Quick round-up

Happy (late) New Year!

It appears that Aliya Mustafina might take a few months break from gymnastics. NOT confirmed, but a bit more than a baseless rumour at this stage. Very interesting if she does...it could re-energise a fairly lacklustre programme and boot them back into shape. Of course, time to rest and heal could be very beneficial to her. I'd wonder how hard it would be to get back into competitive shape though. I'd like to see her take Euros off at least and focus on worlds. Russia really rely on her quite a lot and being forced not to can only be a good thing in the end, I think.


Mattie Larson has retired. She was injured last season. It's always sad to see a gymnast retire prematurely, especially one who has contributed such beautiful work and never really fulfilled her full potential. But once she's happy, that's the main thing. Mattie will unfortunately always have that disastrous 2010 floor as her legacy, but here's some wonderful routines that come to mind when I think of her.

2008 WOGA Classic Beam

Wonderful lines, great dancer, superb form in her tumbling- especially the textbook triple twist. What a talent.


Speaking of WOGA Classic, the international elite roster has been partially released, here. Joining Yuan Xiaoyang will be Xie Yufen and Lv Jiaqi. Xie Yufen is a largely untested, fairly consistent new senior. The other two are 2015 and 2016 seniors respectively. I have videos of the two juniors in a previous post, and all 3 exist on youtube. I don't know about other names to be announced though...GB should be interesting, maybe Catherine Lyons can join Amy? Notice no Katelyn Ohashi listed although I'd be really surprised if she was.


The roster for the American Cup has been announced. Brilliant lineup, all of the girls placed in the top 12 at Antwerp. Personally I'd like to see Andreea Munteanu tested..Larisa Iordache has competed so much. Substitutions are more than likely however. Really looking forward to seeing what Simone Biles has up her sleeve, should be a good competition. The inclusion of Carlotta Ferlito gives me some cause for alarm, I really hope there is no ugly scenes or nastiness, or NBC manufactured drama...there's been enough fuss.


Routine of the week, watch the first transition closely:

Sarah Finnegan returns from the depths of mystery injured gymnasts! Watch all of her routines here. Brenna Dowell's and Maddie Desch' are also there. Some great work from this trio, and interesting stuff...Sarah for instance is chanelling Ruby Harrold and Brenna is echoing Beth Tweddle. GB are nothing if not innovative and creative. Great to see Sarah looking fit and I have hopes Brenna can clean her shiny new Ezhova, since she cleaned up on bars bigtime last year.

Danusia Francis further cements her legendary status at UCLA. Amazing. I LOVE sideways work so much...

Bridget Sloan is awesome.

Event finals

Another dose of fabulous gymnastics and results in Moscow.

Vault

- A bit too splatty, with falls from Maria Paseka on both of her vaults, Taljana Tkalkec the same, and Chantysha Netteb on her DTY. Paseka of course, went in as the favourite, already vaulting a spectacular DTY in qualifying and saving the amanar. The crash is a surprise, as they were fine at Russian Nationals and last year she was vaulting them securely (if not fully rotated) at the Olympics, with her crashes coming a bit before then when she was still recovering from injury. As for the layout Podkopayeva, she used to just have piking issues with it. I'd imagine if she vaulted that first she would have landed it, but she possibly was not in the best state of mind after crashing her amanar in front of a home crowd. Chantysha got great power on both of her vaults, but it looks like she is hindered by injury. I can't wait to see her back at her best, and I loved her fast recovery for a very nice full-twisting Tsuk.

- Noel Van Klaveren is FIERCE. In my mind she is the rightful silver winner, but Larisa Iordache should not be tied with her and should have gotten bronze instead. Noel's vaults were just so superior form wise and I watch them over and over again to see the true laidout position on her FTT especially. I know her chest was a bit low on it but it doesn't alter how stupendous the vault is for me at all. We saw this as a second vault a lot- and even the very powerful Giulia Steingruber was very piked on hers. The Dutch girls have the best technique on it. It's only worth a 5.2 though, I'd like to see most of those who performed it upgrading it.

- It's always great to see an all-arounder in the vault final, and Larisa Iordache is a newcomer to it, as her vaults would not have been allowed under the previous code. Romanians have often done Yurchenko and Tsuk entry vaults together in the past and done them well so obviously B&B are accomplished in this regard so it'd be great to see her second vault improve in form, and eventually upgrade.

- I love Giulia Steingruber. She had issues with her landings at Doha and was third after Phan Thi Ha Thanh and Iordache. She stated she would go all out working on her landings, and it paid off. Great to see determination like hers and I'd love to see her figure into the top 10 AA at worlds as well as upgrading her second vault to contend in the vault final there.

- I'm very happy with the podium of Steingruber with Van Klaveren and Iordache tying for second but as I said above I think Van Klaveren deserved that second spot by herself, even with the landings being a bit off. THAT form.

Uneven Bars

- Lovely to see another hit routine from Aliya Mustafina. Not sure why there was a dead hang in there..tiredness probably. It was always going to win but wow was it overscored. I love her line but I think she is sickling more than she used to and I HATE sickling. Because her routine is amazing I can usually ignore it, moreso than I can with average routines, but it seemed to stand out more in event finals. As well as the dismount there's a lot of room for connections in there like she had in her old routine, it looks like it will be a cinch for her to upgrade when she needs to.

- Very sad to see Ruby Harrold and Becky Downie come to grief with their routines, especially Becky as she stayed down for a few seconds and looked so heartbroken. Ruby has had numerous issues with her ambitious routine, but this time it was the fabulous Zuchold that did it. She usually hits it very well so I'd regard that as a fluke. Although Becky has flaked in a good few competitions I wouldn't count her out as the bars specialist in favour of Ruby..she has a better hit record this year and she has the superior form and line.

- Also very dissapointed to see Ida Gustafsson have to jump off the bar and for Sophie Scheder to incur a big deduction for not reaching handstand on a skill. I think her bail was the culprit but I could be wrong. Ida has been impressing with her clean and beautiful routine for a good while now but I prefer the composition and flow of Scheder's, the reigning junior Euros bars champion. I'd also love to have Roxana Popa as well as of course, Anastasia Grishina, both of whom had bad qualifying rounds.

- Maria Paseka's bars are a bit rough around the edges, but better than I was expecting judging on what she has shown on this apparatus in the last year. I really like her composition and the difficulty is there. It was great to see her bounce back from utter vault failure to take a medal here and it was deserved. Jonna Adlerteg had such beautiful form and it was so touching to see her reaction knowing she would medal. I was afraid Paseka would bypass her but the judges saw sense. A great podium.

Beam

- I live for Larisa Iordache's dismount series. It's quite rare to see a triple full so securely around with no shadow of a doubt remaining. I know her ankles cross on it but it's just so solid, like the rest of her routine. I think her form used to be tighter here, hopefully she can work on that too. I was wondering if the layout full would make an appearance but probably a wise decision not to bother as it wasn't needed.

- Anastasia Grishina was quite slow and hesitant. I was enthralled with the beauty of her routine as always and of course slow is a lot better than falling, but I hope she can build on its difficulty without sacrificing consistency.

- The snappiness of Diana Bulimar's routine is thrilling. Yeah she's not waving her arms around and picking up her foot and putting it down again excessively, but it doesn't take away from the brilliance of her routine at all. So solid. I know dance skills have caused her problems here, so I hope to see her acro getting upgraded first. This routine looks ridiculously easy for her. I'd like to see her doing more straddle split jumps, and her tuck front is very high so she can pike that. Either a tuck full or layout full would be great, and her dismount is very high and precise..I think she could do a full-in.

- While I was not particularly surprised to see Olena Vasylieva headcasing, it was still unpleasant to watch. She has beautiful form, I would love to see her become more consistent.

- Pleasantly surprised with Katarzyna Jurkowska's routine, wonderful to watch. And again Ruby Harrold's was great also. Her NCAA dismount needs to go though it was said it's because she is still recovering from ankle injury so it makes a lot of sense.

- Another great podium, and thrilled to see Grishina pick up the bronze in a final she only qualified for by pure fluke.

Floor

- It wasn't Larisa's day for landings, she's had better. I was wondering if Diana could pass her out but I wasn't surprised or dismayed that Larisa's higher difficulty gave her the edge. I love how energetic Larisa's routine is, and I think while it isn't elegant or even stylish it's very engaging and charming. I keep expecting the start to turn into Radiohead- Street Spirit though. I also like how she dances into the corners.

- Afan was incredible to watch. A pity she dropped her foot early on the second spin combination but the rest was flawless. So impressed with her tumbling and the height of her double pike- one of the best I've seen. It's as if she runs into that tumble angry at how it failed her last year and uses that to get extra height. I love her music so I'll be sad to see it go in a way..she is cited to have a new routine for Universiade.

- It's odd to see the very powerful Diana land a bit short on her double pike, which she has done before. She seems to have boundless energy until that pass so maybe she is better off upgrading her other three tumbles and dumping the fourth one. Whatever works for her. Long overdue a new routine, and the full-twisting DLO looks very achievable. I'm not a fan of the piked full-in, it's so scrappy looking and I wish she could tighten her form on the double layout. It's the small things!

- I really enjoyed watching Roxana Popa in action. Beautiful Memmel turn! And very nice tumbling too. Another very solid and impressive routine by Giulia Steingruber. She has great technique on her opening full-twisting DLO and her follow-up DLO is fabulous too. She's another I'd like to see sharpen up her form on tumbles. Her double tuck which was a double twist earlier in the competition seems much too easy for her, needs an upgrade.

- Gutted to see Kristina Sankova put her hands down on her last tumble after a very good routine. I'm also annoyed to see she was the replacement for Mariya Livchikova and not there in her own right- she's much more powerful than the other girls they have, and valuable too as her consistency (though not shown here) is better too. She's capable of arabian double pikes! I hope she can continue to show her beleaguered federation that she's fully deserving of competition spots.

- Anastasia Grishina's luck was further in evidence as her spot was given to her by Aliya Mustafina's withdrawal. I've seen Aliya being called kind and loyal for this and while I have no doubt she can and does have wonderful team spirit- this is more down to Aliya's own exhaustion and endurance. She did pull out of the last two floor finals she qualified to also. Her floor needs to be reworked. Anyway, while Grishina had a dissapointing large stumble out of her first pass, the routine was gorgeously floaty and continued without further error. It's just amazing to see her hitting another routine! Out of 10 competitive routines, she hit 8..that has to be a record for her. Fabulous coaching.

Favourite vault- Noel Van Klaveren, VT 2
Favourite bars- Sophie Scheder
Favourite beam- Diana Bulimar
Favourite floor- Ksenia Afanasyeva

Favourite leotard- Oooh. Tough one. Larisa Iordache BB-FX leo was stunning, but I'm striking her off for it having an obscene cut, again. I really loved Katarzyna Jurkowska's- simple but so lovely. The Dutch girls' one was very pretty. I'm not sure what to think about Roxana Popa's? Looks like she robbed it from some of the 90's worst offenders. It was nice to see something go against every single leo I've seen in forever all the same, so props to her for keeping it interesting!

NCAA Nationals

I'm not going to pretend I'm an expert on it, I'm really not. But I was hoping for a Florida or Oklahoma victory and it did come down to the wire for the two, which was great. Well done to Florida for winning their first title! They have such a well balanced team, powerhouses like Kytra Hunter and Ashanee Dickerson, elegant bars and beam workers like Alaina Johnson and Mackenzie Caquatto and then workhorses like Marissa King and the awesome rebirth of Courtney Kupets- Bridget Sloan. Seriously, so in awe of how the nobody from 2008 whose world AA victory in 2009 was so unexpected and reviled and whose elite career ended disastrously with an injury right before Olympic Trials has gone on to take NCAA by storm. She was expected to be a very strong recruit but freshmen are generally not the ones to carry their team and take the AA title! Not to mention beam too. Incredible! I was gutted Lloimincia Hall did not make floor finals. I understand her routine is jarring but there's a reason why everyone was waiting and waiting for her to take the floor during Super Six- it's just electric. And I am so blown away by Danusia Francis who teased everyone with a training video of a transverse aerial at the start of the season..which never appeared again until last night! Wonderful that she actually landed it, such a pity she came to grief on a forwards one shortly after but that and Bridget Sloan dominating are what I take away from this year's NCAA.

For anyone who watched it, do you agree with those who took the titles? Is it a disgrace Florida won with a fall? It sounds crazy to me that there's a lot of controversy over that given how many routines counted towards the final score but I know that scoring is so tight, not like elite. Personally given Alabama's slight flop in the last rotation and Florida's utter destruction of the other three apparatus', and Oklahoma's lesser difficulty...I've no issue with it. How mental is it that 23 girls qualified for the 8-place vault final? That is just hilarious. Such a pity Vanessa Zamarripa was not on top form for her final hurrah too.

More news- Do not adjust your VCR

UPDATE- Added Lizzy LeDuc's routines from a few weeks back, and Bridget Sloan's brand new floor for Florida, debuted last week.

China, who took the team title at AYOF despite four falls, did not dominate in the AA and EF, sadly. However, they did accrue some more medals- Mei Jie took third in the AA, first on bars and third on beam, Luo Huan took second on bars, Liu Zhilin second on floor and third on vault and Chen Siyi second on beam. All in all, they went home far from empty handed, and at an inauspicious time of the year for them, still in the middle of Winter Training. There is great dissapointment that they did not sweep the board, but I don't think they should be written off...they are not used to competition, particularly international, and will not have been training high level skills for long. A good point was made on IG, that Deng Linlin was extremely inconsistent as a junior. Conversely of course, Tan Sixin and plenty of others never translated their potential as a junior to a senior. I am very impressed with Britain! Hope to see all of these girls in the future.

There's a US National Team Camp taking place. Some more appointments to the Junior National Team would be nice. Sarah Finnegan is not at camp, no idea as to why not. Hopefully not an injury. If she is not present at the next camp at the end of February, it is unlikely that she will be in contention for the competitions in Italy and Germany coming up in March. This one will no doubt be focusing on upgrades for those meets, and the summer season- Classics and Nationals, as well as SCAM of course.

Norah Flatley, Alexis Vasquez and Jordan Chiles will all be trying for elite this year. Norah and Alexis are Chow's most promising Level 10's, with some gorgeous beam work and artistry. Jordan is the girl I posted about a while ago, who has an arsenal of awesome skills in training- a DTY, a front triple-layout front etc. but sadly is not elegible for Rio. They would all make fabulous additions to the Junior National Team. I am most excited for Bailie Key, who now has a Downie and Church (!!!) on bars, and a standing arabian on beam. No doubt she has plans for floor and hopefully vault too. She will make excellent competition for Amelia Hundley.

Here is Michaela Chernoch's of Southern Utah's vault from a while ago, versus UCLA. It's the last one, at about 20 seconds. It's a one and a half on, full off. There's a lot of debate over whether it is a vault or not. It's extremely expressive in that a) she lands it and b) she lands it dead centre, and not off the mat...that's a very difficult vault to control the direction on. It also of course, looks awesome. But I'd have to agree it's not a vault, the vault is in her way, not a tool for her to rebound off. She gets pretty much no repulsion off the table and barely touches it. So, not a vault as it does not conform to the three stages of one. But wow!

Beth Tweddle performed for the second time on Dancing on Ice at the weekend. On her first outing, she was commended for her skill and bravery, but condemned for her roboticness. I would agree that she is much more watchable this time around, and has clearly made a lot of effort as regards her presentation. Well done Beth! Particularly impressive in that she was not felling well and had been hospitalised during the week.

Here are Lizzy LeDuc's routines from a meet a few weeks ago. The super-stylish junior who garnered quite a fanbase, moved gyms from WOGA after breaking both her elbows and dropped to Level 10. She failed to qualify elite last year, and has moved gyms again. This is an interview she gave after that move. It won't work for me, not sure if it's under gymnastike's gold' premium section or what. She seems happy with the goal of a college scholarship in mind, and indeed her routines look very NCAA. LOVE that floor. Still, I'd say ruling out her return to elite is premature.

Bridget Sloan did not dissapoint with her new floor routine. It makes the most of her choreography potential, and there's plenty of room for her to increase the difficulty in her tumbling, which is fairly average at the moment. I especially like the opening part.

This is my routine of the day, Hope Spivey at the 1994 NCAA EF on floor. Not only because she was 26 and still awesome, but for the difficulty, form and flair she shows here. Did I mention...reverse choreography??? Wow. Do not adjust your VCR!XD

I made a tumblr. I'm not sure exactly why, as I've no real interest in the tumblr world of OMG REBLOG LOL and I only ever look at a grand total of 3 tumblrs. Boredom I suppose. Predictably, you can find it at http://beautifulgymnastics.tumblr.com It looks extremely bare right now. I will use it for more informal snippets/pictures/videos. You can ask me questions or suggest something for a post on this blog. I won't be neglecting blogger in its place. EDIT- I got very sick of it and deleted it. I just don't like tumblr.

New podium training breakdown

I have to say I really really love the National team training leos. The patriotic red, white and blue designs are very nice. Kyla's at the first podium training probably my favourite, Rebecca wore it too if I remember correctly. Not the biggest fan of McKayla's night two, decent night one though. Anna Li's night two definitely a stand-out, loved the back of it! And yes I will say night because podium training for me starting at 11pm yesterday, it's easier.

McKayla- Again proving herself a lock. Much impressed with her floor, her expression in her dance looks more confident or something. Nicely done with the third pass, in bounds by oh..an inch! Vaults perfection as always. Bars definitely have improved a lot this year, beam again very very solid. Not needed to do those two but it is great that she IS usable on them in an emergency.

Aly- Not much to say here. Consistency, consistency, consistency. Had issues on bars, but looked solid doing full routine. Not really a big deal except for her shot at doing AA of course. Sloppy amanar but may be safer than either Gabby's or Kyla's so it's great she has it!

Gabby- Her issues with handstands were a bit shocking..didn't expect that! Still, great full routines. Such solid beam in training! Her standing full twist is amazing, sooo upright. Her amanar can't really be relied on to replace Aly's sloppy one..looks like her block is the problem. She sat a good few and landed very low on the rest, not a good sign. This is a skill she probably shouldn't be doing, we all know the dangers of messing up an amanar. Here's hoping she sorts out these jitters and gets a lesson from McKayla on blocking.

Jordyn- Not much to say here either, except her bars looked great. She managed to stick the full-twisting DLO, making a great case for including it in comp and upping her SV. Lovely amanar, I would put it ahead of Ebee's.

Kyla- Ooo, lots of wobbles and balance checks on beam, surprising to see. Of course they may be long dissapeared before comp, I have faith in her. Amanar again dangerous, she stepped off the mat and takes a good few steps to save herself.  Her and Gabby are keeping us guessing as to whether they have the capability to replace Aly's. Bars and floor lovely as always.

Anna- LOVE her bars. Fell on a release elsewhere. Beam too low an SV, but I like it's flow. Probably because it isn't stuffed with connections that it flows better. She is making a good case for alternate but even the pool for alternates is deep! How much would other countries give for that problem..

Bridget- Only bars shown again. Lovely form and execution. Some issues with stalder work..I'm sure she can fix that. She STOOD on the high bar. Twice. For five seconds! Amazing. A pity she can't stick a Korbut/Mukhina flip in for some H rating.

Sarah- Consensus on her from quick hits is that she seems sluggish. Floor and beam have certainly looked better alright. Hope she gets it together in comp, in an ideal 6-7 person team she would so be on it.

Ebee- Making a strong case for alternate. WHAT a double double she has. Bars look fine too.

Alicia- Only showing FTY's. Hmm. Does she have the endurance to knock out Rudi's every day? It kind of puts paid to the rumours that she will throw doubles. She is surprising though. Fierce beam as always.

Nastia- Fair play to her, that was an improved bar routine. The interior looked great. I didn't think it possible she could really get through the whole thing plus dismount. HOWEVER, it may be the case that she can't, that was some heavy spotting. It remains to be seen

Rebecca- Woohoo, landed that Patterson consistently, both days. It still gives itself a strong case for removal though as we all know it's not consistent and landed very low when it is landed.

As I said in the previous post, specialists have gotten shot down by Marta. The team is obvious to everyone according to her. Yes it is. Stay healthy, girls!

See I managed to get through another post about Trials without moaning about being region blocked from the comp! USAG facebook remain hopeful about it being on youtube very shortly after. Like, when I wake up (I am 5 hours ahead of eastern time), I EXPECT it to be waiting for me on youtube. Optimistic I know.

News just in: Marta condemns specialists

In a post podium training interview, Marta has confirmed what most people already know. She has an ideal team in her mind and this team is obvious to those watching competitions all year, in her own words. She also said she does not value specialists highly because she likes girls who can do everything. This further cememts the places of Kyla and McKayla (read: McKayla may only compete 1 or 2 events in TF but specialists don't train all 4, which she IS doing) and damns the chances of Nastia, Bridget, Alicia, Anna and Rebecca. Price and Finnegan are more up in the air and are still extremely likely alternates. Strong execution will be favoured over difficulty apparently, which doesn't really change anything..maybe puts Finnegan ahead of Price for first alternate.

In other words, Nastia is definitely NOT on this team.