Mai Murakami's floor from Japanese Nationals here. I know I know, I mention her a lot. Too bad, she's amazing and how could anyone NOT like her after watching that? If you got a fright over how much older she looks, I think anyone would. I do have favourites but they're not influenced by my nationality at least.
Brenna Dowell leads the Mexican Cup after Day 1. The competition is being split over two days, vault and bars were contested, beam and floor is next. Anna Dementyeva is in fourth place, knocked down after a very scary yurchenko full which she barely got around after no block. Dowell had a DTY, the only one of the competition. Although she is a GAGE girl, Dowell's form is pretty sloppy. Nevertheless, her difficulty puts her ahead- her bars contained shaposh 1/2, Jaeger and a full twisting double layout dismount. Demy is usually excellent on beam, but doubtful that it will be enough for gold at this point. Dowell is strong on floor and will be looking to get a double front piked credited. It was apparently downgraded to tucked position before, which as a deduction as she already has one of them. If you're that good at front tumbling, do Podkopayeva's double front half out in place of the tuck and save the penalty! Georgia Rose Brown of Australia is in third and Yessenia Estrada of Mexico is in second, delighting the home crowd. Tomorrow will be a strong day for Brenna Dowell and Marta Pihan-Kulesza who would be able to work her way up the rankings. Nobody's sure what Demy can or will bring on vault and beam, hopefully enough to medal. Videos are available, I will be putting up highlights in a new post along with Dityayin Cup videos, if they become available.
Amanda Reddin is the new head coach for Team GB. Amanda is the long-term coach of Beth Tweddle, as well as Hannah Whelan and Jenni Pinches. It is very obvious from seeing how she interacts with her gymnasts and looking at Beth's longevity and continued extremely high level of performance that she is a fantastic coach. Former head coach Adrain Stan is moving on to high level coach development. Bring on the continued beautiful gymnastics of Rebecca Tunney and the new era of wunderkinds Gabby Jupp and Angel Romaeo!
Amelia Racea of Romania has retired. Amelia most notably had success in 2010 Europeans, where she won beam. She qualified to 2011 worlds event finals on that event, but was hindered by low difficulty. Nevertheless, she had lovely gymnastics and would make a nice addition to Euros teams. Amelia is just not feeling gymnastics anymore and has gone to university, so fair enough. This year has seen the retirement also of Ana Porgras and Gabriela Dragoi.
McKayla Maroney has rejoined the Kelloggs tour. McKayla was still in two casts last week, so I highly doubt she has been medically cleared to do any actual gymnastics. She will of course need to spend a lot of time getting back into peak condition anyway after resting for so long.
Along with the Mexican Cup which will be streamed live here, the Dityatin Cup in Russia is attracting some interesting faces. Anna Pavlova, Ekaterina Kramarenko and Evgeniya Shelgunova are the major Russians competing. Anna has quite low difficulty now and seems to train more recreationally but still gets decent vault scores which shove her up the rankings. Ekaterina is she of the infamous vault touch-automatic zero from 2007 Worlds. Not sure what shape she's in, but I'd say her floor is still worth watching. Evgeniya is a 2013 senior, and is quite promising though probably not the best Russia will have in its arsenal leading into Rio. From Ukraine, Darya Kloptsova, a junior with a lovely elegant floor is competing. Kim Janas, a German junior is also very exciting and elegant. Hope to see videos from this. I'll put some up of both comps if they become available.
China's roster for the Asian Championships has been announced. It's quite the break from the usual faces, but should be very interesting. It is composed of the girls who excelled at the recent Nationals. Zeng Siqi, Li Yiting, Huang Huidan, Shang Chungsong, Wu Liufang and Luo Peiru.
As mentioned, Zeng Siqi won the AA. Huang Huidan came second with a mistake and Shang Chungsong came third with a few mistakes.
Event finals have also taken place. Huang Huidan won bars with Tan Jiaxin in second and Wu Liufang in third. Li Yiting won vault- by a mile, her vaults are 6.0/6.3. Second place Xiang Tong's vaults are 5.2/5.3! Third place Yang Pei also had 6.0/6/.3 vaults but fell on both judging by the scores. Zeng Siqi added the beam title to her AA win, helped by a fall from Tan Sixin. Lou Nina came second and Li Shanshan (not the 2008 Olympian) came third. Shang Chungsong won floor, with Zhang Qing in second and Cui Jie in third. No 2012 Olympians performed.
Overall, a great competition for Zeng Siqi who with a DTY and some upgrades on floor (she did introduce one in this competition) would be able to rival Yao Jinnan nicely. Huang Huidan also had a strong competition and Shang Chungsong too. Very dissapointing for Tan Sixin who had a point to prove after being left off the 2012 team for inconsistency. Also for Wu Liufang who would have wanted a better outing than this, and counted a fall on day 1 from beam. All of these girls- and the 2012 Olympians- will be performing next year in the National Games, barring injury. They carry huge prestige and will be the final competition for many. It is expected that He Kexin, Sui Lu, Deng Linlin, Jiang Yuyuan and Huang Qiushuang will retire afterwards. That leaves room for new faces- and Li Yiting, Zeng Siqi, Huang Huidan and Shang Chungsong in particular should be at the forefront as well as upcoming juniors like Lou Nina. Li Yiting is an event specialist- but the most important kind, and a potential vault medallist.
I will add videos here as and when they become available. So far there is one which includes Li Yiting's DTT, starting at 0:56. Also in this video is part of Huang Huidan's bars.
And here is Wu Liufang's beam from day 1- AA, with a fall.
Part 2 of the first video, featuring an amazing tucked Barani on beam from Xiao Kangjun. Towards the end are Zeng Siqi on beam and one of Shang Chungsong's passes, she was lucky to land that punchfront. There are videos of Zeng on that channel but they are from Nationals in May, at which she was still recovering from injury so wasn't at her best.
Also some interesting insights from Lu Shanzen, Chinese head coach about the 1994-1996 team, brought on by a biography by Liu Xuan
- Not only could Mo Huilan, Bi Wenjing and Meng Fei perform the Mo Salto- so could Kui Yuanyuan, Jin Yu and Wen Jing - Zhou Duan of the insane Gaylord II who medalled on vault at the 1997 Worlds was supposed to perform the move there too to have it named after her. Unfortunately her technique completely messed up right before Worlds so they had to hold back on it. I always wondered whyshe didn't do bars then!
- Guan Yujing did the counter-Kim and Liang Qiong the Gaylord in a piked position.
I really love these bars releases, amazing the talent China had at this time. Apparently the new code allows for an intermediate swing with some releases, which may mean we might see some of the above again some day!
Aliya Mustafina training beam and some vault timers from Mallorca. Anna Dementyeva can be seen on the other beam. Lovely work from Aliya, she looks very comfortable on all of her skills. Seemed to be the harder acro skills and leaps giving her trouble in London, but she has plenty of time now to get back up to her old level on beam. BEAUTIFUL spins from her and Demy. Her timer is refreshing as without twisting she has great form. Looks like there will be a part 2.
Lexie Priessman and Amelia Hundley are both injured, Lexie training at her gym and Amelia from doing split leaps at camp. Neither sound like very serious injuries, moreso sprains.
Zeng Siqi has won the all-around at Chinese Individual Games. Huang Huidan was second with an error and Shang Shungsong was third, with a few mistakes. Tan Sixin only did bars and beam and Wu Liufang had a pretty bad day, including a fall off beam. Scoring is notoriously harsh at internal competitions- nobody broke a 15 that I can find, however I haven't seen the results of those who did not do AA- ie. Li Yiting on vault probably scored over 15.
A video of Vika training has emerged. I can't get it to embed here but here is the link- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELmc1fchr80&feature=player_embedded
The very start is interesting, standing double tuck. If she could train that in combination it would be extremely valuable in the new code, but she doesn't really seem like someone who would have the power or endurance to do that. The uploader has said that a video of Mustafina will appear on Friday.
Word is that Maria Paseka has broken her ankle in Mallorca. Maria is not at 100% this year as she is still coming back from a long list of injuries, so she would probably be more prone to a further setback like this. Unconfirmed as of now. May just be giant fat rumour. Update: Vika has posted on her vk (Russian social media) that Maria does not have a fracture and no need to worry about her ligaments so sounds as if she's fine. Relief!
China's roster has been confirmed for the National Individual Games, prelims for which are taking place now. You can see the full list here: http://chinesegymnastics.tumblr.com/post/31862842545/chinese-national-gymnastics-individual#disqus_thread
Lots of these names are new to me, but I hope the whole comp is put up- or all routines. Ones to watch are Shang Chungsong, Wu Liufang, Tan Sixin, Luo Peiru, Lou Nina, Xie Wenwei, Li Yiting, Cui Jie, Zeng Siqi and Huang Huidan. WAG takes place on Friday. I'll stick up videos if they are available.
McKayla Maroney has her cast off, still looks quite swollen though. Judging by the location of the scar, people in the know are saying that it is a tibial plateau fracture, which is quite a nasty one apparently. However, McKayla IS rejoining the tour soon and the cast is off so that's good. Most likely she will come out and wave, and maybe do a few dance moves.
Just to clarify my top 10 lists- all of them are individual favourite routines- not all-time favourite floor workers etc. as some of the gymnasts listed never hit the big time, and quite a few were seriously inconsistent or had extremely short careers. If I don't have the seriously big names in them, it is because I prefer other routines, not that I despise Nadia, Olga etc.
