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.

Mustafina V Iordache

What a great competition!

Highlights:

- Aliya Mustafina recovering so well after a shaky beam routine and not once having the lead to confidently winning after an exquisite bars routine. European champion in front of a home crowd two years after THAT injury is delightful to see.
- Anastasia Grishina hitting 4/4 and nailing her routines at that. Seeing her mount a beam is so tense, and her routine blew me away. Fabulous bars too, though the Russian tap swings make me cry. Not to mention the best DTY I've ever seen her do. She was so thrilled with her performance, let's hope onwards and upwards to challenge for an AA spot at worlds.
- Larisa Iordache and Diana Bulimar on beam. I see Larisa's shoddy toepoint and Diana's lack of difficulty but I just want to score impossibly high on the basis of their incredibly solid work. Just awesome to watch them in action.
- Ruby Harrold's beam mount. I'm disgusted I haven't even seen her beam before..I was of the opinion only her bars were worth looking for. Anyway, fabulously original- a lovely press to handstand, followed by a Healy turn to one foot onto the beam. Amazing! And very reminiscent of Liu Xuan's crazy backbreaker mount. The rest of Ruby's routine was great too. It's easy to see now why she made beam finals.
- Giulia Steingruber's performance. Another who has absolutely made a case for herself as an AA gymnast, rather than a specialist. Giulia has had issues with her beam this year, but that was not in evidence today, both beam and bars have caught up with her very strong vault and floor. Great bars releases, fabulous vaulting, and a full twisting DLO and normal DLO in the one floor routine! It's almost baffling to see her follow those tumbles up with a double twist, presumably she has plans to upgrade that. Rough around the ages but a very exciting gymnast nonetheless. And I am so in love with her beam dismount, looks deceptively easy compared to the usual fare but it requires a lot of power and finesse.
- Noemi Makra's piked full-in is so so pretty. This girl has exceptional execution but is not rewarded for it, her scoring was quite harsh I thought.
- Anastasia Grishina's Onodi-illusion was perfection. It was great to see how in line to the beam it was too.
- A very confident major competitive debut from Elisa Meneghini, who is really nice to watch on beam and floor in particular. Hopefully some upgrades are in store for her.
- Larisa Iordache and Diana Bulimar nailing their bars after disastrous sets in qualifications. Clearly never going to win prizes for them, but good to see nonetheless. Except for Larisa's Shelgunova-Sheep-Pak which was horrifying. Hopefully a fluke.
- Really great day for Roxana Popa. Beautiful DTY which I thought was underscored. Hopefully she can continue to make strides and upgrade a bit.
- Ilaria Kaeslin's bars. Gorgeous body line.

Anastasia Grishina's enormous smile after that glorious beam routine to end her competition made my day. I know she fell twice in qualifying but she has hit so much this year, can't help but think she will continue to improve. I hope her difficulty can be worked on a bit too to keep her up with the best, especially when Viktoria Komova returns to competition. Diana Bulimar too could not but be happy with her performance, she's a lot of fun to watch and even her bars were not painful.

Not-so-highlights

Tough actually, as most gymnasts especially those nearing the top of the leaderboard had no major errors.

- Gabby Jupp not competing. Again, hoping they are just being very cautious and that her injury is very minor.
- Noel Van Klaveren having a dissapointing day, with a lot of steps back on her strong DTY and then a very awkward bars dismount, which I believe she put her hands down on. Hopefully she can redeem herself in vault finals.
- Non-broadcast of Noemi Makra's routines and 3/4 of Ilaria Kaeslin's. I know they can't show everyone and neither are near being a medal threat but I am a huge fan of the beautiful gymnastics both girls showcase so I will continue to irrationally complain!
- BBC commentary! No Matt Baker and no Mitch Fenner. Whoever commentated with Christine Still was a bit annoying. Big emphasis on small gymnasts being powerful, a surprise every time he witnessed it when we all know that huge skills tend to come easier to stocky short girls. The state of Mustafina's triple was also completely unexpected for him, I could hear the exclamation marks in his voice. Plenty of 'what do you think about that then!' after strong routines which grated on me. I did want to scream at Christine at one point when she said in the first rotation that Elisa Meneghini is the reigning junior Euros champion. Her male co-commentator repeated this too. The champion is actually Enus Mariani who not alone was not competing, but is actually not elegible as she's still a junior. Now we all make mistakes but she said it again in the fourth rotation..I was hoping someone corrected her in the meantime! I do like commentary but I found today's distinctly mediocre at times.
- I did think that Aliya Mustafina was a little overscored, it seemed that other gymnasts had to work harder for their execution scores. I know she had a high d-score on beam to cushion her but 8.0 execution for that was a bit excessive, and her DTY's sloppy second twist went completely under the radar of the judges who must have let the fabulously stuck landing cloud them. Lesser known gymnasts in other rotations were absolutely not given the benefit of the doubt, by comparison.

Best beam: Anastasia Grishina, followed by Larisa Iordache and Diana Bulimar
Best bars: Aliya Mustafina, followed by Anastasia Grishina and Ida Gustaffson
Best vault: Roxana Popa, followed by Giulia Steingruber and Anastasia Grishina
Best floor: Larisa Iordache, followed by Diana Bulimar and Anastasia Grishina

Favourite leotard: Giulia Steingruber. A variation of an old favourite but the design is a classic and the colour was beautiful and suited her down to the ground. Stunning. Aliya Mustafina was gorgeous in red, I am still fussy about the shape of the mesh at the neck but it's much nicer in red I think. I also liked Noemi Makra's, simple but lovely.

Worst leotard: Larisa Iordache. I'm a sucker for the Pikachu leo, but while it was skimpy on her last year it's absolutely obscene now. There's no excuse for her to be channeling Catalina Ponor on this and being able to see it ending above her tracksuit bottoms at the side was just a bit gross really.

I was so excited about being able to see it on TV, makes a change from foreign-language streams. It does not look like the event finals will be broadcast in full on BBC though so it's back to the UEG stream for me for tomorrow and Sunday. As expected this stream is not working outside of Europe but there is another stream that works worldwide. You can find the Europe-only stream here and the worldwide stream here. Onto event finals we go! Larisa Iordache for beam, Ksenia Afanasyeva for floor, Giulia Steingruber for vault and Aliya Mustafina for bars methinks. Maria Paseka will put up a hell of a fight for vault but I think if Giulia stays clean and has good landings she should edge it. Hopefully. The other events are much more certain.

Here is the entire AA final! I love youtube.

What did you like/dislike today? Favourite routines? Picks for EF? How on earth is Larisa comfortable wearing that monstrosity?

Euros Predictions

Hopefully they will turn out better than my worlds predictions, which were done nearly a year out and already look hilariously wrong. Anyway, I want to do this before more teams are formally named. This is similar to Euros, 4 per team. It's important to note that several people, including Wyomi Masela, Celine Van Gerner and Elizabeth Seitz have bowed out of Euros contention due to exams and other commitments.

Teams

Russia

This is easy, since the first three have already been named. The last is between Anna Dementyeva, Evgeniya Shelgunova and Ksenia Afanasyeva.


Aliya Mustafina AA
Anastasia Grishina AA
Maria Paseka VT
Ksenia Afanasyeva FX BB

A strong team, which should be able to take home quite a haul. At least one AA medal, hopefully two, same for UB and BB and potentially two on FX too if Aliya pulls out all the stops there. Not 'adding the DLO' kind of stops, but her Russian Championships routine with the pauses fixed could still score very well.

Romania

Romania are only down as bringing three gymnasts. That might change but I'll have to go with it for the moment.

Larisa Iordache AA
Diana Bulimar AA
Stefanie Stanila BB FX

The first two are no-brainers, but we haven't seen Larisa at all since London so it's hard to judge where she's at. On the team is a certainty, but beyond that.. As for Stanila, hopefully she has upgrades or she won't make any event finals. This will mainly be for experience because if Didi and Larisa are on form, she can't beat them. However, she is better than Ana Maria Ocalisan I think. I would be surprised if Diana Chelaru was ready in time, and I doubt Sandra Izbasa is too pushed about going. I think she will be worlds or nothing.

Britain

Gabby Jupp AA
Hannah Whelan AA
Niamh Rippin VT
Becky Downie UB

Since Rebecca Tunney is injured and hasn't competed at a single qualifying meet, I don't see her appearing. These four all performed and won titles at British Championships. Ruby Harrold has lost the bars spot due to her inconsistency with her new (incredible) bars routine. She has one more chance at Doha but she messed up twice with it. Becky has had issues with hers but she has gotten it together more times so..

Italy

Vanessa Ferrari AA
Elisa Meneghini AA
Serena Bugani VT
Elisabetta Preziosa BB

This is the one that will prove the most 'wrong' I think. Carlotta Ferlito, Georgia Campana and Erika Fasana stand greater chances than my last two, but since this is a specialist Euros and I think these two stand better medal chances, I'm going for them.

Netherlands and Switzerland have named their teams. New faces from outside the major teams will be Noemi Makra, Darya Matveyeva, Sophie Scheder, Roxana Popa and Tabea Alt along with old reliables Vasilliki Millousi, Marta Pihan-Kulezsa (if she is not injured, she had a balked routine recently), Dorina Boczogo and Mariya Livchikova.

All-around Qualifiers- Top 5

1. Aliya Mustafina
2. Anastasia Grishina
3. Diana Bulimar
4. Larisa Iordache (I know I know..but I think if she was fighting fit we would have seen her by now)
5. Gabby Jupp

Floor Qualifiers

1. Ksenia Afanasyeva
2. Diana Bulimar
3. Mariya Livchikova
4. Larisa Iordache
5. Aliya Mustafina
6. Elisa Meneghini
7. Gabby Jupp
8. Noel Van Klaveren


Vault Qualifiers

1. Giulia Steingruber
2. Maria Paseka
3. Noel van Klaveren
4. Niamh Rippin
5. Serena Bugani
6. Dorina Boczogo
7. Chantysha Netteb

And I'm lost. No Chuso, Berger, Izbasa or Masela..

Beam Qualifiers

1. Anastasia Grishina
2. Ksenia Afanasyeva
3. Diana Bulimar
4. Larisa Iordache
5. Gabby Jupp
6. Vasliliki Millousi
7. Elisabetta Preziosa
8. Mariya Livchikova (wobbles, low landing double pike)

Bars Qualifiers

1. Aliya Mustafina
2. Anastasia Grishina
3. Becky Downie
4. Sophie Scheder
5. Darya Matveyeva
6. Lisa Hill
7. Natalia Kononenko
8. Gabby Jupp

Podiums

All-around

1. Aliya Mustafina
2. Diana Bulimar
3. Larisa Iordache (Grishina has a bad landing on her vault and stumbles forward in her double double..)

Floor

1. Diana Bulimar
2. Ksenia Afanasyeva (OOB)
3. Mariya Livchikova

Vault

1. Giulia Steingruber
2. Maria Paseka
3. Noel Van Klaveren

Beam

1. Anastasia Grishina
2. Ksenia Afanasyeva
3. Mariya Livchikova (Perfect routine and Bulimar has a huge break)

Bars

1. Aliya Mustafina
2. Anastasia Grishina
3. Sophie Scheder (Sophie improves and Becky gets slaughtered for her handstands)

Well done girls! :P

Medal Table

Russia 7- 3 golds, 4 silver (Mustafina GG Grishina GS Afanasyeva SS Paseka S)
Romania 3- 1 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze (Bulimar GS, Iordache B)
Ukraine 2- 2 bronze (Livchikova BB)
Switzerland 1- 1 gold (Steingruber G)
Germany 1- 1 bronze (Scheder B)

So the most successful country is Russia and the most decorated gymnast is Aliya Mustafina. I know I might sound odd counting Larisa Iordache out as a major contender, but I just think if she had together and was ready to go, we'd know by now. I think I will be more right than wrong with these predictions but feel free to violently disagree!

And just in time, the nominative participant list was out when I woke up, here. I just mentioned in the comments that there are issues with the list- first, France has a WAG team when they have just stated they aren't bringing any. Janine Berger is on the list when it was said she will miss Euros. Hopefully her inclusion is up-to-date and that she's good to go. British Gymnastics have said they will be releasing on who they're sending tomorrow..so that could be different too. I am most surprised with the addition of Sandra Izbasa. She will shake up my floor and vault podiums nicely. It's great that she's in shape and ready to go, I thought she'd hold off until closer to Worlds really. Sad that it's at the expense of bringing a new senior for experience, or Dana Andrei. They should have utilised all four spots. Britain are putting all their eggs in the bars basket, they have three who could qualify. But nobody for vault, and they'd be lucky to get a floor spot too. An ideal opportunity for Niamh Rippin wasted, unless they change that lineup tomorrow. It's not that I don't love the exciting bars of Ruby Harrold and Becky Downie but I think it's better if they spread the love around a bit..

Ukraine also have a slightly surprising team listed. Mariya Livchikova was a given, and Darya Matveyeva after she placed second at Nationals. Giving new senior Olena Vasylieva more experience is admirable, but Angelina Kysla's place is a little confusing. I hope Vasylieva is improved on last year, when she stood out as being an enormous headcase. I really thought they would send Kristina Sankova who's strong on beam and floor, in place of Kysla and then Natalia Kononenko if she's healthy and hitting in place of Vasylieva. Ah well. Predictions are a mug's game.