Bailie and Simone sweep Jesolo

Ugh I'm really sorry but that download link I gave is useless. It has about 13 Italian channels and they all work fine but the one I thought it is on isn't correct- it doesn't have the channel Jesolo IS actually being broadcasted on.  So, no Jesolo I'm afraid. For a whole hour and a half I thought I could watch it! I'm sorry if I got anyone's hopes up and wasted their time. Quick hits and youtube it is!

Junior Competition

Bailie Key scored a huge 58.1 to dominate the Junior AA at Jesolo today. Second was the reigning Junior Euros champion Enus Mariani of Italy who scored 55.2, and in third was Amelia Hundley who scored 55.05. Amelia beat Bailie at camp immediately before they left for Italy, but this isn't exactly a surprising turn of events as Jesolo is known for harsh scoring for gymnasts who are that bit messier in their gymnastics. Aly Raisman for instance had her execution scoring slammed last year. Who knows, it may have been part of what spurred her on to improve her form for the international competition that really mattered- London.

Enus fell on beam, but it appears Amelia's problem was just execution. Her vault score was definitely in line, and her floor was not that far behind the leaders. Her beam and bars were both low 13's but that is to be expected when fair judging is applied to them. That's not to say that I don't enjoy Amelia Hundley's gymnastics, she's very dynamic and powerful and I really hope she does not join the ranks of MLT's broken gymnasts...but I am glad that Jesolo rewards clean, beautiful gymnastics. Looking at a photo of the podium highlights another issue for Amelia- she has shot up. Hopefully she can improve when she gets used to her height.

This is a great win for Bailie- and decisive too with a 3 point lead. Slow and steady wins the race, she's being paced correctly. I will add videos when they arrive- most excited for Bailie's floor and bars and Enus' floor. I have only seen a dance-through of the latter's new floor and a very far away look at it in competition where she fell- but it is obvious even from those glimpses that it's brilliant. Epic, dramatic, beautiful. Update- The excellent GymPOWER1 and piibunia are uploading already. I'm not sure if they can be embedded or if it's just that they have embedding disabled but either way it's not working. In the meantime, check out videos here. Bailie and Amelia certainly have upbeat music! I like Amelia's. I'm a bit undecided about Bailie's though..there's a lot going on with it, but I think she can own her routine more in time..this is the first competitive debut. GORGEOUS tumbling from her. I'm so glad that she's not flinging double arabians and so on. I am impressed with crazy tumbling from girls as young and younger than her I'll admit, but it's still better to see someone being developed nice and slow. Amelia can certainly improve from what she showed today. Enus was glorious to watch as usual, though she's piking down quite considerably on her DTY and her double layout bars dismount. Her floor deserves its own link (a different uploader). Stunning.

Senior Competition

I think we can expect that Kyla Ross will be similarly rewarded and Lexie Priessman will have her execution slammed. It will depend on how much of a difficulty lead Lexie has. Not forgetting Simone Biles but she's harder to pinpoint- she should be somewhere in the middle as she is not spectacularly clean but nor is she sloppy. Except her leaps, which will surely be dealt with harshly. The question is how much of a lead can she get on the others with her vault..and can she beat Kyla's bars if she has higher difficulty there? Should be extremely interesting! I'm really hoping Mai Murakami, Elisa Meneghini and Asuka Teramoto can make their mark too. And how impressive that Vanessa Ferrari has actually upgraded- adding a new tuck full. Maybe she will continue after she is done saving money..let's hope.

Not hearing a whole lot of great news from the senior competition. Vanessa Ferrari has been taken to hospital after falling off beam on the tucked full and not being able to continue. Hopefully it's very minor and this is just a precaution. Mai Murakami landed her double double on her knees and scored so low on vault that she either fell or did an FTY instead of the DTY. Dissapointing, but hopefully it won't continue to be the story of her senior career. Her bars score was 10.55 so clearly mishaps there too. Girl is such a heartbreaker. Lexie Priessman and Maggie Nichols fell off beam. In good news Simone Biles scored a whopper 15.9 for her amanar- 9.6 execution. She must have stuck that thing, can't wait to see a video. And in a surprise twist Brenna Dowell scored extremely high on bars- 14.7- which was definitely not expected. I've just gone back and read the more detailed quick hits from L'International Gymnix on facebook. It definitely appears that Brenna has improved, good for her. Sadly Peyton Ernst fell victim to beam too. She seems to be showing nice work, I hope she and Maggie can show off hit beam routines at Chemnitz. And confirmed, Simone did stick her amanar. And her bars dismount. She is leading the AA after 3 rotations and scored higher than Kyla on beam. WOW. Kyla outscored Simone on bars 15.4 to 14.85 and Simone outscored Kyla on vault by 0.7 and beam by 0.05. On to floor, a pet piece of Simone's if she can only control her landings. Interestingly, the facebook quick hits are referring to USA's layouts on beam as whips. I would tend to agree if they all look like Simone's and Bailie's. This would be a downgrade if the judges took it- there's no amplitude. Simone's second vault is the Lopez- which was Maroney's second vault in 2011. It's also known as a laidout Podkopayeva I believe. Ahhh can't wait for videos..

And Simone nails floor! Excellent. Not to mention she has actually upgraded it already, the 1 and a half to double pike became a full-in tuck and she has added a leap after the double layout. Scores a 14.9, a full point and a half above Kyla's low 13.35- she went out of bounds on two passes and did not show upgrades. Great boost for Simone after a slightly dissapointing American Cup. Her AA total breaks 60- by 0.4 to be exact, a fantastic result especially at a competition known for harsh judging.
 

Other Stuff

FIG have in fact gotten rid of their new vault scoring. R.I.P..it sure was tested well, with its only outings at LRSY and some very few national competitions. It appears that the old system now reinstated will be a bit different in that neutral deductions will be taken away from the averaged total. The 0.5 deduction is no more but this does mean that misdirection errors and steps could be equally as damaging as a nice 0.5 averaged fall. It appears that the sight of 11-12 range winning scores at LRSY was more offensive to FIG than having gymnasts who splatted a vault winning medals. Nice going.

Unfortunately, I got a little confused with British Championships livestreaming schedule. The senior AA is taking place soon but will not be livestreamed. Tomorrow's apparatus finals will be livestreamed instead. AA finals routines from today will be uploaded to youtube swiftly by the very efficient and commendable BGTV though.

Anastasia Grishina won bars finals at Cottbus! She is continuing her lucky streak of hitting. Hopefully she can get the beam title too. It's so great that her coaching change is clearly the right decision. Even if she does remain a little flaky, she looks very happy and that's the main thing. Not surprisingly, Oksana Chusovitina took the vault title.

USAG are uploading old American Cup's. I spotted 1984, 1986 and the inaugural one, 1976. Don't be fooled by the 'full broadcast' title- it's about as full as NBC's Olympic coverage. There were only 6 female gymnasts and they managed to show just 3. There is enormous Nadia Comaneci hype of course, and you get to see all of her routines. It's interesting to see her compete in great quality pre-Montreal. And how Kathy Rigby pretty much dismisses Elena Davydova after she fell off bars, 4 years before she became Olympic AA champion. Contains fluff where Nadia walks around sightseeing with Bela chewing gum and wearing flares. And a bizarre showdown which NBC would love, pitting Nadia against Olga Korbut on all four events. And a two sentence but nevertheless great interview from Nadia. 

 

Hong Un Jong and Grandi return! More news

The roster for the Asian Artistic Gymnastics Championships has been announced for Japan..and North Korea! (China already covered). North Korea's team consists of Hong Un Jong, Kang Yong Mi, Kim Un Hyang and three much younger total unknowns- Kim So Yong, Pak Sin Hyang and Ri Un Ha who all have birthdates of 1995/6. How exciting! First of all to see what Hong Un Jong and the other two are still capable of, and what the other 3 have up their sleeves. I am dissapointed not to see Cha Yong Hwa of the superb bars, but even so. Fantastic stuff.

Japan's team consists of Risa Konishi, Wakana Inoue, Sakura Noda, Erica Danko, Shizuka Tozawa and Mirai Sekiguchi. Like China they are not using Olympians, but they also seem to have gone one further and are using a bit of a b-team lineup. Very dissapointing not to see Mai Murakami and Natsumi Sasada, but perhaps they are being saved for bigger competitions. Hopefully. The competition takes place from 7-15th November and has an AA, TF and EF's. YAY!

In other news, John Orozco is the 3rd victim of the tour, injuring his knee on a dismount. Ridiculous! High level gymnastics is obviously more appealing as a draw, but so not worth it. It is confirmed to be a torn ACL and meniscus, which puts him out for at least a year. This tour is terrible.

The Russian teams for the upcoming Massilia Cup and next July's Universiade Games have been announced. Massilia's line-up will be Anastasia Sidorova, Yulia Inshina, Maria Kharenkova and Yevgeniya Shelgunova. Universiade's will be Aliya Mustafina, Tatiana Nabieva, Ksenia Afanasyeva and Kristina Goryunova. Great to see Kristina get a bigger assignment of more note, and of course, to see Nabs again. Maria Kharenkova is arguably Russia's best junior, so hopefully she can make even more of a name for herself.

The Chinese team for the upcoming Massilia Cup will be Lou Nina, Mei Jie, Chen Siyi and Liu Zhilin who all had strong performances this year at Nationals. Bars and beam should be a highlight and hopefully they can dominate there. The competition takes place from the 17th-18th November.

Romanian Junior Nationals have just taken place. They were split up into 4 categories from girls born in 2001-2002 down to girls who are already on the junior national team. Sadly, plenty of the most promising did not compete- Madalina Blendea, Adela Florea and Andreea Munteanu were all injured and Laura Jurca only did bars due to an injury also. Other girls were also injured, but quite a few only doing 1 or 2 events. Andreea Iridon who is great on bars (not a qualifying statement- she is!) dominated her age category and won bars, beam and floor. Silvia Zarzu did well but is hindered by her terrible bars. Laura Jurca took silver on bars. Sad to see so many absences, especially as the purpose of this competition was to add more to the national team. The big excitement was Andreea Iridon's bars and Asiana Peng's triple full on floor.Their team for Massilia has not been announced yet, but since they have a plethora of injuries it will be tougher than expected. Individuals and other teams have been announced. Of note are the two super exciting and very different Dutch girls- Eythora Thorsdottir and Chantysha Netteb. The former is glorious on beam and has a floor fresh from the 1985 Soviet team. The latter is powerful with her speciality being vault on which she is the reigning Junior European Champion. From Canada, Victoria Moors who is already down for both world cups and Victoria Woo and Gabriella Douglas (LOL if she competes against Gabby at some stage) are among the contingent.

Bruno Grandi has been re-elected. Yawn. New blood please. He will be 82 when his term ends. So has Nellie Kim which is less of a surprise given she ran unopposed. Nellie continues to be biased in her decisions, no longer a direct judge but having the power to sway their decision.

Anna Pavlova will compete at the Tournoi meet. In USA news, there is a big furore over comments Anna Li has made and some sort of (maybe not at all) reply Nastia made. ie accusations of bullying by Anna followed by 'Let it be' tweet from Nastia. Suspicion has been planted firmly in Alicia Sacramone's corner, with 'victims' being Gabby, Anna and Nastia. Personally, it would not take much for me to believe that of Alicia who does appear from several instances to have a mean side. Bullying is quite a step further though, despite the fact they have been cooped up together for quite a while, and dumping girls in their teens and early 20's together and expecting no drama is ludicrous. However Anna should never have posted any comments. It smacks of immaturity, and she is definitely old enough to know better. It's one thing doing something like that on facebook between school friends, but it's definitely worse when these girls have a substantial fanbase and attract a lot of attention from the gym community at large. Not impressed.

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.

A look at the next quad's code

As we have seen, the race for increasing difficulty means that perfect execution doesn't matter as much anymore- chuck a skill and fall or have major errors on it, and you can still beat lesser routines. This has been seen most memorably when Cheng Fei who fell in 2008 Vault EF beat Alicia Sacramone to the bronze, after Alicia exhibited clean and well performed vaults. This is why we are seeing so many Amanars, so many Pattersons, so many skill-skill-skill beam connections, so many pirouette combos and release combos on bars, and so many leaps out of passes- all in a drive to up the D score. But FIG are not happy. Upping a fall to a point off and decreasing skills counted from 10 to 8 hasn't helped, actually it has made it worse because the skills counted now have to be more difficult. This is not the individual gymnasts or coaches fault- the code is there to be played. It is the code entirely at fault for what we are seeing now.

Next quad's code, 2013-2016, was released in draft form a few months back. Doubtless it will see alterations after the London Olympics,but the changes it has made are significant.

VAULT

Here we finally have the solution to falls winning and to sloppy amanars scoring well. The current way is of course to average the two vault scores. The new way is absolutely different and will big time penalise execution. Both vault D scores are added together and averaged, then 10 is added. And here's the fun part...the total deductions for both vaults is then substracted from that total. What does that mean? It means sloppy amanars will not be worth doing over clean DTY's. It means falling on a vault like Yamilet Pena's Prod won't be worth doing either. It is good news for knees everywhere. It doesn't change a thing for McKayla Maroney, if anything it keeps her further ahead of other amanars. She would still have won 2011 worlds EF. BUT Cheng Fei would not have medalled in Beijing EF under this code.

THE AMANAR IS BEING DEVALUED. Hurray! Admittedly it is only going from a 6.5 to a 6.3 which isn't much BUT it helps the case for a clean stuck DTY over a messy amanar. Cheng is too, down to 6.4. I think both need to be harsher because the incentive to do them sloppily and still get a big score is still there.

Run length must not be more than 25 metres, or it will take an 0.5 deduction. I'm not sure I like the sound of this, I think the run length should be whatever the gymnast is capable of in order to harness her power on vault.

BARS

Pirouette combos are going to be hammered, they are not going to be allowed stack up conenction bonus for D score anymore. Most people tend to look at leaps out of passes as total code whoring, but so were the beautiful routines of Nastia, He and Yang! This is good news for release combinations and transitions (think He Kexin's and Beth Tweddle's release combos) and bad news for those who relied on turns instead of releases. If Beth can hang on for another quad, she will be rewarded for her insane difficulty even more than she is now.

FLOOR

Nothing major composition wise happening with floor, the element requirements seem to be the exact same. Tumbling passes are still restricted to four, thankfully. BUT...artistry will be much more important! There will be deductions for pasuses greater than one second before tumbling passes, deductions for more than one stationary pause in the corner, deductions for lack of expression, lack of creative choreography, insufficient use of floor space and for lack of fluidity. Choreo can be 0.3 or 0.1, the rest are 0.1. This is BRILLIANT news!! We can expect a return for balletic grace being rewarded and sloppy mechanical routines being slammed by the code. The major emphasis seems to be that the routine MUST continously flow and the gymnast must express her theme from beginning to end and interact with her music. Routines that barely connect with the music or do not connect enough will be harshly penalised too. Fantastic. This is good news for beautifully performed floor routines. Of course, not all of the above is new but taken together it really shows FIG's stance on valuing artistry again.

One of the biggest pet peeves people have had with floor codes is the huge emphasis on sticking the landing. This code will allow for one lunge, woohoo! Maybe more when it's finalised? Connection bonuses look exciting too, D+A (dance) sounds interesting. C+E makes for exciting tumbling lines, with twists into a double salto...a la Maroney's troublesome third pass which is great when performed correctly. Turn combos will be rewarded also. Everyone's favourite leaps out of passes will not getting connection bonus unless they are at least a B. Expect to still see them, but much less. Higher difficulty rewarding is being brought in apparently- H elements- but no further info on that yet.

BEAM

Is following floor's lead. So often are we seeing beam routines with amazing skills, but absolutlely no flow or grace. Skill-skill-skill- arm wave. Lack of expression, fluidity, choreography, pointed feet and aesthetic presentation are all going to be hit. Hopefully we will see this enforced as it's not a major diversion from the previous code where we are seeing horrendously choreographed beam routines. You can do it FIG, kill lack of artistry!



Interesting! Vault is the one changing the most, but it is great to see the emphasis on artistry elsewhere. It is of course unclear as to how much this code will change before it's finalised. My guess is that after London they will be ever more determined to penalise lack of artistry and sloppy amanars, but we'll see!

UPDATE: I found the submissions from individual federations and individuals. Australia do not want deductions for feet landing apart and for deep landings if head is above hip height- what? The latter especially looks terrible and needs to be deducted. France want MOARR LUNGES, excellent. They are also loving the drive for rewarding artistry on floor. Plenty want higher difficulty for some dance moves. India want acro and dance on floor to be judged entirely seperate to each other..hmm. Russia want 4 up, 3 count in TF. YES! I wonder how many of these we will see in the finalised code.

FIG slams its own code

As we all know, the current code of points places a much higher emphasis on difficulty than on execution and artistry. We have seen routines with falls and mistakes win over perfect routines, due to the boost higher difficulty gives to the former. While I appreciate power and artistic routines, I deplore poor form and 'skill chucking'. Now that the FIG have criticised the direction their own code is forcing gymnastics to take, what can we expect from the next code and future codes? From the draft, there is a concerted attempt to downplay the bonuses that difficulty gives. The real test is whether London will add any changes to it.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/19/oly-gymn-artistry-idUSL3E8HI5VB20120619

Code-whoring and hypocrisy

We hear a lot about code-whoring, which basically means taking advantage of the current code for scoring purposes. And yet, why shouldn't gymnasts and their coaches do this? If the code allows for bonuses for certain connections which are easier than throwing hard skills, why wouldn't they be overused? It makes perfect sense. And yet, it's not really open-ended scoring and overused connections that annoy me, it's the selective response to this overuse, which to me IS hypocritical. The prime example in this code is, leaps out of passes, which absolutely are overused but are a quick and easy way to up SV on an event where scoring can be quite low (internationally, NOT in the US).

Lauren Mitchell is the scapegoat for this. She was definitely amongst the first to do it, and generally does it after every pass or almost every pass. Sometimes they appear quite forced, which ruins the flow, but it's moreso that they are low and don't have the 'wow' factor. Her artistry and sense of dance is so nonexistent that she needs all the help she can get from difficult tumbling and bonus connections. This is smart manipulation of the code, and not her fault everyone else jumped on the bandwagon. Here is her 2011 worlds AA floor, probably the best she has ever done her leaps. Lauren is far from the only one who gets the flak for this, but is the most obvious.

Aly Raisman has been criticised for it, but not near as much. Her leaps are much higher so tend to look better, but are arguably worse as the form on them is bad- particularly the last one with flexed feet.

They are quite similar as regards floor styles- no artistry or dance, HUGE tumbling. Lauren should take a lesson from Aly here, if your music is good and matches your power you can manipulate people into forgetting the lack of artistry.

But this is where the hypocrisy really comes in. When the leaps are done brilliantly as well as having great height, everyone keeps their mouths shut and gazes in awe at the exact same code-whoring they complain about when others attempt it. Here are two examples of great leaps

These leaps are high with great form. So nobody cares that it's the same code manipulation they criticise others for doing more sloppily! Very very annoying, either censure everyone for it or quit complaining about it full stop.

This isn't of course the only 'code-whoring'. Last quad, it was pirouettes on bars. Yang Yilin, He Kexin and Nastia Liukin showcased very beautiful turns in handstand, Onos and Healys and with their pencil bodyline it looked amazing. Yet it was done so much solely to boost difficulty in combination, Beth Tweddle needed a huge amount of releases and releases in combination to rival their D-scores. But you'll find very little about that manipulation and overuse- again, because it looked great.

The moral of the story seems to be- we don't mind code-whoring, once it's done well. But woe betide sloppy form- suddenly they face a barrage of criticism. Infuriating.

(It's interesting to note that FIG do not appreciate overuse and code-whoring. Next quad's code gets rid of pirouette combination connection bonuses AND leaps out of passes have to be at least a B leap- making it far more difficult to do. I'm sure there will be overuse of something else, and the same hypocritical opinions though!)