Adjusting to a college timetable out of the blue is tough. Happily, the wait for Antwerp is flying by!
A new nominative registration list for Antwerp is out. You can find it here. Bear in mind it can change up to a day before competition starts, but I'd be very confident that this is basically it. The most notable change is the addition of Stefanie Alina Stanila of Romania. I'm delighted she's getting this great chance for experience, though of course it took the untimely injury of Diana Bulimar for this to happen. I know that Romania do not have fantastic funding and that is a big reason why we haven't seen their new seniors, but I still thought it was unfair. Anyway, her difficulty is too low to make an impact but she has potential I think. Other changes are the inclusion of Daria Matveyeva of Ukraine over the previously named Olesya Sazonova. I'm not sure why, but injury would be a good guess. We know that the swift replacement of Paula Vargas of Spain and Adriana Crisci of Italy is due to injury, and so is Jonna Adlerteg of Sweden's absence, while Elsa Garcia's has been confirmed as politics- sigh. I know people are baffled that Elisa Meneghini mised another chance to be named to the team but it seems they are preserving her and building her difficulty for next year, when she and Enus Mariani would be expected to become the new backbone of the team. Jade Barbosa has not been replaced, but she's out. Victoria Moors is still not down for vault, which is odd. There's a mistake with Italy's beam lineup by the way, Leolini is not doing beam.
Aliya Mustafina has new floor music! I love it, it's dramatic and the vocals are haunting. Suits her. She is or has been dealing with a virus which has impacted her training somewhat. Upgrades on bars, floor and beam were in training and a second vault (Lopez maybe?) but it's not clear now how much she will do of those.
Japan Junior is coming up fast, it starts on the 22nd! As mentioned, the lineup is amazing- Laurie Hernandez, Bailie Key, Andreea Iridon, Andreea Munteanu, Maria Bondareva, Maria Kharenkova, Catherine Lyons, Georgia Mae Fenton, Wang Yan etc. etc. Catherine Lyons has a nice boost going into this, she won 6 of a possible 6 medals at the School Games recently but I think her difficulty is too low to impact. The beauty of her beam and floor will be great though. I haven't heard anything about a stream yet, here's hoping. Edit- I just discovered the competitions will basically start at 5AM for me, so I won't be looking for a stream! If I see one mentioned I'll post it but I think this will be reliant on youtube videos from people who attend..
What do you think about the US team?
ReplyDeleteDelighted with it, but it's such a shame Brenna can't do the AA too. She's very talented and competing bars and beam will help her experience-wise. It was quite an open spot with Kocian and Ohashi out, and Ebee not yet ready. Ernst I feel isn't quite there yet.
DeleteI don't really see the point on putting her on beam. If Martha's serious about having Mckayla do the AA in the future I think she should do beam and leave Brenna only for bars where there's an outside chance for her to medal. I do however think it's great that Brenna is getting this chance since she's incredibly valuable as a team member.
DeleteI get the impression from camp rumours (Ersnt lots of falls, McKayla numerous falls on bars and beam) that McKayla is not quite ready as an all-arounder. She can always get the chance to do so at a world cup or Pac Rims though. For Brenna, beam is pure experience- and scoring.
DeleteReallistically speaking, I don't think Mckayla has a shot at being a top All Arounder. I just can't see her beating Simone, Bailie or even Brenna anytime soon. Her current vault-floor status should secure her a place in Rio though since she's incredible on both.
DeleteChanging topic a little bit, I'm really curious to see vault finals in Antwerp, I really wanna see how well Simone will do. Gymnastike posted a video of her cheng an it looks fenomenal. That's gonna push Mckayl to get the TTY for sure and I wouldn't be surprised if she unveiled it next season.
Well no, I don't see her factoring in at all when Bailie and co. turn senior. She's always had that potential on bars and beam though. I think it would be nice if she could compete AA at pac rims and Jesolo again though, and not only do vault and floor forever.
DeleteNo Moreno though for vault and I don't know why. I think Simone is a great bet for silver, even without the Cheng. I've seen two videos of it and it looks great, but I don't think they'll bring it this year. Marta hates untested skills and the second video looked like it wasn't quite perfect landing.
After seeing the list, I think the AA, UB, and FX final medalists will be the most predictable. I definitely think that VT and BB finals will be interesting. Good luck with sitting by vault! Just pray that no one will fall or tear something :)
ReplyDeleteI don't really understand why Romania brought Stanila. She doesn't have any major experience besides 2012 Junior Euros. Not only that, but after Nationals, I thought that Ocolisan was better than her. Oh well...who knows what she might pull off? It also says Izbasa will do vault. I'm confused, I thought she was just going to do floor.
The Japan Junior Cup will be very interesting! For the AA, I think Bailie Key will most likely win followed by (hopefully) Munteanu and Kharenkova. The beam and floor finals look awesome, too!
By the way, what do you mean Elsa Garcia's absence is due to "politics"?
I know have the added danger of Nabieva vaulting an amanar as per rumours, as well as Mahmoud's Produnova. Fun fact, Produnova in Chinese translates via google to poor baby, today I read lots about Mahmoud's and Pena's poor babies and how Mahmoud's baby is worse than Pena's..lol. Seriously though, that will be so hard to watch but I think Pena has had a lot of upheaval with an injury and her coach leaving and that she won't do that vault..she didn't earlier this year.
DeleteStanila is just for experience. They already budgeted for 3 gymnasts, so why not bring the third. Personally I think Stanila has more potential than Ocalisan. I'm very surprised about Izbasa being down for vault, she said herself that she wasn't going to do it.
I think Hernandez will be on that podium if she hits. Kharenkova has an FTY and her bars are actually kinda weak. I think Key-Hernandez-Munteanu is the podium.
The gymnasts who competed at Universiade were given to understand that it would basically form their inclusion or otherwise to worlds. The federation called for a trial a little while back and the various gyms took great offence at this, and are not sending their gymnasts to trials so they're not going.
I can't bring myself to understand why Moors isn't listed to do AA.. Either they're super confident all three of the other girls can qualify into vault finals (although only 2 can actually make it into the final) or....
ReplyDeleteShocking how Izbasa is listed to do vault also! And how Romania is deciding to bring another gymnast! Yay for them.
It's odd that it hasn't been corrected, but I do expect it will be. I'm baffled at Izbasa down for vault, she has said she won't do it. Another mistake maybe.
DeleteI think with Izbasa they're probably going to keep her registered just to see if she can get her vaults ready...
DeleteSo sad/annoyed about Elsa Garcia and Alexa Morena! Glad to know they're not injured but grrrr.
I think I read somewhere that Moors is scared of vault!
I dunno, she hasn't competed them at all. It's a risk, and vault is seriously competitive this year.
DeleteI do think Moors not down for vault is a mistake..just so strange it hasn't been corrected yet, she wasn't down for it on the first nominative list either.
Yay, you are back! Good luck with school, I start my PhD in just about two weeks, eek. I've also managed to time it really spectacularly such that I will be on the plane to the UK right during Worlds AA... go me. :( Then again there's no coverage in Singapore of Worlds anyway so at least when I get to the UK I can catch EF on BBC coverage...
ReplyDeleteReally a pity about Komova definitely being out, and all the other aches and pains both in the Russian camp and elsewhere. I'm glad Stanila is getting a chance even though she and Ocolisan are way behind the juniors now.. it must be hard to keep up training when you don't get to go anywhere. But really sad that Zeng Siqi is still on the list, I like her but she's been so flaky this year and I'd have loved seeing Sui Lu again :(
Love Mustafina's new music. Bars upgrades were a given for her, but I don't believe Val R when she says Mustafina has a full twisting Shaposh.. sounds more like it would be a half twisting? Kinda tricky to know how much of her upgrades she is going to put in. Floor is always tough for her when she's not in the best of health and beam is pretty hit and miss too. Not sure there's much of a point in her or Nabs doing two vaults either, the vault field this year is pretty good even without Izbasa. Bars is looking a bit thin, though. Wish Nabs would bring back the Nabieva as it's just an incredible skill even if she always got docked on execution for it.
Yes, it should be fine on BBC iplayer! Thanks, I have a degree and now I'm going backwards to a lower cert and retraining since my degree isn't useful at the moment..couldn't imagine a phD but this course is fairly intense actually, moreso than most of university.
DeleteI agree with everything, I'm interested to see if the full twisting shaposh materialises for sure. Seitz has done one, but of course naming etc. depends on the entry of it. I think bars will be exciting, the girls with lower difficulty like Popa, Scheder, Harrold, Ross are really awesome to watch. And then the Chinese v Mustafina fight at the top :)
I thought Seitz's skill was a full twisting Maloney, not Shaposhnikova.
DeleteThe Nabieva is awesome! It would be great if Tatiana does it again.
It's from a toe-on so it's a Maloney, but given a Maloney is technically just a toe-on Shaposhnikova ... usually all of those skills (Van Leeuwen (sp?), Komova, Maloney, Seitz etc.) are just referred to as Shaposh variations. I heard that the reason Seitz doesn't do hers anymore is that the cap on transitions is an E, so there's very little point doing a full-twisting Shaposh when it won't be rewarded any higher than a half.
DeleteHi... do you know if theres a life stream for worlds that i can watch in germany??
ReplyDelete