This is an amanar

For real!

Went back and watched the eurosport feed. Apologies that you can't see her feet, but it's still obvious, she is quite clearly NOT all the way around. Is it any wonder Berger is pissed.

Edit: According to John Geddert, the d-score panel credited this as a DTY, as is correct. But the head judge overruled it and declared it an amanar. Who is the head judge? Nellie Kim. Isn't she Russian too? Well, Soviet anyway. Hasn't she done this before? Yes, this isn't the first time by any means that she has helped a Russian gymnast. Why is she still around? Who knows!! But, credit to the judges anyway who knew what they were seeing.

OH MY GOD

WORST. VAULT EF. EVER

Absolutely devastated for McKayla Maroney. To expect a gold and have EVERYONE in the world ever expecting you to get a gold and then to have that to happen has to be the worst moment of her life. But did she rage and cry? No, and I am sbolutely amazed she didn't cry. She held it together, hugged Sandra and smiled on the podium. WOW. That takes guts, considering this was far more assured than even Komova's gold chances. Komova had at least one fierce contender to deal with, Maroney had none- just a strong fight for silver and bronze below her. Nor was she ungracious about her medal, she stated 'I am not disssapointed with silver, I am dissapointed with my performance'. If anything good comes of this it is that she will be fired up to beat everyone next year and probably to stick a TTY in the process. Ultimate respect for her reaction and quotes.

'OMGZZ she should NOT have gotten silver with a fall, it's disgraceful.'As long as you blame the system, not the gymnast. However, I agree with her silver. She has far and away the best technique not only of her fellow finalists, but in general. Nobody has done the amanar better. We see textbook form and great landings often, but with the rest of her vaults Maroney stands as the best vaulter of all time. This will never happen again, vault scoring is being changed. As it stands now, nobody can touch McKayla for vaulting and it's too bad that Paseka and Berger are too far below her difficulty and execution combined to touch her. Hardly McKayla's fault now is it.

Paseka's 'amanar' was actually a 2.25 yurchenko. Not only was it not fully around, she came OFF the mat and looked like this on her block:

 

Her landing looked exactly like Shawn Johnson's infamous 2.25 "amanars". So, Maroney was gifted with her silver? More like Paseka was gifted 0.7 in crediting this as an amanar, and on top of that- it got a 15.4! What a joke.

But it doesn't end there! Not only was Paseka's score a disgrace, it edged Janine Berger out of bronze. Janine had two excellent vaults, big steps back but really great vaulting. Janine was devastated and furious, and no wonder. Clearly was not going to challenge for gold or silver with Maroney and Izbasa around, but that WAS a bronze.

Is that it? NO! Elsabeth Black had a nightmare, crashed her first vault and got a zero. It's another controversial zero too. She was injured after that and balked out of doing her second vault, running past the mat. Wise decision, but what a nightmare for her. Even BBC thought she should appeal the first vault.

But wait for it! We were also treated to Yamilet Pena Abreu trying to land her handspring double front. Produnova must rue the day she introduced that vault to WAG (yes she was't the first attempt, a Korean tried..but everyone forgets her) if she cops any of Pena's efforts. Now, because Pena comes from a nonentity of a country in the gymnastics world, it's really not suprising that she attempts the most difficult vault in order to qualify and try to medal. However, her technique is flawed on this and it's hard to watch when you know she has no chance of landing ir properly. What was REALLY wrong with this was the expectation placed on her. Normally after crashing it, she gets up with a smile and a shrug and looks happy to be alive. Not here, she was absolutely gutted. Clearly, far too much pressure was placed on her to medal. Ridiculous.

I AM happy for Sandra Izbasa, who clearly vaulted the best today and was elated with her win. But a vault final featuring the golden favourite sit down a vault, a crash and an injury, a cannonball sit down, a vastly overscored and wrongly credited amanar and devastation on the face of no less than three girls is a nightmare. Scoring has been a letdown in ALL events in London. I am absolutely disgusted and heartbroken at how shoddy this has been.

McKayla is going to continue training apparently. FANTASTIC NEWS. I would have expected her to continue even if she did get gold, but this will hopefully inspire her further. What do I want to see from her? I would like to see her unleash a fabulous floor routine with an unscary third pass and a consistently strong beam routine. IF she continues training bars which I hope she does as she has great potential there- I'd be thrilled if she threw a Def. The height and flight she gets on her geinger is the highest I have ever seen, and the fastest and best twister in the world is probably very capable of a Def. As for vault, I would be thrilled with a TTY and she absolutely deserves a vault named after her (not the amamanr renamed..). Having a TTY would also give her the opportunity to downgrade her second vault. Her Amanar is well capable of more twists. BUT if it's not consistent, keeping the amanar is still enough to keep her ahead of the pack.

To everyone freaking out that Maroney didn't hug Paseka, shut up now. Evidence suggests she was looking so far up that she didn't realise and the camera panned away very fast. Who are you to suggest from a second of footage that Maroney didn't hug her? Who cares anyway? She was in absolute shock. And I'm not a hypocrite- I will absolutely not pass judgement on ANY gymnast regardless of nationality for being in shock/crying instead of smiling like a loon while their dreams crash around them.'Komova's a bitch, Musty is a brat, Maroney is spoilt and ignored Paseka'. Just horrifying to see this ignorance and spite everywhere. Update: McKayla has seen all the fuss about her, and has tweeted about how she hugged both girls, both are her friends, that she was in absolute shock and didn't know what she was doing and that sportmanship is very important to her. Hopefully that will shut everyone up, but I'm gutted she had to see it. Because what you really need after the worst day of your life is to find everyone turning on you for not being thrilled about it. Mustafina had had to ask people to stop contacting her, Vika and Grishina on vkontakte (Russian facebook). Clearly they were getting lowballed too. Disgraceful. I hate people. I have to go back and edit the sl** word out of a mocking post about USAG facebook because it's leading a lot of sick sick people to this blog who are searching 'McKayla Maroney sl** Mckayla Maroney bu** McKayla Maroney as*'. Just vile.

I'll never predict medals or describe anyone as a lock for gold again. Predicting favourites is one thing but this just shows you're never safe from being suprised until you're dead.

And thank you Reddit, I am well aware that this reads like a rant. But what vault final were you watching? The one I watched was a disgrace, and I wrote this right after. It is absolutely rant worthy. I am not professional and am allowed sound like a teenager if I want..especially since it's only a few years since I was one. Also, I am not American. In fact, only a few posts down I mention being Irish. 

Floor music wish

There's big variety in floor music these days, plenty of classical, traditional music from the gymnast's country and just about everything in between. But sometimes I come across a piece or style of music that has never been represented, at least not on the international stage- and has the potential to be great and capture people's attention.

For me, it is Irish music. Ireland has a huge musical tradition but it's not represented in international gymnastics at all really, though that's hardly a surprise given that WAG here is extremely limited and sent only a few gymnasts to Euros and no further. Anyway, it's something I'd like to see. Irish music is extremely fast and even the slower pieces would be good for hitting elements in time to it. Irish dance which is accompanied always to this style of music (there are a few speeds though, some very fast for each different group of dances) is always exactly in time, so it's not hard to work with it. I would know, although I gave up gymnastics pretty quick I stuck with Irish dancing for 6 years :)

It might suprise you that both of these routines are using Irish music as a base. But neither are particularly great for me, much as I love Raducan she isn't really working to this music. And Deliana's was pure dirge! There's an awful lot better than that, and a lot of choreo that would go well with it.

So, here's the music I would most love to see paired with a floor routine:

You could see some beautiful choreo corresponding to the uplifts in that I think. Any choices of music which you think would be awesome but are seriously underrepresented?

2 days with no gymnastics :(

It's getting tough to cope I have to say. But, all event finals still to come! Tomorrow we have men's floor finals, women's vault finals and men's pommel horse finals. For men's I'd like Denis Ablyazin of Russia to win floor and Louis Smith of GB or Kristian Berki of Hungary to win pommel horse. Vault is of course obvious and the most predictable victory of all. The highest execution score in FIG approved competition is 9.8, Dragulescu's 2008 vault. It would be awesome if McKayla could beat that and officially have the highest e-score since the new code. I know the deduction they are taking but that thing deserves higher than 16.233 if having a low vault that is offline and onto the red is 15.966. Her Mustafina is textbook too. Cannot WAIT.

Silver and bronze is more of a fight. Certainly Sandra Izbasa is the next highest contender, but Chuso, Paseka and Berger could give her a good run for her money. Am I worried about Pena? No. I admire her ability to fling that thing regardless, and I understand why it's important for her to do such a difficult vault and stand out from the crowd and qualify, but seeing a vault crash like that and still score high goes against the spirit of gymnastics somehow. I don't want her zeroed, but I don't want to see it rewarded with a medal or for her to be injured either. Ideal podium? Maroney, Izbasa, Chuso..but I think Chuso could be pipped as her execution is pretty bad these days. But this is the Olympics of insane scoring, so who knows!

THE ALL AROUND

Gabby Douglas wins, Vika in second and Musty third. This was not really exciting, it was frustrating, difficult and annoying to watch.

Did Gabby deserve to win?
Yes, her greatest rival messed up her vault and Gabby hit four for four. She has really peaked at the right time, got all of her former inconsistency out of the way and she was exciting to watch. However, she was very overscored.

What overscores?
 Her vault was offline and she stepped into the red. It scored the exact same as her stuck TF vault which was itself overscored. The judges basically said that if Gabby had stuck in the middle line, they would have given her McKayla's score. What kind of bullshit is this? Even 4 year fans KNOW McKayla's vault is of much higher quality. Her beam score was higher than Catalina Ponor's routine from TF's, and both of Sui Lu's beautiful routines. Gabby is a great beam worker when she's on, but she had an error and the other two are excellent beam workers, with a few tenths higher difficulty, so a 15.551 for Gabby is insane. Vika's beam was overscored too, but not in the same range. Gabby's inflated bars score was inline with Musty's, who also jumped  four tenths. But Vika only jumped two. Floor was fair for all concerned, but the judges of the other three basically were applying Gabby bonus. It is unfair and so frustrating to see, regardless of whether she would have won without them.

But Vika came off the mat on her vault!
Yes she did, and that's what killed her. Keeping with overscored amanars, Vika could have scored in the 15.8-9 range, like she did in quals, with a well landed one. If she had, she would have won. Even with that, the fight between Vika and Gabby for gold should have been a lot closer and would have been if both were scored fairly.


Gabby hit everything though!
Yes, and well done to her. She is not responsible for her scores. But it is hard to watch someone being handed gifts like that. We all want a fair all-around. Gabby would have won regardless since Vika's vault was a big mistake, but FAIR SCORING should still be expected.


 Would Musty have won without her fall?
No. She would still have gotten bronze. Her lack of an amanar sealed the deal for her really, as well as her wobbly beam.

Aly and Musty got the same score, so why is Aly in 4th?
They determined bronze by looking at combined e-scores. As is expected and fair, Musty's were higher. Very tough for Aly who was rattled after her huge error on beam though. Correction: They actually looked at the the three highest scores of each and combined the total. This is where Aly's beam sank her, instead of her weak bars being dropped, her beam was dropped instead- usually so strong, it had a big error. That meant her bars were up against Musty's hit 3 routines, and Aly's amanar was not enough to save her. Tiebreakers are unfair, what's the harm in two bronze medals?


Where was Larisa?
Languishing way down the rankings. Larisa's bars got a half decent score, but she watered down hugely on floor, downgrading her double double to a full-twisting double pike and her triple twist to a double twist. Very costly. That, her big wobble on beam and her DTY sealed the deal. Very sad to see, let's hope she can get back on track.


Highlights
- Vika, Musty and Gabby's bars. BEAUTIFUL
- Vika having the floor of her life knowing she would not be able to catch Gabby's score.
- Deng Linlin's beam. Proved her worth, nailed everything
- Musty's floor. Such a strong performance. Music is growing on me, probably because the start and end sound like Cradle of Filth.
- Vanessa Ferrari's floor. Great as usual!
- Rebecca Tunney having a GREAT competition
- Same for Elizabeth Seitz! Well done to her
- Deng Linlin and Huang Qiushuang both nailing everything! Deng had a rough time in TF, and HQS is headcase extraordinaire
- Sandra Izbasa beating both and placing fifth! WOW. Nobody expected that. Larisa was always set to outshine even the top contenders, and it wasn't really known who they would have as their second contender. Sandra's bars are not at Larisa's standard, but they were good, and great for a Romanian. Along with her excellent vault and floor and her decent beam, they were enough to boost her right up there. Great finish.


Not-so highlights
- Hannah Whelan's crashed vault, score of zero and her devastation. Awful to see, especially as she was in front of a home crowd
- Musty falling off beam, it looks like she could have fought for that, she wasn't so offline that it would have been the point of no return
- Larisa watering down bigtime to stay safe, which cost her very dearly. Hard to watch someone with the highest potential not on form in the AA
- Vika's vault landing, which cost her gold.
- Gabby's beam, bars and vault scores. Far too high.
- Aly's huge wobble on beam and hand down. Heartbreaking to see.
- HQS wayyy underscored on her excellent beam. 14.133 for that?? That's 1.4 under Gabby's, who had roughly the same SV and a leg up.
- Aly's bars outscoring Deng Linlin's and Larisa Iordache's. This is outrageous! While the other two also count bars as a weak point, both have substantially better swing and form than Aly. Aly HAS improved her form on this event, but it is still fugly compared to the other two.  Aly also has the lowest SV out of the three..

I'm so annoyed about this! I would have preferred as I said, a podium of Larisa, Vika, Musty. I do not begrudge Gabby's win, she hit everything and she deserved it, especially in light of Vika's vault. I direct my ire at the judges who were on crack. She was not the only overscore- Musty's bars and Vika's beam spring to mind, but just like US trials and nationals, Gabby was on a different plane. It taints the whole thing when one is favoured.

Best leo: Larisa Iordache. I LOVE that Pikachu leo. Musty and Vika's was second, but a bit dull for me. Then Hannah/Rebecca's, then Gabby/Aly's. Would have preferred more variation from that lot. Vanessa Ferrari's had such promise, until I saw the cut-out shoulders- what the hell? Worst was the Australian leos. Bit fed up of Japan's now, it's gotten old.

3 hours to go!

A while ago, this AA was seen as more exciting. Everybody predicted Jordyn Wieber, Larisa Iordache and Yao Jinnan up against Viktoria Komova, Aliya Mustafina and Gabby Douglas. Obviously now we are down Jordyn, Jinnan is injured and clearly off form and Iordache has been off form too, yet it's amazing she is here at all when she was written off just last week. It's hard to predict which Larisa we are going to see, I would imagine floor 6.7 vault 6.5 bars 6.5 beam 6.9 ie, her full difficulty is a bit out of the question, but floor 6.5 vault 6.5 bars 6.3 beam 6.7 is not. And that is still huge. Anyway, she is the one I am rooting for. My ideal podium is Larisa- Musty- Vika/Aly. What I actually expect is Vika- Gabby- Musty.

Who is the most likely to headcase?
Gabby and Vika. Vika has issues with endurance, Gabby has found consistency lately but beam should still be greatly feared and there's even more pressure on her now.

Least likely to headcase?
Aly! Then Larisa, then Musty. Musty might have another wobbly beam, yet actually having a huge error? Very very unlikely.

Who is the dark horse?
Aly and Larisa. Aly is the steadiest, Larisa's ability to shine as of today is not yet known.

What are Aly's chances?
Aly has the lowest difficulty out of her, Gabby, Vika, Musty and Larisa. She IS the steadiest. While she was the second highest qualifier, an underpar Vika still beat her. All of the others have improvements to make, whereas Aly shone and was at her absolute best at prelims. She doesn't have room for further improvements- though the improvement itself from Trials until prelims was phenomenal.

What about Vanessa Ferrari and Deng Linlin, the next highest qualifiers?
Ferrari is very strong on beam and floor, but aside from floor doesn't have the really high difficulty to really be boosted onto the podium. Deng's is higher, she is quite strong all-around but has already peaked and had a nightmare in TF, so her performance tonight will be very interesting. Both are very strong competitors, but not really podium material

Why isn't Larisa competing with Vika, Gabby and co?
She had a fall on floor and did not qualify to the top group. Hopefully BBC (and NBC and everyone else) will recognise that she should be broadcast!

Will we have a winner with a fall?
No, it's far too close. Beam wobbles will be the height of the winner's errors.

I don't know what it is about the question format, but I like it :) Prepare to be deafened by the noise of McKayla cheering from the stands! I watched part of TF back on the Eurosport livestream to catch the podium ceremony and without commentary, you can really hear her going mental!

McKayla's vault in super slow-mo

http://deadspin.com/5930714/relive-mckayla-maroneys-phenomenal-vault-in-super+slow-motion?tag=gymnastics

WOW all over again. Yes we can see the deductions, but it doesn't get better than this- should have been a 10. But who knows, hopefully she can pull this off again in vault EF and they give a 9.8 or higher! In the today interview the team gave, McKayla stated she wants her own vault named after her, after being asked about the amanar being renamed the Maroney (I get why, she is the master of it..but Simona shouldn't be bumped out, jeez). I take that as TTY confirmation, there's no way that she isn't capable of it.

Yes, I will shut up about McKayla now, at least until vault EF.

Well done to Kohei Uchimura for getting back on form and claiming the all-around! Very sorry for John Orozco who is just having a nightmare at this stage, but well done to Danell for his bronze, and Marcel for the silver! Nice diverse all-around.