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.

Competitions :D and more things

The Italy Serie A competition is taking place now. It's a competition between the various gyms,and will see Vanessa Ferrari, Erika Fasana, Georgia Campana, Chiara Gandolfi, Carlotta Ferlito, Elisabetta Preziosa, Serena Bugani, Enus Mariani, Elisa Meneghina, Tea Ugrin, Anna Pavlova and more battle it out. I'll add videos if and when they become available, I'm most excited to see any upgrades the juniors have as out of the countries battling their way into the top 4, Italy have the biggest chance I think. Time will tell. Edit: Fasana, Ferlito and Anna Pavlova did not compete, the latter due to a problem with her flight and the others due to minor injury/illness. There's a full report with scores on TCG but no videos as of yet. Great to hear that Enus Mariani had such a strong showing, though it appears to have been a meet full of falls as it's sooo early in the season.

Elsabeth Black decisively won the AA at Elite Canada. Ellie was injured in the London vault final, so it's thrilling to see her back on form. Victoria Moors did not compete AA, but since she is down for SCAM it would be unwise to go all out now. Some videos here. Hope to see more from their juniors. Edit: Moors' floor is up, and it's a bit worrying. Not because she has watered down, but because she looks sluggish, tired and just not interested. She seems to have grown quite a bit in a short space of time and was dealing with a minor back muscle injury at the end of last year, so hopefully she'll recover soon. Black has watered down too and has issues with coming up a bit short on her tumbles, but she seems much more 'on' than Moors. Yay, junior videos are going up here. I really like Heaven Latimer, she is such a great tumbler and has the best layout full on beam ever done. As I'm typing, there's only 3 routines up. Shallon Olsen needs to have her coach back AWAY from new skills and clean up her form, it was already bad and seems to be getting worse. And I haven't even seen her beam yet..it's so dissapointing given the enormous natural talent she has.

The WOGA Classic is taking place next weekend. Its main star will be Katelyn Ohashi of course, with an ideal chance to show what she has planned for her first year as a senior. She's known for her beam and bars but her vault will be the most interesting aspect, as it looked extremely troublesome last year. If she actually does vault as she may not do AA. What I liked most is that Mariya Livchikova and Krystyna Sankova of Ukraine are both competing and that their trip was mostly funded by WOGA due to Ukraine's gymnastics federation's money problems. Mariya's strengths are floor and beam, with some gorgeous original combinations on beam and beautiful elegance and textbook tumbling on floor. Krystyna is quite powerful and has done Arabian double pikes recently, so she'll be interesting to watch too. Other international competitors are Ellie Downie and Ryhannon Jones of GB and Kristina Yaroshenko and Alexandra Yazydzhyan of Russia. Domestically, ones to watch are Laurie Hernandez, Madison Kocian, Nica Hults, Kennedy Baker and Peyton Ernst. There are tonnes of girls attempting to qualify elite as well. The ones I'm most interested in are Jordan Chiles and Irina Alexeeva. Irina is only 10, but so promising. Lots of videos to come hopefully. IG forums are down, which is where I got both rosters from, and WOGA's own links open in Excel which I'm not happy with linking to. Edit: Nevermind, TripleTwist have all rosters written out, divided into junior and senior. Important to note that Irina will have to qualify as an elite to compete in the junior session later in the day, though since she is from WOGA they might be able to have her compete if she doesn't make it. Rosters are here. TripleTwist also have a nice succinct guide on what the girls trying for elite have to achieve here.

Lloimincia Hall got a perfect 10 on floor, LSU vs Mizzou. It's the third 10 this season, after Mackenzie Caquatto on bars and Vanessa Zamarippa on vault. I know that on first viewing this routine is baffling, and seems like an insult to the name 'artistic' in the sport. Like, WTF is she doing? It takes a few goes. I am in love with it and her and I want her to win the national floor title. She is living her routine, so involved, so passionate, and selling the life out of it. It is the definition of artistry, taking your music and bringing it to the next level. In general for NCAA the time difference makes it very difficult for me to watch meets, as well as only a handful of them being free. I catch up with the odd routine on youtube and follow quick hits. That's why I'm thrilled that UCLA's meet tomorrow is both free like theirs always are (THANK YOU..and since they're hosting national championships..any chance of them being streamed free??) and on early.. it starts at 10PM for me, much better than the usual midnight, 1AM starts..bleurgh.

You can see part two of Gymnastike's Off the Mat series with Nia Dennis here. I love seeing how well grounded her and her family are. GREAT height on her releases. I'm so excited that one of her coaches is Li Li, the exquisite former Chinese gymnast with killer extension, leaps and DAT back spin. It bodes well for Nia's form, beam and bars work. You can hear and see her in the footage but she isn't interviewed, sadly.

European Championships are going to be streamed live, via eurovision, the same crowd who did the Olympics (without commentary, but still). I will give the link and timezone information closer to the time. I will say that it will not be possible to watch it outside of Europe unless you *cough* shield/change your IP to a European one. The timezone will be gross for Americans, Moscow is 4 hours ahead of me currently (might get clocks going back before that) and therefore 9 hours ahead of EST and 12 hours ahead of PST. I suppose it depends what time the competitions start at for how non appealing that is to those in the US. Still, EXCITING :D

Florida vs Alabama from last night is on free replay, thanks to Spanny Tampson for broadcasting that info. YES! I was so sure it was free and then when I got on the site and found out it wasn't..very dissapointing. But here it is, and at a much more suitable time for me ha. I'm going to subscribe to the growing view that Florida are going to win this year. The link should be here. If not, just click on game replay and it should show up there at the side. Considering Florida had to drop Kytra Hunter's scores on bars and beam (she's had stomach flu this week but that beam fall is just..so odd and unlikely), the fact that they broke 198 is HUGE. A team with Bridget Sloan, Ashanee Dickerson, Kytra Hunter, Marissa King, Alaina Johnson and Mackenzie Caquatto looks unstoppable, as they don't have a weak event at all. If you do rewatch the meet, make sure you read Aunt Joyce's hilarious live hits.

Alexander Alexandrov did NOT sign a contract with Brazil. There will be more negotiations at another stage. Personally, and obviously not knowing anyone involved, I think he'll wait until Aliya is done before moving on. He clearly has a lot of motivation to leave the gymnastics federation that screwed him over like they frequently do their head coaches, but the bond those two share is very strong. I hate the idea of her being dumped a second time. The original source is in Portugese, but you can read/translate it from here.

My laptop might break in two at any time so blogging might have an abrupt hiatus (can't blog on phones outside US). A DIY screen replacement weakened the hinges and now more than a year later it falls back and has to be propped up. Damnit! I'm going back to college in September (unrelated to my degree, but much more likely to get a job out of it..) and obviously this one won't withstand transportation. Check this out:

Looking healthy. I'm not sure what the silver thing stabbing my screen is, but it needs to GTFO. Or back in, whichever. The other side is lifting too. Sigh. Also, 200th post! 200 posts in just under 8 months of blogging is pretty good going, though since a lot of my obsession burst in a torrent in the first 2 months, I don't expect to maintain that frequency.