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!
Nastia also scored a 9.8 execution score for her beam routine at Pacific Rims in 2008 btw.
ReplyDeleteAh thank you, I always heard it was American Cup, not Pac Rims. Nevertheless, Pac Rims is not what I'd call an objective international meet. I stand by that it needs to be an Olympics or Worlds to count.
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