What's the story with YOG?

YOG is the Youth Olympic Games. This August, 16-18th to be exact, they will take place in the city of Nanjing, China. Not to be confused with Nanning which is thousands of miles away and is where worlds will be held.

There is only one female gymnast per country allowed, who must have been born in 1999 i.e. turning senior next year. The US have declined this opportunity and will not be sending any WAG. This is disappointing but is probably no bad thing..Bailie Key has had a lot of experience with wiping the floor with her competitors, and this leaves podiums more open and exciting.

Gymnasts qualify at a number of events. These include: Jr Euros, Jr Pan American Games and Jr Asian Championships. Ultimately it is down to the federation who gets to go, but it seems to be the case that the gymnast must have competed at one of the qualifying meets.

Note: Skills can be named at this meet. Viktoria Komova had one of her bars transitions named here. This will be only the second ever YOG.

So, who's in the running?

Russia have a number of options:

Maria Bondareva
Anastasia Dmitrieva
Seda Tutkhalyan

Maria Bondareva would have been seen as the forerunner of this for quite some time, however over the last year she seems to have stagnated quite a bit. Anastasia isn't consistent enough to really impress at this point either. Seda is the best option but isn't too consistent just yet.

Romania have two that I know of:

Laura Jurca
Andreea Iridon

This one isn't near as open, the spot should be Laura's. Andreea has some beautiful work but doesn't seem to be an all-arounder, which is the focus of this competition.

China have two major contenders:

Wang Yan
Yuan Xiaoyang

This one will I think go to Wang Yan if she is healthy. I mention her a lot, she's quite the star on vault and beam in particular although Asian Junior Championships did not go her way recently..

Britain have three:

Ellie Downie
Tyesha Matthis
Amy Tinkler

Now this will be close, all three are powerhouses with quite a lot of difficulty. We will I believe see amanars from this bunch when senior.

Japan have two:

Aiko Sugihara
Sae Miyakawa

Both girls are strong on floor. Sae also has a nice DTY under her belt.

Brazil have two:

Rebeca Andrade
Flavia Saraiva

Rebeca has had her name on this for years. Super springy, with an amanar, DLO and improved bars. However, Flavia is extremely promising and will hopefully be given a fair chance in the running for the spot.

Netherlands also have two, though I don't know a huge amount about these girls. Update: Both are currently injured. Many of their seniors are too - Chantysha Netteb, Noel Van Klaveren, Eythora Thorsdottir. The new CGA??

Mara Titarsolej
Dana de Groot

Sadly, the star that is Kim Janas is injured and won't be ready to compete. She could have given the big 3 a run for their money.

Elizabet Vasileva of Bulgaria won't be in medal contention but she WILL turn heads on floor and beam if she goes. She used to be a rythmic gymnast and incorporates this to stunning effect on both events. Australian Darcy Norman is another to look out for also. Edit- Elizabet may be 2000 born and therefore not elegible. We will see her at Euros though.

Now is the time to have fun on youtube looking up the contenders. It should be a great battle, some enormous potential and talent with no real obvious winner from looking at the lists of those elegible.

To me, the AA is anyone's game. On vault, looking forward to seeing who can contest Rebeca Andrade, hopefully Wang Yan can. On floor I'd love to see Sae Miyakawa holding her own, she has a super neat double front and double layout last pass. If this lot go of course. Beam and bars are harder to puzzle out.

Who are you most looking forward to seeing?

Japan Jr and US training

No livestream emerged from Japan Junior, not that it would have been much good to me in the end when I discovered the AA started at 5am my time. Unfortunately, nobody was allowed to make videos either, and only two have emerged so far. First, results!

Unsurprisingly, Bailie Key won with a huge 58.4. Bailie fell on beam and still scored a 14 there. She scored a 15 on floor with a 6.1 routine, and nailed her DTY also, 15.05. It's so surprising to hear that Bailie fell..she counted no falls this year at Jesolo, Chemnitz, Classics or Nationals and the European competitions had event finals too. Despite the fall here, she still finished 1.5 points ahead of her nearest rival, continuing her streak of domination.

Sadly, Laurie Hernandez fell, paving the way to silver for the one who wasn't mentioned at all in the live tweets...Wang Yan! She has been dealing with an injury but appears to be fully recovered, scoring huge on vault and very respectable elsewhere..though I don't think she could have been at her best on floor and beam given her scores there, a bit lower than expected. Wang Yan has a DTT and Rudi under her belt belt (Rudi not consistent...yet) whereas most of her competitors will be doing a DTY and FTY, or even less. A great result for her after a disappointing National Games, and she's in a good position to take vault gold and place on beam.

I was very curious about how Laurie Hernandez' floor would score under international judging for the first time..not to worry, she got 14.7 for 5.9 difficulty. She came to grief as mentioned on bars but seems to have done well otherwise. Aleeza Yu of Canada snatched fourth place which was thrilling but unexpected, I hope a video or two of her appear despite the ban on them..after all, we do have two already.

Fifth-seventh place consist of Andreea Munteanu, Maria Bondareva and Maria Kharenkova. Andreea had hand surgery a while ago so as expected she wasn't at the top of her game, and her teammate Andreea Iridon had a bit of a nightmare with at least one fall and counting a piked yurchenko but she's also having issues with growth pain in her wrist. We don't know of any excuse for the fairly poor performances of the two Russians though. Kharenkova is slightly concerning given that she's turning senior in a few months. It's hard to see her excel as an all-arounder, but certainly she continues to show a lot of promise on beam and floor in particular. Bondareva is younger, and lovely, but her scores indicate that she hasn't really progressed- she seems to be in a rut. Hopefully both girls can advance with their gymnastics and not be struck down by the horror show that is Russian gymnastics politics (and health!) and a certain person/dragon.

Catherine Lyons was eighth, a respectable result given that she has lower difficulty than the girls of the top 4. She seems to have grown a lot but I'm very hopeful for her future, I see her as the elegant antithesis to powerhouses Tyesha Mattis, Amy Tinkler and Ellie Downie. Compatriot Georgia Mae Fenton has been dealing with injury unfortunately and as such only competed two events.

Here are some more snippets from Japan's gymnastics federation:

1) Key maybe did piked circle 1/1 stuck the tsk dismount 
2) Laurie fell on Ricna and didn't do Pak salto 
3) Janas almost fell off beam. 
4) Munteanu under rotated her triple twist on floor. 
5) Maybe Kharenkova did Arabian to jump 
6) Sae Miyagawa changed her first pass from "1 1/2 to dbl front" to "front layout to tuck dbl front" and maybe dlo 
7) Wakana Yasui upgraded her first pass to 2 1/2 to front layout, second pass to tuck full

I'm so happy Wang Yan had a great competition! I'll update with event finals results tomorrow.

This channel has videos of Munteanu and Kharenkova on floor, and hopefully more to be uploaded...You can see the breakdown of scores here and the list of event final orders here. Event finals will start in about 6 hours or so.

The US worlds team are currently training in the Netherlands. Here are some observations from Judith, who was present..this training session was open to the public, but like at US sessions, it didn't include floor tumbling or vault.

"Ok quick summary. Biles does a 2.5 wolf on beam now, I believe she nailed it every time. The bhs bhs layout is gone I think because she did bhs - loso. Full-in dismount. She did a double wolf on floor and added a front aerial. The girls didn't do any tumbling or vaulting so I can't say anything about that.
Kyla didn't change anything I believe. Looked solid on bars as usual and her beam too. No sign of the aerial cartwheel to loso or bhs-arabian. The switch ring - back tuck seems to be gone too, the back tuck is after the switch leap.
Brenna looked cleaner on UB and she hit the Tweddle - straddle back every time I think. After the straddle back she does a toe-on half but she had some trouble with that one. She also added the Maloney half back into her routine. Her beam was blah as usual. I believe she only did a double tuck dismount(2 bhs's) today instead of the double pike at Nats. I've seen her splits while sitting on the floor, and I don't think she can do a proper split....
McKayla didn't look so good on UB actually. I believe she starts with a weiler half on the low bar but she couldn't quite get it. maloney - pak, maloney half, gienger, piked jaeger, full turn, full-in dismount(not all of those were good) Her beam was ok, just not as clean and consistent as the others due to lack of training I think. front pike(puck..), bhs loso, front tuck, switch leap switch half, side aerial, eeh just the usual. I saw one double pike dismount from her, wasn't too hot. Apparently she cried a bit too but I didn't see it.
As a whole, the girls looked fit, strong and healthy and they looked focused. We were behind glass during beam and bars, but not for floor(dance-throughs and dance skills etc) and it was dead quiet."

Farewell to He Kexin and..the injury list

Copyright- A'Min, Guo Chen- Xinhua news agency

After a long (for a female gymnast) and fruitful career, He Kexin bid farewell to gymnastics today. The winner of multiple titles on bars- including Olympic, world and National Games- had a mishap on her final routine, where she lost it on a turn on the low bar and came off. Unbelievably, she managed to smile at her own misfortune and gracefully saluted the crowd afterwards. She will be much missed.

Here is her final routine. The jumbotron at the end shows roughly (not my translation of course, but a very accurate source!) "From the National Sports Arena (Beijing gym venue) to the O2, we've watched your brilliant performances. Today, we hope to see your radiant smile as you perform the final routine of your career. He Kexin, UB queen forever!"

And one of her best.

;( What a truly phenomenal bars worker.

And of course, there's more sad news. The injury list has grown to include Diana Bulimar. Diana was winning medals at Interland last week, but had knee surgery yesterday. It doesn't sound too serious, but the six weeks rest will of course mean she's going to miss worlds. Devastating! Winning a medal would have been a long shot but it's the joy of her routines that counts.

The Injury (or recovering) List

Mariya Livchikova, Ukraine
Gabby Jupp, Britain
Nadine Jarosch, Germany
Lisa Hill, Germany
Janine Berger, Germany
Jade Barbosa, Brazil
Adrian Gomes, Brazil
Viktoria Komova, Russia
Ksenia Afanasyeva, Russia
Anastasia Grishina, Russia*
Evgeniya Shelgunova, Russia
Lou Nina, China
Julie Croket, Belgium
Gabriella Douglas, Canada
Lexie Priessman, USA
Katelyn Ohashi, USA
Madison Kocian, USA
Elisabetta Preziosa, Italy
Giorgia Campana, Italy
Erika Fasana, Italy
Celine Van Gerner, Netherlands
Lisa Top, Netherlands
Diana Bulimar, Romania
Wyomi Masela, Netherlands
Anna Kuhm, France
Sarah Finnegan, USA
Sabrina Vega, USA

I do think Anastasia Grishina is not fully out due to injury- it seems blacklisting could be the issue there. Neither Ana Sofia Gomez Porras, Alexa Moreno or Elsa Garcia appear on the nominative list, which is a bit worrying. 

In happier news, Shang Chunsong added to her haul of medals at National Games with gold on bars and a whopping score of 15.367. Yao Jinnan just missed, she didn't do the Mo and skipped another connection so her 15.2 reflects a lower d score. In third place was Huang Huidan, who continues her miraculous streak of not falling. As mentioned above, He Kexin sadly fell. In vault finals, Li Yiting HIT, scoring a 15 on her DTT. Second and third went to Deng Yalan and Yang Pei. Tiny superstar Wang Yan unfortunately fell on her Rudi but it was an interesting final- with a dearth of Yurchenko vaults! Li Yiting hitting vault like that makes things interesting- it makes no sense for Zeng Siqi to go to worlds and if Sui Lu retires beforehand- then there's a possible opening for Li Yiting...

I don't think I mentioned the all-around but if you didn't hear- the best result possible happened- Yao Jinnan and Shang Chunsong tied for first! This result alone sets them up for life, so happy for them. Deng Linlin bowed out of competition on a high note, just about (and controversially at that) securing the bronze.

Today at Romanian Nationals, Larisa Iordache triumphantly returned to competition, taking first in the all-around. She watered down most of her routines and was a little wobbly on beam, but a stellar performance given that she only restarted training a week ago. Hopefully she can regain the difficulty in time for Antwerp, which is really creeping up fast now. She came to a stop on bars after messing up her Jaeger- and it looks like her coach helped that long by touching her- but she introduced the shap half at last and the rest of the routine looked fine, but laboured. Andreea Munteanu was second with STUNNING floor and beam routines that are a must-watch- especially beam, and likewise Andreea Iridon was third with gorgeous bars and beam routines. Sandra Izbasa scored a huge 15.1 (think US scoring at this competition) on floor. Larisa has a new floor and I like it, until it was pointed out the choreography is much the same as her old routine. The music is dramatic and hopefully she can differentiate more between this routine and the last one with her dance in time. You can find videos here.

EYOF in a nutshell

Highlights

- Eythora Thorsdottir on beam. Refreshingly Soviet and glorious.
- Kim Janas' floor choreography. Not so much that it flowed wonderfully, it didn't, but the actual movements were great.
- Laura Jurca's DTY! Really excellent first showing.
- In general, 2 more DTY's for Romania. They now have 3 in the junior ranks.
- Tyesha Mattis' double double. So unneccessary (skills are capped at E value) but awesome, great landing.
- Solid Russian beam. How very unusual! Great routines by Maria Kharenkova and Maria Bondareva.
- Andreea Iridon's beam. Love.
- Quality performances by Britain. Team gold, AA gold and silver, rings and pommel gold, parallel bars and floor silver in MAG, team silver, AA bronze and vault gold and bronze in WAG. Awesome! They could have done even better but they had some issues in WAG team finals.
- Maria Kharenkova's double arabian. Lovely and neat. Jury's still out on her double pike- sheep jump. She needs a B jump for that connection so your average leap won't do but the very nature of a sheep jump makes it slow. Maybe a double stag if that's a B? Any other suggestions?
- Martina Rizzelli on bars. Deserving bars champion. She's a new one on me and I really loved her swing and lightness.
- Emma Larsson's bounciness on floor. Great tumbles from her.
- Eythora Thorsdottir on floor. Because who can't be enthralled even from the way she walks on before saluting?
- Silvia Zarzu on floor. She looks better, more 'on'. Despite the loss of her much-loved floor music from last year (to me anyway) I really enjoyed her on this event.
- 2/3 hit routines for Eythora Thorsdottir on beam, and no falls! Her usual beam routine is almost guaranteed to have a fall. Nice 2.5 upgraded dismount too.
- The resurgence of Laura Jurca. She's been relagated to an alternate type but she really showed what she's made of at this competition. Sadly she wasn't great in the AA but did so well on the first day and in vault finals. Super DTY!

Not-so highlights

- The absence of Andreea Munteanu (hand surgery), Madalina Blendea (stomach issues), Enus Mariani (back problems) and Elizabet Vasileva (???).
- Tiebreakers. Particularly the AA one, a tiebreak for gold is extra unfair. Poor Kim Janas! Does everything with Olympic in the name employ tiebreakers?
- Falls, like Andreea Iridon on bars, Russians on bars, Silvia Zarzu on vault, Tutya Yilmaz' meltdown on bars in the AA and more.
- Russian steadiness on beam seeming to come at the cost of their bars. Even Viktoria Kuzmina was not great, short handstands, no upgrades. They do have good basics of course..
- Very harsh scoring, particularly on floor. Scores were also too close, which resulted in several ties.
- The livestream. Would not work on firefox, had to use Chrome. Way too much focus on the audience and on gymnasts after their routine. Nice variety of gymnasts shown but many of the top contenders had only 1 or 2 routines, or in the case of Maria Bondareva- none, shown.
- Super bouncy floor. This is the floor that was used a few times so far this year with numerous out of bounds, and will be used in Antwerp. There's getting used to a different floor and then there's a floor that is just too bouncy.

Best routines

Beam- Eythora Thorsdottir, EF
Floor- Ooh. Kim Janas, Emma Larsson or Eythora. 
Vault- Laura Jurca, EF
Bars- Martina Rizzelli, EF

Best leotards- Netherlands TF, Romania TF

A great competition, though marred by notable absences, falls and tiebreakers. Not the best competition for Russia and Romania though a valuable experience for them I think. What were your highlights? Has Eythora won over the masses yet?

Nothing else will embed! A pity she doesn't have the difficulty for gold but a silver is such a boost anyway for her most troublesome apparatus, and in front of a home crowd too.




 

EYOF/Universiade/Portugal

The first shock is Romania's team for EYOF. The girls named are Andreea Iridon, Madalina Blendea and Laura Jurca. As in, where the hell is Andreea Munteanu? Lots of guesses going on about how she has already competed so much this year and maybe they are resting her for next year or maybe they want to try the younger girls with less experience etc. but by far the most common opinion is that she must be injured, as they really need her. This is a very strong team for bars and very good on beam, but extremely weak on vault where they would desperately need her DTY and her high beam and floor scores would come in very handy too. This meet is in fact a big deal, moreso than any other she has attended this year so it's quite bewildering IF she isn't injured.It's important to remember that this is a nominative registration list and that Romania are huge fans of substitution. However, they are also quite fond of not disclosing injuries so there's that too..

For the host country, Eythora Thorsdottir is a certainty, despite counting falls at Dutch Nationals and in general being unsteady on beam. Dana de Groot is another good bet, but not sure about the third. Britain have quite a good team, not named yet but expected to be Tyesha Matthis, Amy Tinkler and Ellie Downie. Sadly Catherine Lyons is not elegible. I would call Maria Bondareva a lock for the Russian team. Maria Kharenkova too if she is fully healthy, she has been dealing with a hand injury this year. The others place(s) are between Anastasia Dmitrieva, Viktoria Kuzmina, Seda Tutkhalyan and Evgeniya Zhukova. The latter in particular is a great vault and floor girl, would would be very lacking in a team of Bondareva/Kharenkova for instance. Kim Janas is a huge AA threat, almost certainly she will feature on the podium there. But the one I most want to see is Elizabet Vasileva of Bulgaria who hasn't been named at all, but is elegible for her country!

Russia have named their Universiade team. No surprises with Aliya Mustafina and Ksenia Afanasyeva on the roster, and joining them will be Tatiana Nabieva, Anna Dementyeva and Maria Paseka. I did expect one of Ekaterina Kramarenko and Anna Myzdrikova or even both, since despite Demy's much higher start values she is still very inconsistent unlike those two. The biggest excitement is Afan's new floor routine! And also whether she will do bars and what she will throw on vault. Aliya's beam is her most important event here, as once that is steady she's away on a hack to really challenge in Antwerp.

Also for Universiade, Alexa Moreno of Mexico who is an amazing vaulter, and Danusia Francis of Britain who is of course, very valuable on beam and floor.

The Portugal World Cup which has an absolutely stacked roster takes place this weekend. I will edit in a few links before then, I already have one that definitely works so check back for that! Competing at this competition are Larisa Iordache, Diana Bulimar, Rebecca Tunney, Hannah Whelan, Jade Barbosa, Shang Chunsong, Zeng Siqi, Anna Rodionova, Ekaterina Baturina, Alla Sosnitskaya, Anastasia Grishina, Jessica Lopez, Oksana Chusovitina, Noemi Makra, Ilaria Kaeslin and Janine Berger!

Confirmed: Yao Jinnan is a complete badass

After my disappointment the other week with Aussie Maddie Leydin not in fact having a counter-kim on bars as was reported earlier this year, I'm delighted that it's been confirmed with actual evidence that Yao Jinnan DOES have a Mo Salto. The gif is two thirds of the way down this page. Sure she has assistance, but it looks like a solid skill. I love when people go the unorthodox route for upgrades, and I'm so happy we are more than likely to see this release in a routine again. It was rumoured a few months ago and dismissed, but here it is! :D Even if she never competes it, the fact that she actually trained it is incredible. She may be able to release out of it into a Jaeger as Rick from gymnasticscoaching said, but if she doesn't have the flight to do that (wow how awesome if she could?) then she won't incur a deduction for an empty swing after, which she would have done last quad. Same goes for the counter-kim, if someone does unleash one.

Elite season is looming in the US with Classics about 6 weeks away. USAG have now released training camp snippets of Kyla Ross, Maggie Nichols, Maddie Desch, Polina Shchennikova, McKayla Maroney, Brenna Dowell, Kennedy Baker, Lexie Priessman, Bailie Key and Ebee Price. Still to come are Simone Biles, Amelia Hundley, Nia Dennis, Mykayla Skinner, Abigail Milliet, Nica Hults and new kids on the block Emily Gaskins, Grace Quinn, Ashton Locklear, Emily Schild, Norah Flatley, Alexis Vasquez and Rachel Gowey. The latter three have just qualified elite at Parkettes and all showed fabulous work on beam in particular, though sadly Alexis has injured her foot and watered down significantly as a result. The star of the show was Laurie Hernandez who posted a huge 57.8 total, though she was there moreso for experience, what with already being an elite. Her new floor is glorious, I absolutely love it. Sadly, Bailey Ferrer and Vanasia Bradley who both have huge skills in training had disastrous competitions, though Bailey scraped past the qualifying post.

The one who all eyes will be on is Simone Biles. We already know her routines, and her difficulty currently stands at 6.1 UB, 6.3 BB, 6.2 FX and 6.3 VT. Here's the fun part, her planned upgrades of a full-in DLO and piked double arabian bump up her floor to an enormous 6.8 and her planned arabian on beam bring that set up to a 6.7. Very interesting! Her bars count a C and her dismount is very easy for her, if she can (maybe next year even) do an E transition and a Fabrichnova that would bring them to 6.5. To put that into perspective, her difficulty even without the hypothetical bars is equal to Gabby Douglas at the Olympics, though like Gabby on bars, Simone would be unlikely to claim her full difficulty on floor, as she has two questionable leaps. This would bring her down to a still fearsome 6.6

Andreea Iridon won the AA for her age group at Romanian Junior Nationals. Andreea Munteanu did not compete; she has more than proven herself this year. Olivia Cimpian, a 2001 born, won it for her category. The surprise in the younger ranks is Andreea Ciurusniuc who has come on tremendously in the last year, though she did beat Andra Stoica at Trnava so that was definitely a sign! There were notable absences and a bonus system in place so there's not much of a cohesive picture yet. Results are here, to be taken with a pinch of salt.

The winners of the Dutch Nationals AA were Vera Van Pol who snuck up out of nowhere when Celine Van Gerner and Wyomi Masela made mistakes, and Eythora Thorsdottir who continues to break hearts everywhere when she fell off beam again, and also floor. Happily she did have interesting upgrades, a 2.5 dismount on beam and a double twisting flyaway on bars. Now this is my favourite type of bars dismount and wow are they rare, but so beautiful. It's only worth a C and she needs D or higher to satisfy CR...but the 2.5 version is worth a D and the triple an E. I didn't think I could root for her more but the dismount has definitely made her more awesome. She had a double pike and she must be upgrading this flyaway further or there would be no point. You can see senior results here.

Following Jacoby Miles progress, the Level 9 gymnast who was paralysed late last year and she is continuing to progress which is great to here. I love the fact she's helping out in her gym. The blog about her, maintained by her mother, is here.

Videos after the jump! Parkettes videos were filmed by Between the Olympics blog.

Blendea returns; Munteanu triumphant

The junior friendly between Romania and France concluded today. Quite the domination- Romania won the team competition, gold and bronze in the all-around and the vast majority of event finals medals. Andreea Munteanu of the glorious leaps added 5 gold medals to her already full cabinet- Team, AA, vault, floor and beam. This enormous ball of talent unleashed two brand new upgrades; a DTY and a triple full beam dismount. She also added a turn combination, though it is currently worthless she's obviously paving the way for something more valuable there. Sadly she fell off bars on the first day and had a very costly error the next, but her huge strides forward on every other apparatus will hopefully allow her to focus on bars and get them more consistent and worthy of such a solid all-arounder.

Madalina Blendea returned to competition for the first time in a year. Her difficulty level was cautious, though it paid off as she hit all 4 events while her teammates splatted all around her. The low difficulty also explains how she only managed fourth in the AA despite falls from the medal winners. Nevertheless, this was a strong competition from her, with beam and floor in particular a delight to watch. Her lines on bars are still beautiful, and her swing on transitions has improved. Her leaps need some work but what a great return for her!

Andreea Iridon suffered falls from bars and beam but redeemed herself on her best event in event finals- claiming gold on bars- facing strong opposition from Madalina Blendea and French bars wunderkind Louise Vanhille. Her beam has beautiful composition, really lovely to watch. Her leaps are superb on floor, like Andreea Munteanu she should be able to pull off the harder turning leaps like the Gogean (who judged at this meet!) with no question of doubt. Unfortunately, she has a lot of troubles with vault and only did a layout yurchenko (piked a bit!) at this meet. Normally she does a very scary FTY. Unless a miracle happens, she cannot really be any kind of top all-arounder sadly. But a fabulous gymnast with lovely original work especially on beam.

Poor Diana Teodoru suffered a fall on floor and three off beam- and began crying during her routine. She did manage to stay on bars and there is a good bit of potential in her work. Would love to see her mentally as well as physically improve..and change her floor routine. I'm all for the use of traditional music for gymnasts but this music is just too fast and frantic to benefit her. Silvia Zarzu and Laura Jurca had quite a mixed meet. Silvia has not competed in a while and counted a fall though looks like floor will be her major selling point. This is not enough in itself especially in Romania so if she bucked up on vault that would help her chances tremendously.

Thank you to Maryline for travelling to capture these videos! Particularly the very elusive Madalina Blendea. Videos after the jump..

The One to Watch

I have done a mini-series showcasing the best upcoming seniors of this quad. You can find the links to each New Kids on the Block post here. It's worth noting that the China one is a bit redundant, as further competitions and insight has shown that there are brighter stars in their future. I'll redo it. You can also find a not-totally-comprehensive-but-including-everyone-of-consequence list of upcoming seniors here. As you can see, we have just had 21 girls (at least) turn senior! Exciting stuff, and Euros will be very interesting to see their upgrades and potential for worlds. And of course, the competitions USA, China etc. will be at. But now to pinpoint the one girl from each country who I think will be the star. It's tough! At least I discovered page breaks. If the routines have falls, it's either a) the only routine on youtube or b) a fluke but by far the most recent routine or c) doesn't really affect how much amazing potential there is in the rest of the routine.

USA

Bailie Key

Copyright- Jessica Frankl

This was very difficult, not to push Simone Biles, Amelia Hundley and Lexie Priessman out of the way, but to disregard Nia Dennis. The reason why the first three did not get a look in is because they are currently very weak and exhibiting poor form on bars and beam. Having two dodgy events will not get you my crown. As for Nia, I think Bailie has the greater potential. Now, moving onto Bailie herself. She trains at Texas Dreams and will turn senior in 2015.

Copyright- USAG- USA Gymnastics

LOOK AT IT! And she can get her front leg higher. Disregarding the fact that this will be a victim of the new switch ring leap rule, this is awesome, and especially from an American gymnast. Bailie's greatest assets are her form and flexibility. Her bars exhibit fabulous form (minus her tendency to flex her feet on transitions), beautiful releases, precise and beautiful bodyline and a great dismount. She tends to clear the bar like Nastia unfortunately, but as she grows taller hopefully technique can be bettered on that. Upgrades include a Shaposh 1/2, Downie AND Church! Wow! All in all, her bars are like golddust, and world class long before she's senior. Beam is another delight, showcasing her lines and extension in her acro skills, a beautiful twisting 2.5 dismount, the aforementioned switch ring leap and a tour jete 1/2 actually worthy of credit. Her upgrades here include an Arabian. She looks well capable of an Onodi or Kotchetkova, her whole routine looks easy for her. Side somi has to go, she's too good for that ugly thing!