News

This is one exciting month for competitions. Coming up in just 3 days is a juniors friendly between Romania and France. Romania are sending Andreea Munteanu, Silvia Zarzu, Andreea Iridon, Diana Teodoru and....Madalina Blendea, who has not competed in more than a year! Let us hope for videos. Silvia also has not been seen for a good while. Right as that ends is the Gym Festival Trnava in Slovakia, which has more Romanian faces emerge from the crypt..Ana Maria Ocalisan and Daniela Andrei! Ocalisan is a new senior who really should have been at Euros just for experience. Andrei has not had an assignment for quite some time despite being one of the very few seniors they have left. Unfortunately, the mother of Asiana Peng who is also at Izvorani has said that Andrei has left the National team. That would not be particularly surprising given that the girl has not competed in so long, but truly astonishing just as news broke that she actually has a competition coming up. We will see! Anna Pavlova, Kristina Yaroshenko (who competed at the WOGA Classic), Anna Myzdrikova and Oksana Chusovitina are competing and in the younger category, the wonderful Varvara Zubova. I'm thinking Myzdrikova's place here means she won't be at Universiade. Coming up in the middle of the month are Chinese Junior Nationals and Romanian Junior Nationals, another chance to see Blendea. Parkettes Elite Qualifier is also taking place, at which Norah Flatley and Alexis Vasquez of Chow's hope to make the cut. Then right at the end of June there will be a world cup in Portugal. The roster for this includes Noemi Makra, Shang Chunsong, Zeng Siqi, Larisa Iordache, Diana Bulimar, Alla Sosnitskaya, Anastasia Grishina, Ekaterina Baturina, Anna Rodionova, Jade Barbosa, Hannah Whelan and Rebecca Tunney. Rodionova has been injured and this marks her return, similarly this is the first opportunity to see Rebecca Tunney in quite some time.

Speaking of China, here is a great montage of the girls of Coach Wang/Xu's training group of the National Team, including Yao Jinnan, Sui Lu, Huang Huidan and juniors Liu Tingting and Yuan Xiaoyang at the recent Chinese National Games prelims. These girls captured the AA, VT, UB and FX (shared) titles. Love 0:27-33 especially.

Eythora Thorsdottir of the Netherlands placed first in a NED v SWE competition recently. This forms part of the Dutch qualification for EYOF- European Youth Olympic Festival which takes place in July. She beat the very promising Emma Larsson even with a fall on beam. Sadly she is quite shaky on this event, hopefully it can be ironed out before she turns senior next year.

Rebeca Andrade competed at two internal competitions recently- Brazil Trophy and Circuito Caixa and won both decisively. She is not doing her amanar yet but she did unveil a fabulously straight DLO, which is oddly piked in the first salto. Unfortunately her choreo has gone downhill, hopefully just a blip. Her beam continues to be wonderful, very light and floaty as well as super springy and ripe for upgrades. Floor is here and beam is here.

Here is a news excerpt of Mai Murakami to get your hopes up about her again. Watch it here. I don't know if ads can be skipped on youku but I just sit through them anyway. She shows a new skill in training here- a 1.5 DLO! It also reportedly mentions when showing Kohei Uchimura's triple twisting double that she wants to compete it in the future. Bonus- a cute confession about her:

Source- gymfanconfessions.tumblr.com

USAG have said they will post videos of the ongoing National Team Camp. Here's a group photo in the meantime:

Copyright- USAG

L-R: Hundley, Ross, Maroney, Nichols, Price, Shchennikova, Dowell, Locklear, Baker, Priessman, Desch, Milliet, Skinner, Gowey, Dennis, Key, Hults, Gaskins, Quinn, Schild, Biles, Flatley and Vasquez.

Notable exceptions are Sarah Finnegan, Katelyn Ohashi, Laurie Hernandez and Peyton Ernst. Laurie was out because her coach just had a baby (she..does have more than one coach though) and the rest are recovering from injury. The return of McKayla Maroney is momentous though. She had better show up in a video! Amelia Hundley, who performed well below her standard in Europe, has one shin heavily wrapped. Nia Dennis has been added to the junior National Team. Deafening silence on the inclusion of Laurie Hernandez (at the last camp- which she won) and Mykayla Skinner- but the new national teams will be chosen fairly soon I suppose. Plenty of new floor routines debuted during verification AND.... McKayla Maroney looked better and had higher difficulty than expected. Bring on Classics!

Floor Routines of the Year, 1976- 2012

 Simply, the one routine per year that stands out from all the rest.

2012- Eythora Thorsdottir, Netherlands, Junior Euros

Yes I've mentioned her quite a lot. Anyway, here she is on floor in all her glory- perfect precise form, beautiful graceful dance. I can't find myself to care that her difficulty is low. Just a masterpeice. And yes it does beat the various Olympic routines, for me. Her main contenders were Aliya Mustafina, Mai Murakami and Larisa Iordache.

2011- Mariya Livchikova, Ukraine, World Cup- Ghent

Just gorgeous. That double front is truly exceptional. Love her flair and form.

The Resurgence of Mariya Livchikova and News

I will always hold a soft spot for Ukrainians and wish them well. Mariya Livchikova is no different from their typical strain, with beautiful, original and difficult work on beam and floor, not to mention FABULOUS leaps and toepoint. Happily, recovery from injury aside, she appears to be among the most consistent of the bunch. Last year at Worlds Mariya tore her ACL. The team performed so badly that they only earned the right for a single spot in London. At the Test Event, Mariya was too injured to compete for the spot, which went to Natalia Kononenko. Happily, despite that massive strain of bad luck, Mariya is now back to her prime. Here is her glorious floor from a competition recently and her beam from the Grand Prix at Brno, at which she scored 15.250.

Double fronts seem to be easier to stick than other tumbles, but still, WOW. So tidy too.

This needs to be tweaked and in all world finals...just a better dismount and maybe some code whoring, some nice connections in the new code that she looks well capable of.

Aliya Mustafina has been named Russian Sportswoman of the year. Not only of course is this a great honour for her, it also bodes well for the state of artistic gymnastics as a whole in Russia- is is completely overwhelmed by rthymic, and even names like Khorkina and Nemov are by no means household names.

Videos are beginning to emerge from Voronin Cup. You can see some here. First is Evgeniya Shelgunova on vault, second is a girl I haven't heard of before, third is Anna Pavlova on beam, fourth is Mariya Livchikova on floor, next is Pavlova on bars and last is Anna Myzdrikova on beam- another old favourite, though she is past her best. The one I most want to see is Anna Dementyeva on beam, as apparently it was awesome. Update: It scored 15.6 in EF- need a video immediately! Aliya Mustafina and Viktoria Komova both qualified to the bars final first and second respectively, but neither actually competed- a late Olympians ball the night before! Demy won the senior AA, and Shelgunova the junior.
Edit: These are labelled as Voronin, but there is doubt that they all are. They ARE recent though.

The Toyota Invitiational has just taken place. Than Ti Phan Thanh of Vietnam won vault and placed second on beam. Mai Murakami was second on vault and second on floor (with a fall). Her vault difficulties were 5.8 and 5.4, a step up from the FTY she performed at Stuttgart. A good day for the veterans, Koko Tsurumi won floor and Rie Tanaka won bars (with a fall). Yu Minobe and Yuko Shintake were first and second on beam. Asuka Teramoto seems to be at least somewhat back on form, it seems that she was the alternate for beam, with a score that would have put her in second in the final.

Just at the mention of Anna Pavlova, here she is wearing a version of the USA TF leo! I think it looks great. This was taken at the recent Larisa Latynina Cup.

Skills: The Best of. Part 1: Floor Tumbles

As it says in the title. Some of these are more subjective than others, but a few cannot be argued with at all.

Best Double Arabian



Anna Myzdrikova, Russia, 2009 Worlds EF

She stumbled on her third pass and handed her title away, but her other 3 passes were fantastic- one of which is a triple twist tuck back, perfectly done. THIS is amazing, legs glued together and knees at the same height (almost..she does correct it) is incredibly rare. Not to mention how light it is and how she plants the landing beautifully. Stunning. Others with great double arabians are Inna Sckarupa, Alicia Sacramone and Liubov Sheremeta.

Best Double Front



 Ivana Hong, USA, 2008 Visa Nationals 

This was the easiest, because nobody's compares to this really. Mariya Livchikova came close, but this skill is famous for cowboying and basically everyone else is an offender. Glorious- knees together, feet pointed, light landing.

Best Double Piked Arabian (Dos Santos I)
 



Chellsie Memmel, USA, 2008 Olympic Trials

This was really hard. Although it's one of the most difficult tumbles, there are still quite a few to choose from. The majority are quite crooked in the air. Chellsie's is also, but she corrects it and as well as being one of the straightest she also has great form in the air and sticks the landing. Most take a hop forward, or if they do stick it, it's ugly. Also, quite a lot land it dangerously low. Others in consideration were Sarah Finnegan and Alicia Sacramone.

Best Triple Full



 Cheng Fei, CHN, 2004 Olympics TF

You would think it would be easy to pinpoint people who have a perfect one, and find examples on youtube. It isn't. So many beautifu floor workers with clean tumbling- Pavlova, Komova, Yao, Ukrainians en masse and many others all failed me. You think it's fine until you see it in better quality or on the replay. But Cheng throws out a perfect one, with zero crossing of the ankles. So high, clean and tidy with super perfect form.The only other that came close was Mattie Larson.

Best Double Double (Silivas)

 

Mai Murakami, JPN, 2010 All Japan Gymnastics Championships

It can be tough to pick out the 'best' because not many have actually done it badly or had a rough landing. (Excusing the 80's originators on their unsuitable floor) It seems to be quite easy to keep form on, but some have better, cleaner tuck positions than others. Mai brings a lightness and grace to such a difficult power move. And what a landing! Others considered for this were Cheng Fei, Larisa Iordache and Jordyn Wieber.

Best Double Layout



Lavinia Milosovici, ROM, 1994 Worlds EF

This is probably the most subjective of all. Countless times I went back and watched noted elegant tumblers with lovely floaty DLO's only to see leg seperations, a lot of piked positions in the second layout, bent knees, sickling of feet, totally flexed feet...urghh. To me, this is about as textbook as it gets. Beautiful. Others who came close were Mary Lou Retton, Mattie Larson and Cristina Bontas.

Part 2 will be a mixture of bars releases, bar and beam dismounts and leaps.

Top 10: Floor routines

Not individual floor workers, just routines. I've never been the type of fan who judges every floor by 80's soviet routines, I would often much prefer to watch routines that were way ahead of their time, broke the mould in some way, extraordinarily powerful or energetic in movement or just a plain triumphant routine for somebody who was written off by most. In this list, there's about 7 routines that will always feature in a top 10 for me.


10. Andrea Raducan, ROM 1999 Worlds EF, Tianjin

One of my favourite Romanian floor workers, Andreea combined great tumbling with brilliant dance and a real sparkle selling the entire floor exercise. It is the dance that puts it ahead of so many other Romanian floor exercises for me.

9. Dominque Dawes, USA 1992 Dodge Challenge

Her best performance of this routine. Incredibly energetic and really fun to watch, with a great back-to-back tumbling pass in the middle.


8. Deliana Vodenitcharova, BUL, 1988 Olympics TF

So much great Irish music, and this dirge was chosen. Sigh. This routine is so ahead of its time that it would still have a high start value today...24 years later. Excellent tumbling with some nice moves in between. Totally robbed as she always received a much lower score for this than the big names with their weaker tumbling.


7. Olga Strazheva, USSR, 1989 WorldsAA

The modern dance masterpiece, a total antithesis to the usual balletic Soviet floor routines. Her tumbling really is secondary to the dance, though it's not bad at all. She performed this with such ease- every movement was so thought out and so in tune with the music. Just amazing.

6. Chellsie Memmel, USA 2008 Olympic Trials

This is one of the most phenomenal floor exercises, and one I keep coming back to. The combination of the 5 very difficult tumbling pass, her illusion sequence, her presentation at the end of the pass and the most planted double pike ever seen is magnificent, made all the better by the fact that Chellsie was written off prior to Trials due to her long string of injuries. A very triumphant fuck-you to those people, though of course- Chellsie who cemented her place in the team after her Trials performances was injured right before the games.


5. Cheng Fei, 2004 Olympics TF

Perfect combination. Chinese grace and presentation combined with raw power and great energy and sparkle in her dance. Superb choice of music too. Her failure to reproduce this for both Olympic event finals was a travesty.

4. Liubov Sheremeta, UKR, 1997 Worlds TF

Liubov was a better floor worker than Lilia in my opinion. Hard to choose between this and her 1996 routine- but this edges the win due to its quirky choreography. Such a performer with such exquisite tumbling.

3. Inga Shkarupa, UKR, 1999 Worlds TF

 One of the cleanest tumblers ever with such perfect form. This would be higher but I find her choreo a bit lacking. Love the unusual third pass and just about everything, such excellence!

2. Anna Myzdrikova, RUS, 2009 Worlds EF

The third pass is upsetting because she messes it up a bit and it costs her the gold medal. I chose this one because she was at her absolute greatest here, and the first and second exquisite passes are the best she's ever done them- check out the PERFECT double arabian. Unbelievable form, great chorepgraphy and relation to the music. A joy to watch.

1. Tatiana Groshkova, USSR, 1990 USA Vs USSR

There are a lot of Soviet masterpeices that I passed over- Baraksanova, Filatova etc. This one takes the crown not only because it contains beautiful expressive choreography in the typical balletic style but because it contains the most insane tumbling pass. The first pass is a double full-in- which is the same as a double-double except that both twists are in the first salto. It would automatically have a H rating next quad as that's what the double double has. Only one other has ever competed it- Alexis Brion, but Tatiana did it on a crap old floor. Just amazing, the entire routine.

Honourable mentions: Elena Produnova, Olga Roschupkina, Simona Amanar, Oana Ban, Ekaterina Lobaznyuk, Ludivine Furnon, Aurelia Dobre, Lavinia Milosovici, Daniela Silivas, Daiane Dos Santos, Oksana Omelianchik, Irina Baraksanova, Mattie Larson, Henrietta Onodi, Diana Dudeva, Olessia Dudnik, Natalia Laschenova, Tatiana Lyssenko, Kim Zmeskal, Ivana Hong, Viktoria Karpenko, Pang Panpan, Vera Kolesnikova, Maria Filatova, Natalia Frolova, Vanessa Atler, Victoria Moors

Quick survey

Current favourite gymnast
McKayla Maroney

Current favourite Russian gymnast
Aliya Mustafina

Current favourite Romanian gymnast
Larisa Iordache

Current favourite Chinese gymnast
He Kexin

Current favourite 'everywhere else' gymnast
Christine Peng Peng Lee

All-time favourite Soviet gymnast
Tie: Elena Mukhina and Tatiana Groshkova

All-time favourite American gymnast
Hollie Vise

All-time favourite Romanian gymnast
Teodora Ungureanu

All-time favourite Chinese gymnast
Li Li 

All-time favourite 'everywhere else' gymnast
Henrietta Onodi

All-time best all-arounder
Elena Mukhina

All-time best floor worker
Daniela Silivas


All-time best beam worker
Li Li


All-time best vaulter
McKayla Maroney. I was determined not to pick her, but she technically is the best.

All-time best bars worker
Mo Huilan 


Favourite beam routine
Li Li 1993 worlds AA


Favourite floor routine
Anna Myzdrikova 2009 worlds qualifying


Favourite vault
A tie between Lilia Podkopayeva 1994 Soapberry Shop and McKayla Maroney 2012 Team Finals Olympics

Favourite bars routine
Kim Gwang Suk 1991 Worlds all-around

Favourite bars release
Gaylord 1/1 or Comaneci


Favourite vault
Handspring front layout


Favourite floor tumble
Tie: 3.5 twist (Moreno) or piked double arabian (Dos Santos 1)

Favourite beam move
Tucked Korbut (Chen) 

Favourite turn
Double scorpion

Favourite jump
Tour jete 1/2


Favourite bars dismount
Double arabian piked

Favourite beam dismount
Triple full

Favourite bars mount
Aleftina Priakhina's

Favourite beam mount
Aleftina Priakhina's  

Favourite floor pass
Whip-whip-triple full


Most exciting floor pass
1 and a half twist, double arabian, front layout punchfront. (Aly Raisman's 1st pass)


Best floor routine from London
Tie: Viktoria Komova AA and Aly Raisman

Best vault from London
McKayla Maroney team finals

Best beam from London
Sui Lu event finals


Best bars from London
Tie: Beth Tweddle qualifying and Yao Jinnan event finals
   

Greatest innovator
Aleftina Priakhina


Most exciting gymnast
Mai Murakami


Most powerful gymnast
Yelena Produnova

Best tumbler
Daiane Dos Santos


     

Anna Myzdrikova is back!

And I'm thrilled! She unleashed the most spectacularly beautiful floor routine in 2009 with amazing connections and then totally dissapeared after Euros 2010. She came sixth in the Russian Cup today, though floor was quite low, 13.23. Her vault was highest but nothing broke the 14 mark. She's extremely unlikely for this team at the moment but she may make alternate, especially if Sidorova doesn't improve. My Russian team is Komova, Mustafina, Grishina, Inshina and Paseka. Alternates: a bit more murky, especially with no recent footage. Afan, Pavlova/Sidorova and Myzdrikova would be nice. If she can get her floor back to this level she would be very valuable, especially as Musty's floor is full of mistakes these days.

Anyway, here is my favouritest floor ever. Yes I have posted it before, but it needs to go with any post mentioning her. They should have put a big fat bonus on it for the excellent first and second pass, unique connections, the choreo and the fact she lands like she's doing single layouts.

Edit: Just found her floor from Voronin Cup 2011, which was in December. Must have been long after I trawled Youtube for her. Anyway, unfortunately it's pretty bad, she's very tired and out of shape in it. Fingers crossed her not too shabby Russian Cup showing means she's back in the game somewhat.

Some of my favourite routines of all time

Also love her floor but her beam edges it out so will leave it as one per gymnast.

LOVE this. My favourite floor..of all time. So underrated and unheard of, still not sure why she dropped off the radar with a killer floor like this.

I love me a beautiful artistic floor routine. These two I would rate higher than far more famous ones.

This FX was wayyy ahead of its time and should have beat Shushunova at least if not Silivas. Just amazing.

The greatest music-choreography combination! This blows 'cutesy barf Bela era' routines out of the water, gutted she got rid of it for Atlanta.

Unreal. She often OVERrotated this too, don't think anyone beats her in pure power stakes.

She has a straighter form on her amanar here than she does now. It is STILL incredible and the best amanar performed by anyone but she is just straighter here. The better landing than her 2012 landings helps too. Love this girl.

I don't care if she has slightly bent knees on her transitions. Let's just see it as the marvellous bar routine that it was, so incredibly difficult and GREAT form. All the more spectacular given that she was most likely 12 here. Her beam is worth a look too!

Such. beautiful.bars

I could go on forever, think I'll stop here.