Why you should root for China

Much of the reason why I love Chinese gymnastics boils down to amplitude and extension. Thankfully these days we are seeing more expressive floor routines and much more effort being put into choreography. This is a direct and welcome result of the heavy artistry deductions in the code. Likewise the skill cap (i.e the exact opposite of the bars and beam routines from 2005-2008 giving these gymnasts a weighted advantage) and the devaluing of vault (goodbye 6.5 amanar of the following quad after that giving USA a huge boost) has meant that execution is more important now in holding on to valuable tenths. Not that the race for higher d-scores or racking up connection bonus are no longer things, but certainly there is a greater emphasis now on cleaning up routines than there has been in the past under this code. You tend to hear a lot more 'getting back into the gym to clean up my routines' now than 'I'm so happy I hit 4 for 4'. Several countries such as Netherlands, Belgium etc. are making names for themselves for expressive, intricate choreography and there is beautiful execution to be found in abundance in every federation, even the *gasp* power gymnast strongholds of the USA and the UK. But amplitude and full extension as a trait is harder to find. Thankfully, that's where China step in.

Of course, there are several gymnasts with great amplitude on vault. And floor. Simone Biles exemplifies this, driven from the technical perfection she displays. And there are gymnasts with flighty bars elements and nice, high beam layouts. McKayla Maroney of all people had an extremely high and flighty geinger which was a thing of beauty. But many powerhouse gyms and gymnasts fall flat when it comes to amplitude on beam and bars. Too often we are seeing beams with difficult tumbling ruined by weak leaps, low landings and bad toepoint. Bars with release moves and difficult transitions in combination can often suffer from flexed feet and legs apart that quickly destroy the overall beauty. A routine that has it all is to be prized.

Back to beam; there are many beam layouts in particular as a skill example worthy of devaluing. If it's not piked down and legs are together I'll like it but if it flairs or opens out I LOVE it. Similarly, I'll take a springy well-executed leap series with a wobble than a perfectly landed one with anaemic leaps. BHS-LOSO-LOSO is one of my favourite beam series and its popularity and popularity in the past does not in any way diminish it for me. If the legs are straight and toes pointed I am delighted but it's so much better if the chest is upright between landing skills and if a split or near-split is achieved. It seems that these days the emphasis in a series like that is solely on keeping it clean and in line with the beam and quick enough for credit but that the emphasis on making those skills individually beautiful or noteworthy is gone.

Jordyn Wieber BHS -

Deng Linlin BHS - from decencybedamned tumblr

Deng Linlin layout - copyright inside gymnastics

Ragan Smith layout - copyright ocregister

Tan Sixin YOG 2010 is poetry in motion. Beautiful leap miles above the beam and what a line on bars. Taken from pinterest

Seeing Kui Yuanyuan lose sight of the beam and wobble slightly on a layout full in combination because she had flown into the rafters with it is an absolute joy to me. That is a skill that to this day is rare and even then with questionable body position. And of course, the beam of the 80's and 90's was less springy than it is now. Think about the hype that Nia Dennis, Morgan Hurd, Gabby Douglas and Viktoria Komova get/got for landing their standing fulls/arabians in an upright position. It just looks so much more impressive. But it's not just the acro, I live to see leap series, straddles especially, with big amplitude. Leaps are of course where things like extension become more noticeable too.

Yep, the beam final that Gina Gogean won

 

  

There are pretty layouts and then there's this

Russian gymnasts can show some beautiful extension but pale in comparison to the overall extension-amplitude-form-execution of China. Flexed feet are not as glaringly obvious as they have been in quads gone by, existing for the most part on bars and mid-leap. Certainly some countries who are the worst offenders are placing emphasis on toepoint and maintaining it throughout the routine which is obviously great as flexed feet are very jarring and break the line. But true and proper extension cannot be tacked on at a later stage and must be cultivated from a young age. i.e programmes must incorporate it from the very beginning.

copyright - getty images

Olga Mostepanova had extension in spades. The reason why her split handstand sequence at the beginning of her beam stands out so much and also looks markedly different to other variations of it we have seen since is because it is perfect. Her toes are not just pointed, they are in a perfect line extending from the hips and through the knee. This is of course most often seen in ballet where it is essentially a requirement but was gloriously common in gymnastics throughout the 80's and 90's. Olga fully deserved that perfect 40 for the sublime perfection she brought to the sport.

Fan Ye extension for days - copyright getty images

Extension extends (haha..) itself to bars too. A perfect bodyline is most obvious in handstand with the dead straight line going from wrists through shoulders, hips and knees to toes. It should stay the same throughout giants excepting clearing the bar or tap swings and pirouetting skills. Most gymnasts have a straight upper body by the virtue of being in the handstand position at all and straight legs/toes but the vast majority are not fully extended at the hips. This can sometimes be obvious as a slight pike position is seen in profile or less so in that the position seems straight but is nevertheless not fully extended so the line isn't as good as it could be. Note the 2008 bars final as a classic example. He Kexin and Yang Yilin had perfectly extended pencil-like straight form throughout their routines. Liukin also exhibited a beautiful bodyline and showed it especially through her pirouettes just like the other two but her line is lacking the tension and total core tightness of the others.

He Kexin - copyright intlgymnast

Nastia Liukin - taken from alibaba

The extension is what makes sets Chinese barwork apart. It will always have that edge over Russian or any other standout routine as a result even if it has other flaws (we all really love dead hangs). It adds a cleanness, precision and sharpness to each skill. Watching a shaposhnikova with arms extended regrasp and turn precisely into the next skill is thrilling, as is seeing a pirouette snap back into position after the rotation. It's as noticeable to me compared to a less-tight routine as the difference between Madison Kocian's and Viktoria Komova's inbars i.e. they look like different skills.

It's not that I don't see the absolutely massive flaws and problems Team China is dealing with. They overemphasise bars and beam to the detriment of other events, they are still dealing with filtering for body type, they don't have the conditioning of certain other federations and they will never challenge for gold without being able to field solid DTY's and strong floors. There are no Cheng Fei's climbing through the ranks and although they do have talent on vault/floor it's not enough and it's not present in their AA gymnasts. I will enjoy watching a floor routine with beautiful leaps, turns and execution but if it's coming from a top 4 nation and it's another triple full-double tuck-2.5 twist derivative....I have no patience for that. I can't root for 5.3 or worse floors being fielded as some of the best on offer and never will.

BUT...by god do they do the other events in such style. I can't not be excited at seeing such dedication to the form and the finesse of the skill that they have always and continue to show in their work. Not that there aren't form issues amongst their ranks but as a whole they are carried by beautiful extension, amplitude and execution. China need to go more mainstream. We know the names of the top gymnasts in the rest of the top 4/5 countries and it's not just language barrier/different social media that's the issue. There's a general lack of interest or some inherent dislike and when these gymnasts are performing such beautiful gymnastics it's a crying shame. The age scandals (which I absolutely could not care less about as they only rear their head when there's a significant threat of the US being beaten) seem to have cast a lingering shadow over Team China. More accessible than ever on youtube, these girls need to be celebrated more. GO CHINA!!

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.

Medals with a fall

You would think, given the furore over McKayla Maroney's vault silver and Mustafina's tying for third (and eventually winning) in the AA, that these gymnasts had somehow cheated and deductions had not been applied properly. Given the open-ended scoring, relying on the gymnast's own difficulty, medals with falls were literally impossible in the old perfect 10 system- despite the deductions for a fall being much less. The current COP has sought to offset this by upping the fall deduction to a full point. It was 0.8 last quad. But there have been several medals with a fall since the new scoring, 2006, and possibly even before then. Certainly there are more than most people think, yet only a few inspire uproar!

2012

McKayla Maroney, Vault Event Final- Silver

McKayla's fall on her second vault took a full point off in the execution score. However, vault is easier than other event finals to bounce back from, because the fall deduction averages to 0.5 when the two vaults are averaged. McKayla had the highest difficulty and there was extremely little to deduct in the second vault except for the fall and lack of height. Interestingly enough, had she landed her amanar in bounds (she received an 0.3 deduction for not doing so)- she would have taken gold. Her medal is testimony to what an excellent vaulter she is, and also how weak the rest of the vault field was. If a girl with a fall and an out of bounds can beat you, then something is wrong. Izbasa's vaults were extremely weak for a gold winner, and Paseka's should have received a boatload of deductions, not least for not being fully around.

Yamilet Pena and Janine Berger both qualified to vault finals with a fall.

Aliya Mustafina, AA- Bronze

This is a bit of an odd one, because she did NOT win bronze with a fall. She tied for bronze with a fall. The medal was determined by her and Raisman's top 3 scores, so the beam of both was dropped. Therefore her beam had nothing to do with how the medal was determined- so it wasn't won with a fall. Nevertheless, Aly had a huge mistake on beam so she couldn't drop her weak bars. So she was left with counting a weak event. Mustafina did not count any weak event, and had 7.0 bars. Not a gigantic surprise there. Only 4 gymnasts were capable of vying for a medal. Mustafina was able to be one of those 4. In what world are Sandra Izbasa, Deng Linlin and Huang Qiushuang top AA-ers?

2011

Yao Jinnan, AA- Bronze

Yes, this one flies well under the radar. Yao fell off beam and would have ended the eternal Komova V Wieber controversy by beating them both had she stayed on. She was still able to score a 13.933 for an excellent beam, which was well able to beat Raisman's disaster of a time on bars where she received a 12.9. This was another fairly weak field, with Ana Porgras dropping well down due to her FTY and Huang Qiushuang once again being a bit of a headcase.

2010

Rebecca Bross, AA- Bronze

Rebecca also fell off beam. She received an extremely high score- 14.1, which was an overscore given the rest of the routine, which was not perfect. However, Huang Qiushuang whow as 4th had a bit of a nightmare on floor so the placement is probably correct. Another win with a fall that is totally blanked.


2009

Rebecca Bross, AA- Silver

Rebecca missed her tuck full in her last pass and put her hands down- which is technically a fall, and received an extremely low 12.875 for it. She had very high difficulty and only lost to Bridget Sloan by half a tenth, in yet another example of a desperately weak field.


2008

Cheng Fei, Vault Event Final- Bronze

This is the other medal with a fall that people remember, not just because of the fall but because she still managed to beat Alicia Sacramone, who vaulted cleanly. The reason behind this was that Cheng Fei had so much more difficulty than Alicia that the fall made very little difference. The difference in difficulty in Cheng's favour is 0.45. The fall (worth 0.8 in this code) averaged to 0.4.Alicia hopped on her landings and great as her form is, Cheng's is second to none. Controversial- but understandable.

Nastia Liukin and He Kexin both qualified into the uneven bars final despite falls in prelims because of their extremely high difficulty.

2007

Jade Barbosa, AA- Bronze (tie)

Jade brought a full-in pike to her knees and touched the floor with her hands, receiving a score of 14.00. Her high difficulty across her events still brought her up higher than 4th and 5th place finishers, Nastia Liukin and Yang Yilin. Her beam and vault really sealed the deal, and the high bars scores of the other 2 were no match.

Vanessa Ferrari, AA- bronze (tie)

Vanessa fell on her Comaneci on bars, literally a few seconds in. Similar to Barbosa, her high difficulty was enough to keep her ahead of Liukin and Yang. 

Li Shanshan, Beam Event Final- Silver (tie, no bronze awarded)

Li's beam was so flawless (fall aside) and so difficult- 0.6 and 0.7 more than the other medal winners, that this result was pretty much a no-brainer. She would have received a monster 16.7 without the fall and would have wiped the floor with Nastia and Steliana easily.

2006

Vanessa Ferrari, AA- Gold

The only gold medal with a fall! Vanessa fell off beam, and still received a generous 14.9 (15.7 without the fall). She exploded onto the scene these championships, and coupled with ehr high difficulty was just about able to steal the scene from Jana Bieger, who also had very high difficulty. Her bars won the day for her, as Jana was weak there. This still does evoke controversy, but Vanessa was still clearly the better gymnast that day. Sandra Izbasa who came third had such a low bars score I thought she had fallen too. But nope, just very sloppy.


So, 10 falls taking medals (or tying for bronze, as the case may be before tiebreakers) since the introduction of the new code. And at least four qualifying into event finals with a fall. Bear in mind this is only covering the major competitions- Worlds and Olympics. Clearly it is more common than what the average fan thinks, yet the majority of the above are not remembered and not talked about! It's a shame to lambast some with falls and ignore the rest. It is possible there are falls with medals in the old perfect 10 code, and I will investigate that- though it is much harder then of course. If anyone knows of any, let me know!

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

Great gymnasts we won't see in London

Inconsistency, injury and recovery and sheer depth has done these gymnasts out of their chance to shine in London.

Ana Porgras

Ana is the most artistic gymnast to emerge this quad. Her lines are exquisite and very reminiscent of old-school beautiful lines such as Aurelia Dobre. She could also swing bars like Romanians haven't since the late 1980's. A beautiful bar and beam worker, she also had an elegant floor. Vault was her nemesis into breaking into the AA, as she never really mastered a DTY. Truly a gymnast who would have flourished in the perfect 10 code, Ana was dogged by injuries for most of her senior career and has now retired. With more and more older gymnasts making comebacks, we can hope she will also.

Mariya Livchikova

Mariya is quite similar to Ana, her artistry is evident in her beam and floor, which are works of art. Her beam also showcases great original connections. Unfortunately she also has the Ukrainian tendency to splat all over the place, but it was her injury last year which counted her out of receiving the only WAG place for Ukraine, who shockingly placed so badly they cannot field a time. We can hope Mariya will stick around.

Cheng Fei

Admittedly she had her chance at both the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, but individually failed to shine at both. A huge departure from the Chinese tradition of having petite gymnasts excel at bars and beam, Fei was a powerhouse on vault and floor, with an amanar and a double-double as her highlights as well as a fierce beam routine. This time around, her strengths would have been helpful in complementing those of her team-mates. Unfortunately, Fei has fallen victim to the plague of achilles tendon, ruptured performing a triple twist on floor. Her presence and strength on floor will be missed.

Rebecca Bross

 Rebecca Bross peaked in the middle of the quad. Seen as a lock for the US Olympic team two years ago, she will now be very lucky to make alternate. She blew her knee vaulting last year, and it appears to have impacted her greatly. She is now only training two events and neither will score high enough to justify taking her. A sad end for a great gymnast.

Mai Murakami

I've already spoken quite a bit about Mai. In short, she is amazing and has incredible difficulty. Inconsistency was an issue at the Japan nationals so she missed out. Thankfully Japan love sending veterans so we can hope she will be around for the next quad.. 2013 worlds!