Origin of London's difficult skills

All commentators stress the difficulty of certain skills. Certainly some of them are more prevalent now in competition than they ever were before, but extremely few were invented this side of the millenium which shows how innovative the 80's and 90's were when it did not pay to break the mould and perform a super-difficult skill. Here are the ones seen in London and their origins.

The Double Double/Silivas

This double double is currently a G skill and will be a H under the new code. In London it was performed by Jordyn Wieber, Victoria Moors, Larisa Iordache, Vanessa Ferrari and Anastasia Grishina. Though it is named after Daniela Silivas of Romania who performed it at the 1988 Olympics, it was first done by Aleftina Priakhina of USSR in 1986. Neither had great landings, but they were using a crap old floor.


Double Arabian beam dismount/Patterson

An exceptionally difficult beam dismount which requires a lot of height and speed. In London it was executed by Aly Raisman, Viktoria Komova and Marta Pihan-Kulesza. Carly Patterson of USA was the first to perform it, at the 2003 Worlds but Corey Fritzinger also of USA did it first in 2001. 

Standing Full twist- beam

A move which elicited awe when Shawn Johnson did it but it's much older than that. Usually has quite a low landing due to the difficulty of fully rotating it in time. In London it was performed by Gabby Douglas. This is another skill done first by Aleftina Priakhina of USSR, again in 1986.


Tucked full twist in acro line/combination

This one is more common as it provides more momentum to get the twist around, but is just as risky otherwise. In London it was performed by Larisa Iordache. The inventor is Ecaterina Szabo of Romania who performed it in 1983.


Full twisting double layout

This is the other skill to be awarded H status in the code. Performed only by Daiane Dos Santos of Brazil but although Catalina Ponor of Romania warmed one up in podium training she never competed it. Named after Oksana Chusovitina of USSR (at the time) who performed it in 1991. It was first done by Tatiana Tuzhikova of USSR in 1987.

Li Ya Jaeger-Jaeger combination bars

Performed only by He Kexin who despite growth has managed to keep this. Often called her original skill but it was first done by Li Ya also of China who competed it in 2006.

Tucked Barani/Grigoras

My favourite acrobatic skill on beam, it's quite rare. Sui Lu of China performed it in London and it was invented by Cristina Grigoras of Romania in 1980. Chellsie Memmel had a nice one too.

Amanar vault

The most common difficult skill/vault. It was performed by McKayla Maroney, Gabby Douglas, Aly Raisman, Jordyn Wieber, Maria Paseka and Viktoria Komova. First performed by none other than Simona Amanar of Romania who did it at the 2000 Olympics.

Produnova vault

This was performed (read: sat down feet first) by Yamilet Pena Abreu of Dominican Republic in London. It is the hardest vault with a difficulty of 7.1 Notoriously difficult as it requires immense height and a powerful block. It was first attempted by Choe Jong Sil of North Korea at the 1980 Olympics but she completely crashed it so credit goes to Yelena Produnova of Russia who most notably landed it totally upright in 1999.

Def release- bars

The Def is a one and a half twisting Geinger, first performed by Jacques Def of France. His name has carried over to WAG as the first woman, Snejana Hristakieva of Bulgaria who first performed it in 1991 has a much less catchier name. It was done in London by Elizabeth Seitz of Germany. Interestingly, both perform it very sloppily but is IS possible for it to look neat- check out Cha Yong Hwa and Elena Dolgopolova.

Double Double bars dismount/ Fabrichnova

One of the hardest bars dismounts, this was performed by Beth Tweddle and Viktoria Komova in London. It was first done by Oksana Fabrichnova of Russia in 1993, and remains fairly rare.

Piked Double Arabian/Dos Santos I

This was performed by Aly Raisman and Beth Tweddle. The originator, Daiane Dos Santos of Brazil who first performed it in 2003 was in London but has not been doing it recently. It is one of the hardest floor tumbles and should be rated higher.


Full-in beam dismount

Having watched the 1996 AA all over again just recently, this was more common then. Performed in London by Catalina Ponor of Romania. It is was first done by Albina Shishova and Natalia Frolova both of USSR in 1983.

If I have missed any others in London who performed these skills please let me know. I did watch every single subdivision but some things can be forgotten easily. I have real issues about the standing full..there's no way it was just done by Gabby. As for the originators, I stand by all of them as being correct.

 

 

Bits and pieces

Jennifer Pinches and Daiane Dos Santos have retired. Daiane, who is 29, had been expected to retire after London. She was hoping to make it to the Brazilian nationals (at which junior star Rebeca Andrade had tonnes of success) but was injured and decided to call it a day. Jenni's retirement, announced this morning on twitter, is more surprising. She is volunteering in Ecuador and has ruled out competitive gymnastics in her future but it seems to be more related to GB. She could well follow Danusia and go down the NCAA route, but looks like she's having a gap year first.

Still waiting for an update on what McKayla Maroney's injury is. ACL, hyperextended knee and broken leg are all rumours flying around. She has headed home from hospital on crutches though, after about 24 hours there. I almost find it funny when I hear 'a long wait in ER' as when I was in ER on holidays in America, the wait was around 3 hours and people were fuming and storming out in protest. In Ireland, the wait would be 18-36 hours and then you'd get a chair or a trolley in a corridor. Anyway, let's hope it's not something that will take her out for ages, but it does look fairly serious. Some people are saying it could be a blessing in disguise as a long rest will force ALL of her injuries to heal and she has had a rough 6 months of it- broken toe, fractured fibula, fractured nose, concussion and now this.
UPDATE: Diagnosis is a fractured tibia. This is on top of the stress fracture in her fibula, for which she was trying to compensate on her landing. It's absolutely not a disaster because it's not a knee or ligament injury which really would have impacted her and her recovery. It can vary in severity though. USAG statement blabs on about assessing about her possible return to the tour at a later date- I'm sure people who have bought tickets care but I really just want her to recover safely and be eager to get back to real training, not the tour.
UPDATE: McKayla has posted that she had surgery and that it was a success. Having surgery implies it was quite a serious fracture. She will be out for a few months anyway. 

Larisa Iordache's MRI has revealed no lesions, which is great news. However it appears that she has one leg slightly longer than the other, which was probably either the cause of the problem or a big contributor. She is having special sillicon desposits to equalise the pressure on her feet. Hopefully it's a total success and she can return to her peak form.

There is a lot of fuss over recent photos that have emerged of Ana Porgras. Certainly she looks tacky at best, but it's not for anyone else to dictate her life. Ana announced her retirement earlier this year, which was a huge shock as she was fully expected to be on the London team and had enjoyed success at world championships with her unbelievably graceful and beautiful beam and bars work. She had been dealing with a string of injuries and did not adjust well to the return of Octavian Bellu and Mariana Bitang. Ana has expressed outrage in interviews that people will not leave her alone on the issue and respect her wishes and accept that she absolutely does not regret her decision. Maybe she will return to gymnastics eventually- she is still only 18- but in the meantime, people should back off and let her do her own thing without making awful comments.

It's a little hard to believe that this was her not that long ago:

But if Ana is happy then so be it! She is definitely faring better than another former Romanian gymnast- Florica Leonida, who is allegedly working as a prostitute in Germany.

If you haven't already, read this. A translated interview with He Kexin that is a joy to read. It's rare that perfectly translated interviews of Chinese gymnasts are available, especially compared to Russian and Romanian gymnasts, but this is a gem.

Part 1: http://www.thecouchgymnast.com/?p=7199
Part 2: http://www.thecouchgymnast.com/?p=7210 

Bruno Grandi has had a general letter published addressing judging controversy etc. It's not that long a letter but he manages to say nothing and convey nothing of any merit in it, quite a feat. He does sound pissed at one point that the president of the IOC was there to witness the Kohei Uchimura score disaster, boo hoo. Oh and he implies that he wasn't happy that there was an inquiry into Aly's beam score. Excuse me? People should have to accept judges execution score but not if they screw up the difficulty score? How DARE anyone question the judges? He never really gets into the issue, or any other, he skirts around outright condemnation of anything- tie-breaking, inquiries and the judges. FIG needs to oust him and Nellie Kim yet they seem to be as entrenched as the Karolyi's are in USAG.

There have been some changes to the actual code of points, which I am trying to wade through. In the draft code, the D+A (acro)- which meant all of the leaps out of passes on floor- was replaced with D+B (acro). Since that would mean having to do a much harder jump like a sheep jump or Yang Bo, everyone rejoiced at how that would reduce the numer of leaps out of passes. The Olympics saw a TON of this connection. So what do the FIG do? They put it back to D+A! Enjoy more Lauren Mitchell-esque floor routines. In other news, Katelyn Ohashi's beam start value is 7.2 in the new code. If she rearranges her sheep jump in its combination, it could be 7.3. If she gets back her old full-in dismount, it would be 7.5. WOW. Beam will see lots of rising start values, but Katelyn seems ahead of the pack with that. The combination acro line on floor won't be as valuable as it was in the draft..damn.

Gabby is only doing half the tour, then going back to Chow's. Very interesting- she does have two book deals so maybe isn't as pushed at pursuing the media spotlight for money, but most speculated that since she has achieved the ultimate she would not have much motivation to continue training at the highest level and live that far apart from her family. I know that she is a very talented gymnast- there's no disputing that (it is her attitude in some of the statements she makes that puts me off her) so I would like to see a much better floor routine from her. In the last several quads, AA champions become the champion AFTER success at worlds and other big competitions. For a reigning Olympic champion to go to on worlds after Olympics is pretty rare. I really want to see Larisa Iordache and some new seniors shine, but we'll see what happens anyway. I am going to go to worlds, as it is only about a 2 hour flight away. I'm excited already..

Most of the Russian squads are training in Mallorca, just conditioning. Mustafina looks fierce and ready to go. She plans to compete at the Voronin Cup in December. It will be great to see if her beam routine is more like her old 2010 self, what a shame her injury impacted on her readiness on that event.

Late starters

Most elite gymnasts will be in fairly serious training by the age of 8 or 9 and usually start at the age of 6 or even before. This Olympics saw most of the Fierce Five stating that they started in Mommy and Me classes at the age of 2. Some gymnasts start years after the normal age and still manage to be wonderful on the elite stage, progressing far faster. Here are two of my favourites.

Ludivine Furnon

Ludivine was the springy sensation who snatched a bronze at the 1995 World Championships on floor (the same Worlds that Lilia Podkopayeva dominated). A very strong tumbler who performed the very rare double layout punchfront later in her career and a really expressive tumbler- Ludivine only started gymnastics at the age of 11 and had been training for less than 3 years when she became an elite and performed at the 1995 worlds. She was able to stay on top of her game for several years, performing strongly at the 1999 worlds in particular, and taking gold at the 2000 European Championships. At Euros she beat an incredibly strong field- probably one of the strongest floor line-ups ever- Produnova, Karpenko, Amanar, Raducan and Zamolodchikova! Unfortunately an injury took her out of serious contention for Sydney, where she only did bars. Her beam, while not sensational, was fairly strong and she showed her confidence and expressiveness on that apparatus too. She competed at smaller meets after she recovered, and has worked for Cirque Du Soleil in Vegas. Her worlds medal was France' first ever. It's just amazing to see someone get to that level so quickly, especially as France is not one of the top 4 countries.

Daiane Dos Santos

Daiane has had an incredibly long career, but just like Furnon, she started gymnastics at the age of 11. Unlike her though, it took Daiane much longer to reach the higher echelons of the sport, though she too comes from a country not renowned for huge depth. Daiane burst onto the world stage in 2003, with an emotional gold winning floor routine at Anaheim worlds. Unfortunately, though she won many minor titles, she made costly mistakes at major competitions and in the 2004 and 2008 Olympic floor finals and the 2012 Olympic prelims. Her 2003 worlds gold was a first for her country. Daiane stands as one of the greatest floor workers, and certainly the greatest tumbler. Though she is most known for her two tumbles named after her- the arabian double pike and the arabian double layout- the second of which has never been attempted by anyone else- she showed an astonishing variety in her tumbling, much more than any other gymnast. In her career she displayed more than 20 different tumbling passes and at the age of 29 was competing a full twisting double layout, double layout and arabian double tuck! Her music was always a crowd favourite during her peak period of 2003-2008 and her astonishing tumbles and sense of rthymn drew them in. Sadly her incredible height was often her downfall to major titles as it meant that landings were very hard to control, often stepping out of bounds. Daiane was fairly average on other events, but did manage to compete a front layout onto beam! The only video sees her falling on it after landing, but she did manage it with more success on other occassions. Despite her familiarity with missing out on titles, Daiane's legacy is one of oustanding talent and difficulty. Hopefully Rebeca Andrade, the young Brazilian junior who also gets incredible height on her tumbling can follow in her footsteps.