Anna Li fell off bars and was taken to hospital for testing. All tests came back clear and according to USAG with their favourite phrase, she is or appears to be 'fine'. Is it really 'routine' to be taken to hospital after a bars fall? Clearly it must have been more than just a simple fall on release. Of course this isn't a disaster for USA because she is an alternate, but still newsworthy. I hope Anna is back on her feet very soon and continuing to train. EDIT: Clearly it was serious, she's out for six weeks and is in a neck brace. So she's 'fine' according to USAG...
Larisa Iordache had a meltdown in training, stopped doing tumbling passes, did not vault and only really did bars after that. She got a bit of a talking to and cried. She does not appear to be injured as she was seen jogging normally. Too much injury speculation about this..she's young, known to be hyper and may just be experiencing a crash in energy levels and mood related to jetlag. Hopefully team vets Cata and Sandra can get through to her, and B&B. I'd hazard a guess she'll get over it and be a rock to the team come Sunday, and PT tomorrow. It's worth remembering how much pressure there is on her, not only is she a top AA contender, she will also compete all 4 events in TF AND is expected to medal in 2 EF's. Certainly she is not the only girl doing all of that for her team, but if you take the case of Jordyn- Larisa's scores are more important for her team. Larisa's bars score will be significantly higher than her teammates, her amanar will score higher than Sandra's Cheng and their third vault, and her beam and floor will be the highest scoring too. By contrast, while Jordyn may have the highest beam and floor scores it's not a certainty, and her bars will be the lowest and her vault in between. Vika and Musty will be more of a double act as the strongest contributors, rather than shining by themselves. So it's very tough on Iordache, who isn't as experienced as some others. EDIT: she is injured, see above post. Does not mean she can't compete, but it is in doubt.
Video has emerged of Grishina's Silivas (Priakhina!!). Her coach is helping her, but she does look perfectly capable of getting it around herself. Musty looks very sharp on beam and has ANOTHER upgrade there. Vika's amanar has been described as both very off-direction and beautiful. Interesting! Seeing as Paseka's was reliably described as wonderful, looks like they have improved their amanaring and can eat into USA's vault advantage.
Russia's team total d-score now stands at a phenomenal 78. USA's is 76.8, China's 76.7 and Romania 76.2. Headcasing not counted blah blah disclaimer! Without Musty's amanar it's 77.3, still a decent headstart. How exciting.
No word on McKayla Maroney that I have seen. In her own words in an instagram of the team sunbathing 'after a great practice'. I highly doubt she would say great practice if she spent the majority of it on the sidelines. Probably reading too much into it but I infer from that that she at least trained more fully today. Here's to that pesky toe clearing up, NBC have reported worst scenario is a cortisone shot and she will be able to compete. Sounds good to me that that is the 'worst' scenario. EDIT: Did not train fully yesterday either- no beam or floor.
Here is the best photo I've seen from training so far.
USA have had plenty of high-flyers in the past (Sey, Dawes, Kupets, Tricase) but Gabby looks to be the highest, it's actually incredible how high that is. This photo is ripe for a caption, especially since it looks like they might be telling her to fix that cable..or the air-con! Here in Ireland we normally get Britain's weather first, it moves west from the Atlantic. Plenty of rain since but it's still pretty humid, so I don't see any difference for them in their stifling training gym yet.
I am reading a gymnastics thread on a Romanian sports forum through google translate, www.onlinesport.ro I found it because they linked to here! Anyway, it's very very interesting to get a patriotic view on things that isn't American. Just like the Russian translations, there are some good ones here too. Beam translates as drink and amanar as delay. 'Diana Bulimar killed it on drink!' In sadder news, it looks like I won't be able to access at least some of the Olympics coverage on TV as I'm unsure if I'll receive any of the extra Olympic channels BBC are providing. Although I have all of the BBC terrestial channels, I've no access to their online coverage so will have to use an IP shield. Probably just for prelims, but as a back up for the rest too. Still, whatever works!
No comments:
Post a Comment