Copyright- Steven Price- @StevenPrice01 on twitter
In other good news, McKayla Maroney is training Yurchenkos. I don't know if they're fulls, halves or layouts, but progress is progress. Hopefully this means she can fight Ebee and Lexie Priessman for the vault and/or floor spot at Worlds. Simone Biles has definitely risen above the 'powerhouse' spot for one.
And Larisa looks to be in good form! Qualified second on beam and first on floor, excellent. Scores don't indicate enormous difficulty, but it's early days for her. She also did a second vault, worth 5.2. She was indicated to do one from when the roster came out, and it's great to see another strong all-arounder break out the second vault. It's believed to be a pike front half, my favourite vault. In even better news, Tan Jiaxin qualified first on bars and Zeng Siqi first on beam! Can't wait to see those routines in particular. Gabby Jupp and Ruby Harrold qualified for bars in that order, 3rd and 4th..Ruby stumbled on her dismount. But she hit the interior of her routine at last, delighted. It looks like Gabby qualified to 3/4 event finals. And Zeng Siqi qualified third on floor, great news. Had difficulty on bars, but she'll never be known for them. All in all it sounds like a promising day. Not sure if I'll be here to watch the stream tomorrow, hopefully.
Livestream for Doha is here right now.
Doha is a bit of a mess really, it's on a different channel and way later than it's supposed to be. Whoever is behind their Facebook is getting dog's abuse for no live scoring or videos yet, which is way over the top. I just managed to see Ri Un Ha who sadly crashed her Cheng, Jordyn Pedersen who also crashed one, Belak who brought her second vault to her knees and then happily at last...Larisa Iordache cranking out two great vaults! Gorgeous DTY from her. Her second vault is actually a Tsuk full, not a Podkopayeva. She was piking significantly even before preparing for landing, great effort for a first 'second' vault, but it does have a huge flaw. She was overscored on it, for 2nd place. I did not see Giulia Steingruber's vaults, who was relegated to third after that...but there's plenty of opinions that their places should be switched.
Is that Gabby Jupp in the foreground? Larisa looks older than last time we saw her. Does this mean she won't be at Chemnitz?
ReplyDeleteYes it is, it's from her coach's twitter. She does look a little taller I think, but nothing major. So looking forward to seeing her beam. It almost certainly means that, Chemnitz takes place Saturday and Doha ends on Friday. Romania have named a junior team for Chemnitz, they are reportedly not sending any seniors at all.
Deleteso glad mac is training again! im really optimistic about her training - she seems like a stubborn hard worker so i hope she goes to worlds! id love to see a simone/mckayla showdown!
ReplyDeleteIt will certainly be interesting if McKayla is back in time and Simone upgrades to a Mustafina. McKayla started off with a Lopez, Simone's current second vault, too. Simone gets enormous height and power on it, more than McKayla did. It would be amazing if she threw a Cheng, something I don't see McKayla doing- her own Mustafina was never really that high. It would be just amazing if Simone got a TTY and McKayla a yurchenko double back and then they both had the Mustafina..equal territory..
DeleteYay Larisa! Finally!
ReplyDeleteGlad Mckayla is back and she's not 'done' yet. Hopefully she can get back in time.. it's a bit tight though? I think she can probably make it for vault but floor will be a lot of pounding.
Yeah I dunno, 6 months..you never know I suppose..
DeleteRuby finally hit! So happy she did it, the routine is gorgeous. She looked a lot more 'tight' and precise than the previous times we've seen the routine, and her handstand positions are miles better than Becky Downie.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-0NVN5HeWc
LOVE it, thanks for posting. I hope she can fix those leg seperations this year. Great to see her hit it, shame about the dismount. I think it's ridiculous that the Zuchold is a D only! I doubt it's been done by more than two other gymnasts since the bars have been widened, it definitely needs a review.
DeleteI'm so pleased that Tan Jiaxin took the gold medal though she did have some obvious typical chinese defect on transition and her tempo wasn't good enough. Anyway, I LOVE her :)
ReplyDeleteROU needs to work MUCH hard on bars. I'm so sad that Didi didn't have a upgrade bars routine but her form was cleaner then before I think. Larisa's E score was a shock but it's good as it's just a world cup. Hope she can do better in Euros:)
It seems that judges like ZSQ (this is rare to Chinese gymnasts!) as she herself said that she fell on her dismount in beam qualification but she got 8.15 E score. And she also fell on her dismount in bars final.... It's good to her if she wants to be an AAer :P
Btw, Zeng also said that she did piked full in on floor. It's a progress to her:)
I love Jupp (and her coachXD), who has good form but normal D score and she is consistent. Look forward to see her in Euros <3
Ri Un Ha looks promising but she lacks of confidence I think. She has time to fix her cheng before WC. I hope she can take medal:P
With rules changed, now vault final is more interesting!(I mean it's good to see more gymnasts expecially from small country can try to quilify to EF)
Btw, Jiaxin was surprised that she was first quilified to EF LOL She's so cute. And before the EF started, she said she was nervous and she cheered for herself. I like she uses Weibo to communicate with fans frequently hehe.
DeleteZeng seems weak in strength and endurance to me. I hope she can change that. She's beautiful to watch, though her bars are not great in parts. I hope she wins beam tomorrow.
DeleteI really loved Tan Jiaxin's routine. So dynamic! Ri Un Ha had lovely form on vault too I thought, she crashed the Cheng last year too if I remember correctly..she's getting a bit too much distance it looks like. Hopefully she can make it work, though they should consider making it a Mustafina if she can't.
Larisa really got slammed on bars. It's a good thing, her routine should be much smarter..it's wide open for deductions as it is.
I hope Jupp continues to progress nicely. Great routines at American Cup, British Championships and Doha so far...so consistent! And that she gets a DTY at some stage.
That's so cute about Jiaxin! I hope she can become useful on at least one more event.
It's not just to you but ALL people in Baidu know she has serious endurance problem (since she started to compete...) This will cost her a lot.(I forgot to tell you she had an empty swing in qualification so she has only hit one routine in this comp so far... ) Bars are her weakest event so I won't expect too much.
DeleteI hope Didi won't fell again on beam to challenge uh...bronze medalist I think. So as Larisa. Her E score seems had huge mistakes. :/
Just saw some of the new Larisa videos, she looks older and more mature, not a kid anymore. She definitely looks a bit taller as well?
ReplyDeleteLarisa's bars can definitely be upgraded I think, her swing looks to have improved and overall her routine looked easy for her. Same with Jupp. Ruby Harrold's got lovely swing too, in fact her form problems seem like it's because she get so much flight on her releases that it's hard to maintain the form. She had no problems with the dismount in EF, all round a lovely routine. I think when she learns to control the flight a bit more she should be able to clean up her form. Her bars in Doha have looked much sharper with much more attack, lovely to see.
Also good on Phan (VT) for the gold, stealing it out from under Larisa and Giulia! Her vaults don't seem terribly consistent but she did really well in the EF. She looks exactly the same as she did in 2011 Worlds, which is pretty unusual in this sport haha
Her face has changed a bit I thought, and slightly taller. Her bars could be so much better, she was discredited for a connection and slammed for late turns. I hope her execution score is a wake-up call to work harder on them for her coaches.
DeleteLoved Phan's vaults, beautiful. I wish she'd retire that leo though..Ukraine used to have it too, Irina Krasnianska comes to mind.
rmb the romanians have just stared using griips? give tgem some more time. i think they can improve on it
ReplyDeleteI don't think the grips will impact the seniors. Maybe make their swing a little easier, but it's the teaching of basics when they are young that is the issue, and they need more than grips to fix that. It's a bit late for Bulimar to make drastic improvements with her bars. Iordache is different..the talent is there, they just have to utilise it. Happily they have Andreea Iridon and Madalina Blendea who can swing bars...
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