Pac Rims Beam
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| Copyright - Thomas Schreyer |
| Source - despositphoto |
Not to mention Anastasia Grishina and her copious amount of knee injuries. Sigh.
Showing posts with label Grishina. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Grishina. Show all posts
Tuesday, 8 April 2014
Just having a Simoment
Pac Rims Beam
Not to mention Anastasia Grishina and her copious amount of knee injuries. Sigh.
Monday, 26 August 2013
Bits and pieces
Anna Dementyeva has retired. It's been known for a while that she was taking a break from the gym and considering retirement and now the worst has been confirmed. She's at her home gym training youngsters. This has followed on quickly from the retirement of fellow gymnast of glorious lines and dance- Yulia Belokobylskaya. Interestingly, with the utter disaster Russia are having forming an Antwerp team at the moment, she may have gotten another shot at glory, which looked so unlikely just a few weeks ago. At least she went out on a relative high of a great team performance at Universiade, with some spectacular individual routines of her own.
Catherine Lyons and Georgia Mae Fenton will be joining Laurie Hernandez and Bailie Key at the Japan Junior. These two young Brits have a LOT of elegance, fabulous lines and are masters of corner dance so it should be very interesting. I know one from China but that hasn't been fully confirmed yet, and Russia and Romania are yet to announce. There doesn't seem to be an age restriction, so girls from 1998-2000 are elegible. This means we could be seeing two of Andreea Munteanu, Andreea Iridon, Silvia Zarzu and Asiana Peng and two of Maria Bondareva, Seda Tutkhalyan, Ekaterina Sokova, Viktoria Kuzmina, Anastasia Dmitrieva and Maria Kharenkova. Madalina Blendea would be unlikely due to her recent injury. Japan, (possibility- Yuki Uchiyama) Australia, (possibilities- Alexandra Eade, Darcy Norman) Canada, (possibilities- Heaven Latimer if healthy, Shallon Olsen) France (possibilities- Louise Vanhille, Claire Martin) and Germany (possibilities- Kim Janas, Tabea Alt) amongst others, plan to send gymnasts to this. That is a LOT of talent and we could see a potentially much deeper fight for the AA title than at Antwerp with how things are panning out! This meet takes place September 22-25th and is already very promising with just two delegations announced.
There's a lot of noise coming out of Russia regarding Anastasia Grishina and Viktoria Komova. I don't think we have enough information to accurately say what's going on, and the person spouting it is unreliable at best. Let's just say I'll hold off predicting the fourth member (and third, because that may not be that secure) until she walks into the arena at prelims. The good news is that Viktoria Komova has recommenced training! The bad news is that her illness will almost certainly have affected her weight and therefore strength. Too early to fully write her in or out, she may be cleared to just do bars in the end even. As for Grishina, her refusal to do beam in team finals last year has damned her as far as the news that she is faking a back injury (in Valentina Rodionenko's views, not her own coaches) is concerned. Maybe she is being spurred on to fight for her place. Maybe they are done giving her chances. Impossible to know.
Here let junior Lauren Navarro demonstrate the difference the crackdown on messy hair in USAG has made!
Classics
Nationals
It doesn't get more dramatic than that! Her loose bun at Classics was bigger than her head and moved a serious amount. Impressive work on the Nationals bun. Hair isn't something I despaired over, but I am liking the difference. That said, McKayla Maroney's hair looks like a giant snail and really unsecure- probably best off going the old route with hers.
And more screenshots, these are NastiaFan's this time and they help to explain why Peyton Ernst has issues with her beam dismount (fell at Tokyo, large steps the rest of the time). From what I gathered from the discussion, she's not setting the skill correctly, she's whipping into it and killing the momentum, so it's much harder for her to get it around. The second screenshot is Abigail Milliet who is setting up for the exact same skill, double pike, the right way..and lands totally upright with just a very small step.
That's a huge difference in angle. Here's more technical information, this time on why men tend to be a lot cleaner than women at twisting which made a refreshing amount of sense.
I'm not sure if I said this already, but spin queen Gabriella Douglas of Canada is out of worlds contention with an injury. It appears that Jade Barbosa has not been as firmly ruled out as previously thought and is still in the running. Larisa Iordache seems to be in treatment and won't appear at Interland but there's a good bit of time left.
Noel Van Klaveren won the first Dutch trials for the worlds team. She managed this despite falling on beam on a layout and on her bars dismount. She also crashed a new upgrade, a 1.5 tsuk on vault but it was her solid DTY that counted for her AA score. Chantysha Netteb unfortunately crashed her double pike beam dismount to her head..again! There's no way she should keep training that. She's fine, but still..that dismount is just not for her, at least not yet. She downgraded her DTY to a 1.5 yurchenko and placed second in the AA. Celine van Gerner will not compete at worlds so wasn't there. Vera van Pol was third. The girls will compete again at Interland which is their second trial, this meet starts on the 31st and the nominative registration list is here.
Catherine Lyons and Georgia Mae Fenton will be joining Laurie Hernandez and Bailie Key at the Japan Junior. These two young Brits have a LOT of elegance, fabulous lines and are masters of corner dance so it should be very interesting. I know one from China but that hasn't been fully confirmed yet, and Russia and Romania are yet to announce. There doesn't seem to be an age restriction, so girls from 1998-2000 are elegible. This means we could be seeing two of Andreea Munteanu, Andreea Iridon, Silvia Zarzu and Asiana Peng and two of Maria Bondareva, Seda Tutkhalyan, Ekaterina Sokova, Viktoria Kuzmina, Anastasia Dmitrieva and Maria Kharenkova. Madalina Blendea would be unlikely due to her recent injury. Japan, (possibility- Yuki Uchiyama) Australia, (possibilities- Alexandra Eade, Darcy Norman) Canada, (possibilities- Heaven Latimer if healthy, Shallon Olsen) France (possibilities- Louise Vanhille, Claire Martin) and Germany (possibilities- Kim Janas, Tabea Alt) amongst others, plan to send gymnasts to this. That is a LOT of talent and we could see a potentially much deeper fight for the AA title than at Antwerp with how things are panning out! This meet takes place September 22-25th and is already very promising with just two delegations announced.
There's a lot of noise coming out of Russia regarding Anastasia Grishina and Viktoria Komova. I don't think we have enough information to accurately say what's going on, and the person spouting it is unreliable at best. Let's just say I'll hold off predicting the fourth member (and third, because that may not be that secure) until she walks into the arena at prelims. The good news is that Viktoria Komova has recommenced training! The bad news is that her illness will almost certainly have affected her weight and therefore strength. Too early to fully write her in or out, she may be cleared to just do bars in the end even. As for Grishina, her refusal to do beam in team finals last year has damned her as far as the news that she is faking a back injury (in Valentina Rodionenko's views, not her own coaches) is concerned. Maybe she is being spurred on to fight for her place. Maybe they are done giving her chances. Impossible to know.
Here let junior Lauren Navarro demonstrate the difference the crackdown on messy hair in USAG has made!
Classics
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| Screenshot- source- USAG youtube video |
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| Screenshot- source- USAG youtube video |
And more screenshots, these are NastiaFan's this time and they help to explain why Peyton Ernst has issues with her beam dismount (fell at Tokyo, large steps the rest of the time). From what I gathered from the discussion, she's not setting the skill correctly, she's whipping into it and killing the momentum, so it's much harder for her to get it around. The second screenshot is Abigail Milliet who is setting up for the exact same skill, double pike, the right way..and lands totally upright with just a very small step.
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| Peyton. NastiaFan- sourced from NBC footage |
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| Abigail. NastiaFan- sourced from NBC footage |
I'm not sure if I said this already, but spin queen Gabriella Douglas of Canada is out of worlds contention with an injury. It appears that Jade Barbosa has not been as firmly ruled out as previously thought and is still in the running. Larisa Iordache seems to be in treatment and won't appear at Interland but there's a good bit of time left.
Noel Van Klaveren won the first Dutch trials for the worlds team. She managed this despite falling on beam on a layout and on her bars dismount. She also crashed a new upgrade, a 1.5 tsuk on vault but it was her solid DTY that counted for her AA score. Chantysha Netteb unfortunately crashed her double pike beam dismount to her head..again! There's no way she should keep training that. She's fine, but still..that dismount is just not for her, at least not yet. She downgraded her DTY to a 1.5 yurchenko and placed second in the AA. Celine van Gerner will not compete at worlds so wasn't there. Vera van Pol was third. The girls will compete again at Interland which is their second trial, this meet starts on the 31st and the nominative registration list is here.
Sunday, 4 August 2013
More bad news! But some good
I'm sure plenty of people are aware of this but it's news to me as a new gymnastics fan, and presumably others too. At worlds qualifications in Antwerp, (and any post-Olympics worlds) only 3 gymnasts per country can compete each event. This means that there isn't room for 3 gymnasts to battle it out for the all around final and have a fourth specialist compete for her chance in event finals. First of all, this truly makes Maria Paseka redundant this year since Ksenia Afanasyeva can equal or better her vaults while also being a floor favourite, whereas Paseka can only challenge on vault. Unfortunately for Afan, this also means that she's highly unlikely to compete all-around if Viktoria Komova and Aliya Mustafina are fighting fit, unless they only bring these three gymnasts. This is now an ideal opportunity for Anastasia Grishina to impress on beam and bars with some upgrades- I wrote her off before since without upgrades she cannot challenge for a medal anywhere, and while she probably still won't they'll be happy enough to give her the chance I think.
It's no bother to Romania who are only bringing three girls but it makes US Nationals more important as it will effectively decide their second all-arounder, as they also cannot have Simone Biles, Kyla Ross and Brenna Dowell/ Peyton Ernst/ Elizabeth Price battling it out in qualifications. This makes the inclusion of a beam/bars specialist like Peyton Ernst/Abigail Milliet or a healthy Katelyn Ohashi more likely than I previously thought as a team dominated by strong vault/floor workers makes less sense than ever since they can't all compete for the chance to qualify, let alone qualify. For me, despite her strong performance and some floor upgrades, it also betters the case of Kyla not competing the all-around since if you think about it, her floor and vault spots are practically a waste when you consider what the US have in store on those events. Not a particularly popular opinion and I will absolutely shed it IF Kyla has more upgrades in store and really closes the door on anyone else doing the all-around in her stead. Of course, Simone Biles could implode completely as an all-arounder and have to fight McKayla Maroney for a vault/floor spot...there are a lot of possibilities.
For China, it is a golden opportunity for any floor/vault specialists for they cannot have a team where they're all vying for beam and bars spots. If Tan Jiaxin and Sui Lu do well at National Games and if the latter is happy to delay her retirement, they make the most sense since Tan has two strong vaults (DTY/ Tsuk 2/1) as well as a very good hope of making bars finals for which she can battle Yao Jinnan and Shang Chunsong for in qualifications, while not interfering with Sui Lu's chances of similarly battling Yao and Shang for a beam finals spot and potentially floor. Zeng Siqi is still a logical pick for a beam spot though she will need to be back on the National Team by then, but she's not useful on another event..so in short I'm really looking forward to National Games more than ever.
Let the various Nationals/Cups begin!
The good news which is widespread by now is of course that Chellsie Memmel will be competing in power tumbling, aiming for a worlds spot. Chellsie, despite being substantially decorated, never received her rightful Olympics experience thanks to injuries and also never received her due from USAG despite saving them at no less than two world championships team finals with some individual medals- including two world titles- thrown in for good measure. She was of course unfairly treated last year, and I had thought with her subsequent retirement, barely-there Pro Gymnastics Challenge appearance, long career filled with injuries and last but not least, upcoming wedding, that we had seen the last of her in a competitive gymnastics way at least. But underestimate her at your peril! I'd love to have been a fly on the wall when certain people in USAG got wind of this. Power tumbling worlds is pretty close but presumably, she didn't begin training just last week or when she broke the news. Really looking forward to seeing how she gets on in her training and if she doesn't make the worlds team, rest assured CFM remains more of a BAMF than ever. I don't usually use acronyms and I tend not to swear here...but these ones just flow when mentioning this inspirational, incredible gymnast. Go Chellsie!
It's no bother to Romania who are only bringing three girls but it makes US Nationals more important as it will effectively decide their second all-arounder, as they also cannot have Simone Biles, Kyla Ross and Brenna Dowell/ Peyton Ernst/ Elizabeth Price battling it out in qualifications. This makes the inclusion of a beam/bars specialist like Peyton Ernst/Abigail Milliet or a healthy Katelyn Ohashi more likely than I previously thought as a team dominated by strong vault/floor workers makes less sense than ever since they can't all compete for the chance to qualify, let alone qualify. For me, despite her strong performance and some floor upgrades, it also betters the case of Kyla not competing the all-around since if you think about it, her floor and vault spots are practically a waste when you consider what the US have in store on those events. Not a particularly popular opinion and I will absolutely shed it IF Kyla has more upgrades in store and really closes the door on anyone else doing the all-around in her stead. Of course, Simone Biles could implode completely as an all-arounder and have to fight McKayla Maroney for a vault/floor spot...there are a lot of possibilities.
For China, it is a golden opportunity for any floor/vault specialists for they cannot have a team where they're all vying for beam and bars spots. If Tan Jiaxin and Sui Lu do well at National Games and if the latter is happy to delay her retirement, they make the most sense since Tan has two strong vaults (DTY/ Tsuk 2/1) as well as a very good hope of making bars finals for which she can battle Yao Jinnan and Shang Chunsong for in qualifications, while not interfering with Sui Lu's chances of similarly battling Yao and Shang for a beam finals spot and potentially floor. Zeng Siqi is still a logical pick for a beam spot though she will need to be back on the National Team by then, but she's not useful on another event..so in short I'm really looking forward to National Games more than ever.
Let the various Nationals/Cups begin!
The good news which is widespread by now is of course that Chellsie Memmel will be competing in power tumbling, aiming for a worlds spot. Chellsie, despite being substantially decorated, never received her rightful Olympics experience thanks to injuries and also never received her due from USAG despite saving them at no less than two world championships team finals with some individual medals- including two world titles- thrown in for good measure. She was of course unfairly treated last year, and I had thought with her subsequent retirement, barely-there Pro Gymnastics Challenge appearance, long career filled with injuries and last but not least, upcoming wedding, that we had seen the last of her in a competitive gymnastics way at least. But underestimate her at your peril! I'd love to have been a fly on the wall when certain people in USAG got wind of this. Power tumbling worlds is pretty close but presumably, she didn't begin training just last week or when she broke the news. Really looking forward to seeing how she gets on in her training and if she doesn't make the worlds team, rest assured CFM remains more of a BAMF than ever. I don't usually use acronyms and I tend not to swear here...but these ones just flow when mentioning this inspirational, incredible gymnast. Go Chellsie!
Tuesday, 25 June 2013
Anadia Challenge Cup
First of all, I hope everyone got the chance to see this live. If not, there are plenty of accounts who've uploaded individual routines on youtube. I did say I'd post links to the livestream but I got caught up in trying to record and doing test recordings and forgot. And while I did upload a test recording to youtube, they totally betrayed me and the full-length ones won't even play for me, never mind convert or upload.
Highlights
- The return of the lovely Julie Croket from Belgium, one year after an ACL injury took her out of contention for a London spot. She qualified to two finals, beam and floor, but sadly fell off beam in the final. Still, it's great to see her back and she can definitely build on this. Great floor choreography from her.
- Another opportunity to see the fabulous Noemi Makra of Hungary who I will continue fangirling over at any opportunity. Noemi qualified to bars finals, but was bumped out of beam where she qualified ninth and had some issues on floor. Her difficulty needs to be built on, it was nice to see the addition of a Church on bars though, and her connections need to be snappier on beam, though the skills are breathtaking in their execution.
- Diana Bulimar solid as a rock. Great to see her take gold on floor and bronze on beam, but her difficulty is a bit pitiful all things considering- a full one point behind Larisa on beam, and 5.9 on floor when she can do more there too. The good news she's getting a new floor routine soon!
- The incredible beam routines of Shang Chunsong, who looked like she'd never even heard the term balance check. Routines of the Fan Ye/Ekaterina Vandisheva level of precision and perfection.
- The return of Larisa Iordache's two fulls! She's also connecting her aerial to leaps, which brings her full beam difficulty to a whopping 6.9. That is higher than Katelyn Ohashi gets credited with.
- Jing Ying Tam's beam mount. It's one of my favourites.
- Anastasia Grishina's hit bars routine in finals. Awesome.
- Shang Chunsong's release fest on bars is just spectacular.
- The resurgence of Jade Barbosa! Her DTY in particular in finals was explosive. Pencil her in as a vault threat this year...as long as she has the right leotard sponsor!
- Larisa Iordache's turns on floor in event finals. Nailed the Gomez and double L, so precise. Turn combinations would be great from her.
- Kim Bui making all 4 finals. Nice!
Not-so highlights
- Larisa Iordache, despite upgrading her beam routine for finals, looks to be hampered with injuries and/or recovery. This was hinted at after Euros. She has also of course grown quite a bit in the last year. Wobbling on her tuck full, crashing her Silivas, underrotating her triple..this is not a fully healthy gymnast.
- Shang Chunsong getting screwed on her beam execution. Yes, she was 0.4 behind in difficulty and yes her routine was not perfect perfect..the low dismount, the step...but it was significantly more perfect than Larisa's routine, which scored one tenth higher in execution despite having a wobble where her foot reached shoulder height, a step, a balance check and a hop on dismount. This is just like how clean FTY's get lower execution than a sloppy amanar- the judges allowed themselves to be wowed by Larisa's two fulls and/or reputation on this event. This is an FIG event, not some unimportant regionals. We can argue all day over who had better choreo and whether they received artistry deductions or not (they are both equal in that department) or whether Shang paused too much, but the fact is they applied maximum deductions to one girl and not to the other.
- Russia imploding, with the exception of Anastasia Grishina on bars in finals. However, she herself had falls and errors on other events, and Anna Rodionova, Ekaterina Baturina and Alla Sosnitskaya all crashed at least once.
- Noemi Makra only making one final.
- Jessica Lopez falling in bars finals. Love her and her routine.
- Shang Chunsong falling on the Shap both days. It's there to avoid dead hang as she is terrible at toe-shoots, but if she hasn't perfected it by National Games then it needs to be binned. Hopefully she grows a bit too. Utterly fabulous routine, and so difficult she still snatched bronze.
What did you think of the competition? Favourite routine? Should the beam judges be forced to watch Yang Bo beam routines on repeat?
Highlights
- The return of the lovely Julie Croket from Belgium, one year after an ACL injury took her out of contention for a London spot. She qualified to two finals, beam and floor, but sadly fell off beam in the final. Still, it's great to see her back and she can definitely build on this. Great floor choreography from her.
- Another opportunity to see the fabulous Noemi Makra of Hungary who I will continue fangirling over at any opportunity. Noemi qualified to bars finals, but was bumped out of beam where she qualified ninth and had some issues on floor. Her difficulty needs to be built on, it was nice to see the addition of a Church on bars though, and her connections need to be snappier on beam, though the skills are breathtaking in their execution.
- Diana Bulimar solid as a rock. Great to see her take gold on floor and bronze on beam, but her difficulty is a bit pitiful all things considering- a full one point behind Larisa on beam, and 5.9 on floor when she can do more there too. The good news she's getting a new floor routine soon!
- The incredible beam routines of Shang Chunsong, who looked like she'd never even heard the term balance check. Routines of the Fan Ye/Ekaterina Vandisheva level of precision and perfection.
- The return of Larisa Iordache's two fulls! She's also connecting her aerial to leaps, which brings her full beam difficulty to a whopping 6.9. That is higher than Katelyn Ohashi gets credited with.
- Jing Ying Tam's beam mount. It's one of my favourites.
- Anastasia Grishina's hit bars routine in finals. Awesome.
- Shang Chunsong's release fest on bars is just spectacular.
- The resurgence of Jade Barbosa! Her DTY in particular in finals was explosive. Pencil her in as a vault threat this year...as long as she has the right leotard sponsor!
- Larisa Iordache's turns on floor in event finals. Nailed the Gomez and double L, so precise. Turn combinations would be great from her.
- Kim Bui making all 4 finals. Nice!
Not-so highlights
- Larisa Iordache, despite upgrading her beam routine for finals, looks to be hampered with injuries and/or recovery. This was hinted at after Euros. She has also of course grown quite a bit in the last year. Wobbling on her tuck full, crashing her Silivas, underrotating her triple..this is not a fully healthy gymnast.
- Shang Chunsong getting screwed on her beam execution. Yes, she was 0.4 behind in difficulty and yes her routine was not perfect perfect..the low dismount, the step...but it was significantly more perfect than Larisa's routine, which scored one tenth higher in execution despite having a wobble where her foot reached shoulder height, a step, a balance check and a hop on dismount. This is just like how clean FTY's get lower execution than a sloppy amanar- the judges allowed themselves to be wowed by Larisa's two fulls and/or reputation on this event. This is an FIG event, not some unimportant regionals. We can argue all day over who had better choreo and whether they received artistry deductions or not (they are both equal in that department) or whether Shang paused too much, but the fact is they applied maximum deductions to one girl and not to the other.
- Russia imploding, with the exception of Anastasia Grishina on bars in finals. However, she herself had falls and errors on other events, and Anna Rodionova, Ekaterina Baturina and Alla Sosnitskaya all crashed at least once.
- Noemi Makra only making one final.
- Jessica Lopez falling in bars finals. Love her and her routine.
- Shang Chunsong falling on the Shap both days. It's there to avoid dead hang as she is terrible at toe-shoots, but if she hasn't perfected it by National Games then it needs to be binned. Hopefully she grows a bit too. Utterly fabulous routine, and so difficult she still snatched bronze.
What did you think of the competition? Favourite routine? Should the beam judges be forced to watch Yang Bo beam routines on repeat?
Saturday, 1 June 2013
The State of Russia
Part 3 of a 4 part series. You can read 'The State of China' here and 'The State of the US' here.
Russia, aside from Aliya Mustafina of course, had a pretty disappointing time in London last year and although they do have fabulous juniors in the pipeline they are clinging to their veterans facing into the new quad. So, after Russian Nationals and Euros with Universiade looming; where do they stand?
- First up is their main weapon, Aliya Mustafina. Aliya, the 2010 world champion, ACL comeback girl extraordinaire and the most medalled gymnast of the 2012 games continues to be the strongest gymnast they have as of now. Aliya has reworked her beam entirely with exciting new connections, it's definitely far from solid yet though it looked great at the Zakharova Cup. Even with a double tuck dismount she can reach 6.6 without the arabian and it can go higher if she upgrades when she needs to. That's the key to her longevity now- clever preservation; she has pulled out of all three floor event finals she qualified for so far this year, her choreography is still fairly underdeveloped and her bars are at a conservative 6.3- sans transition connections and her own dismount. What's clear is that she'll pull out all the stops when she needs to and not before. Underestimate at your peril, and try to avoid her ridiculously stalker fanbase! Aliya will almost certainly compete at Universiade, it will be most interesting to see how her beam has progressed.
- Viktoria Komova has not competed yet this year as she is out with a back injury. All is not lost, though she is not training at full intensity she apparently has nearly all of her skills back. She had less time coming back from injury leading up to both the 2011 worlds and the 2012 Olympics than she does now so remain optimistic that she'll come out all guns firing in time for worlds.
- Anastasia Grishina changed coaches last year after the Alexander Alexandrov shakeup. While she certainly hasn't hit every routine so far this year, her consistency record has gone way up, with beautifully hit beam routines in particular at Cottbus and Euros. This is in stark contrast to last year when it was practically impossible to find a routine where she did not meet the mat too early. What's perhaps most startling about her now is her confidence. This definitely isn't the same gymnast who balked about going up on beam last year in team finals and messed up a round-off shortly after. She looks very comfortable with her coach and her routines, even if she has hit the mat a few times. What's most important is to retain her consistency and add the difficulty back in gradually in time for worlds. It's almost sad that we are very unlikely to see her in AA finals this year if Viktoria Komova is healthy. But you just never know and winning AA and beam bronze is definitely a great boost to this beautiful gymnast.
- Ksenia Afanasyeva is a true veteran, with two Olympics under her belt. Not only is she continuing to train and competing as an all-around gymnast rather than dropping vault and bars but she is actually upgrading. As of now she has the second hardest floor routine yet competed this year, with significantly better execution than that of the most difficult. In a surprising twist as she is not known as a vaulter, she's training an amanar though she failed to land every single one she attempted at Euros in warmup. Word is her floor is not done yet and a video emerged of a full-twisting DLO. Another possible upgrade here could be a 3.5 twist as she finishes twisting very early in her triple full. It's rumoured that she will unleash a new floor routine later this year. Afan unfortunately does have an inconsistent streak and is unlikely to be able to surpass her teammates to compete AA, especially with a bars dismount that causes her endless trouble, but she is still a very important national team member as she is a major contender for the floor title this year and a strong contributor to team finals in the future. She will compete next at Universiade though she will drop bars for that competition.
- Maria Paseka, brought to London just to vault, has been busy getting her bars up to scratch. She competed well at Russian Nationals and her vaults looked better than they did last year, but unfortunately she finished dead last in the Euros vault final after crashing both vaults. Fortunately she managed to eke out a bronze on bars immediately after which will have gone some way to comfort her. If she can land her vaults this year then that's all she'll need to make her case for inclusion on the worlds team.
- Anna Dementyeva, Ekaterina Kramarenko and Tatiana Nabieva in particular are the main gymnasts also gunning for a spot at Universiade. Anna remains as lovely and inconsistent as ever but has a very good chance of performing at Universiade. It's very unlikely that she would be trusted to compete at worlds. Ekaterina competed at the 2007 worlds (notoriously so) and the 2008 Olympics. While she is past her prime she can still knock out strong routines. Tatiana no longer does her named release but scores well on bars and vault all the same. Neither of these three are in contention for worlds etc. anymore I don't think but all are capable of netting high scores.
- I don't believe that this is Evgeniya Shelgunova's year. She of the infamous sheep-Pak has reportedly had issues with her back, which could explain the failure to improve her form. She is quite an asset on beam and floor as she is usually rock solid though not exactly beautiful to watch but very unlikely to stand out as a medal threat on any event in Antwerp. I expect her to feature next year in team situations.
- Alla Sosnitskaya could be a nice surprise this quad. She's quite powerful with a DLO and triple full on floor but what makes her special is her turn combinations, which she is training but did not compete at Russian Championships. Although she had issues with her landings when we saw her last, including a fairly disastrous double pike she has shown herself to be much better that that. She's another who is more useful in team situations and would complement a UB/BB specialist very well.
- Ekaterina Baturina has absolutely beautiful gymnastics but definitely needs upgrades to contend. I'd like to see her contend especially on floor in the future. She turned senior next year and thankfully has an assignment coming up- the Portugal World Cup where she will compete alongside Alla Sosnitskaya, Anna Rodionova and Anastasia Grishina.
- It's hard to know what stage Anna Rodionova, a 2012 senior, is at. She injured herself last year on bars in the team final at Stuttgart WC and we haven't seen much of her since. A very beautiful gymnast though unlikely to knock out huge difficulty I would think.
- There are 4 juniors who have quite a bit of hype being generated around them- Maria Kharenkova, Maria Bondareva, Anastasia Dmitrieva and Viktoria Kuzmina. The first and last are 2014 seniors and the other two are 2015. Of these the best all-arounders for the future are Anastasia and Maria Bondareva. Maria Kharenkova should be well up there, her bars are currently not up to the standard of the others and she's just slightly sloppier in form but exciting to watch, especially on her pet pieces of beam and floor. She looks like she could crank out a DTY sometime soon too. Viktoria is stunning to watch on bars and beam and has a 6.1 d-score on the former. She appears to have fallen on bars at her last meet, a friendly, but even so.Sadly, videos have not emerged from this meet. A bars/beam specialist to complement one or two of the others I think. She does not even have an FTY yet and while her floor is lovely the difficulty is beyond low, and comparable to the routine of the ridiculously adorable Varvara Zubova who is four years her junior. She did however place second in the AA in her category at Russian Junior Championships behind Maria Bondareva and placed first on bars and second on beam. The results of the friendly recently were interesting- Maria Bondareva came out on top again, but her scores were lower than Anastasia's with the sole exception of bars, and I believe Anastasia can definitely catch up there. Maria lived up to her reputation by adding golds on floor and beam to her AA first place at Junior Champs, while Anastasia received silver on beam and second on vault.
- You won't hear too much about Seda Tutkhalyan and Yevgeniya Zhukova but they could definitely be game changers. Seda in particular is of a much stockier and compact build than her fellow pixies and is consequently more powerful. Thankfully, she can point her toes too! She won the all-around in her category at Russian Junior Championships, and also won bars and vault, along with bronze on floor. Yevgeniya also looks like she could be a little powerhouse, she won vault in her category and was third on floor and beam, with a 4th place on bars too. She really came out of nowhere this year, vastly improved.
While talented juniors are definitely in the ranks, Russia are wisely holding on to their Olympic team, all five of whom are actively training and competing. This year their new seniors will not be a massive help, though I'd expect Evgeniya Shelgunova in particular to be an asset next year for team competitions. For the AA they have Aliya Mustafina, hopefully Viktoria Komova, Anastasia Grishina and probably Ksenia Afanasyeva too. Bars remain strong as ever, and even if Komova cannot do AA she can surely do bars. The strongest routines unsurprisingly belong to her and Aliya who are essentially guaranteed to be in the bars final at worlds if they are healthy and do not monumentally screw up. Anastasia Grishina is also very strong on bars and Maria Paseka has made great strides of improvement there too. Looking to the future, Maria Bondareva and Viktoria Kuzmina are glorious on bars, and some other juniors look promising also.
Floor belongs to Ksenia Afanasyeva who can hopefully stay consistent with her routine this year at worlds. Aliya is probably still their second best floor, and then a healthy Komova and an upgraded Grishina are very valuable too. I'd expect Bondareva, Kharenkova, Tutkhalyan and Zhukova to contribute high scores here also. Vault-wise they should have two amanars, and Afan is definitely training one. Aliya's DTY is rock solid and if she can at all clean up her legs in the second twist then it could outscore a Pasekamanar. Paseka is still quite an asset for vault alone, they don't have a huge number of vault specialists climbing the ranks just yet. Beam remains an issue though their use of new connections particularly in the case of Aliya and Afan is very heartening, despite numerous wobbles and falls plaguing this pair on this event. Komova also should boast a difficult routine in time, and Grishina hopefully can execute a more difficult routine while staying on the beam. Kuzmina, Kharenkova and Bondareva in particular stand out as ones to watch here.
The worlds team will most likely be some combination of the Olympic team. Who to leave at home though? If healthy then Aliya Mustafina and Ksenia Afanasyeva are locks. A fully restored Viktoria Komova would be too. Unfortunately for Anastasia Grishina, she's unlikely to take the fourth spot as she's not a medal threat without quite a few upgrades, and would be bumped out of AA and UB finals by her teammates unless by fluke. I would say Maria Paseka will take it.
Aliya Mustafina- AA, UB, (BB and FX attempts)
Viktoria Komova- AA, UB, BB
Ksenia Afanasyeva- FX, (BB attempt)
Maria Paseka- VT
Quite a strong team. Who do you think will be featuring on the horizon coming up to Rio? Favourite juniors? Can Grishina continue to stay on the beam and get her big chance soon?
Some video highlights after the jump..
Russia, aside from Aliya Mustafina of course, had a pretty disappointing time in London last year and although they do have fabulous juniors in the pipeline they are clinging to their veterans facing into the new quad. So, after Russian Nationals and Euros with Universiade looming; where do they stand?
- First up is their main weapon, Aliya Mustafina. Aliya, the 2010 world champion, ACL comeback girl extraordinaire and the most medalled gymnast of the 2012 games continues to be the strongest gymnast they have as of now. Aliya has reworked her beam entirely with exciting new connections, it's definitely far from solid yet though it looked great at the Zakharova Cup. Even with a double tuck dismount she can reach 6.6 without the arabian and it can go higher if she upgrades when she needs to. That's the key to her longevity now- clever preservation; she has pulled out of all three floor event finals she qualified for so far this year, her choreography is still fairly underdeveloped and her bars are at a conservative 6.3- sans transition connections and her own dismount. What's clear is that she'll pull out all the stops when she needs to and not before. Underestimate at your peril, and try to avoid her ridiculously stalker fanbase! Aliya will almost certainly compete at Universiade, it will be most interesting to see how her beam has progressed.
- Viktoria Komova has not competed yet this year as she is out with a back injury. All is not lost, though she is not training at full intensity she apparently has nearly all of her skills back. She had less time coming back from injury leading up to both the 2011 worlds and the 2012 Olympics than she does now so remain optimistic that she'll come out all guns firing in time for worlds.
- Anastasia Grishina changed coaches last year after the Alexander Alexandrov shakeup. While she certainly hasn't hit every routine so far this year, her consistency record has gone way up, with beautifully hit beam routines in particular at Cottbus and Euros. This is in stark contrast to last year when it was practically impossible to find a routine where she did not meet the mat too early. What's perhaps most startling about her now is her confidence. This definitely isn't the same gymnast who balked about going up on beam last year in team finals and messed up a round-off shortly after. She looks very comfortable with her coach and her routines, even if she has hit the mat a few times. What's most important is to retain her consistency and add the difficulty back in gradually in time for worlds. It's almost sad that we are very unlikely to see her in AA finals this year if Viktoria Komova is healthy. But you just never know and winning AA and beam bronze is definitely a great boost to this beautiful gymnast.
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| Grishy. Copyright- Thomas Schreyer |
- Ksenia Afanasyeva is a true veteran, with two Olympics under her belt. Not only is she continuing to train and competing as an all-around gymnast rather than dropping vault and bars but she is actually upgrading. As of now she has the second hardest floor routine yet competed this year, with significantly better execution than that of the most difficult. In a surprising twist as she is not known as a vaulter, she's training an amanar though she failed to land every single one she attempted at Euros in warmup. Word is her floor is not done yet and a video emerged of a full-twisting DLO. Another possible upgrade here could be a 3.5 twist as she finishes twisting very early in her triple full. It's rumoured that she will unleash a new floor routine later this year. Afan unfortunately does have an inconsistent streak and is unlikely to be able to surpass her teammates to compete AA, especially with a bars dismount that causes her endless trouble, but she is still a very important national team member as she is a major contender for the floor title this year and a strong contributor to team finals in the future. She will compete next at Universiade though she will drop bars for that competition.
- Maria Paseka, brought to London just to vault, has been busy getting her bars up to scratch. She competed well at Russian Nationals and her vaults looked better than they did last year, but unfortunately she finished dead last in the Euros vault final after crashing both vaults. Fortunately she managed to eke out a bronze on bars immediately after which will have gone some way to comfort her. If she can land her vaults this year then that's all she'll need to make her case for inclusion on the worlds team.
- Anna Dementyeva, Ekaterina Kramarenko and Tatiana Nabieva in particular are the main gymnasts also gunning for a spot at Universiade. Anna remains as lovely and inconsistent as ever but has a very good chance of performing at Universiade. It's very unlikely that she would be trusted to compete at worlds. Ekaterina competed at the 2007 worlds (notoriously so) and the 2008 Olympics. While she is past her prime she can still knock out strong routines. Tatiana no longer does her named release but scores well on bars and vault all the same. Neither of these three are in contention for worlds etc. anymore I don't think but all are capable of netting high scores.
- I don't believe that this is Evgeniya Shelgunova's year. She of the infamous sheep-Pak has reportedly had issues with her back, which could explain the failure to improve her form. She is quite an asset on beam and floor as she is usually rock solid though not exactly beautiful to watch but very unlikely to stand out as a medal threat on any event in Antwerp. I expect her to feature next year in team situations.
- Alla Sosnitskaya could be a nice surprise this quad. She's quite powerful with a DLO and triple full on floor but what makes her special is her turn combinations, which she is training but did not compete at Russian Championships. Although she had issues with her landings when we saw her last, including a fairly disastrous double pike she has shown herself to be much better that that. She's another who is more useful in team situations and would complement a UB/BB specialist very well.
- Ekaterina Baturina has absolutely beautiful gymnastics but definitely needs upgrades to contend. I'd like to see her contend especially on floor in the future. She turned senior next year and thankfully has an assignment coming up- the Portugal World Cup where she will compete alongside Alla Sosnitskaya, Anna Rodionova and Anastasia Grishina.
- It's hard to know what stage Anna Rodionova, a 2012 senior, is at. She injured herself last year on bars in the team final at Stuttgart WC and we haven't seen much of her since. A very beautiful gymnast though unlikely to knock out huge difficulty I would think.
- There are 4 juniors who have quite a bit of hype being generated around them- Maria Kharenkova, Maria Bondareva, Anastasia Dmitrieva and Viktoria Kuzmina. The first and last are 2014 seniors and the other two are 2015. Of these the best all-arounders for the future are Anastasia and Maria Bondareva. Maria Kharenkova should be well up there, her bars are currently not up to the standard of the others and she's just slightly sloppier in form but exciting to watch, especially on her pet pieces of beam and floor. She looks like she could crank out a DTY sometime soon too. Viktoria is stunning to watch on bars and beam and has a 6.1 d-score on the former. She appears to have fallen on bars at her last meet, a friendly, but even so.Sadly, videos have not emerged from this meet. A bars/beam specialist to complement one or two of the others I think. She does not even have an FTY yet and while her floor is lovely the difficulty is beyond low, and comparable to the routine of the ridiculously adorable Varvara Zubova who is four years her junior. She did however place second in the AA in her category at Russian Junior Championships behind Maria Bondareva and placed first on bars and second on beam. The results of the friendly recently were interesting- Maria Bondareva came out on top again, but her scores were lower than Anastasia's with the sole exception of bars, and I believe Anastasia can definitely catch up there. Maria lived up to her reputation by adding golds on floor and beam to her AA first place at Junior Champs, while Anastasia received silver on beam and second on vault.
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| Kuzmina. Copyright- Stefan Wurzer |
- You won't hear too much about Seda Tutkhalyan and Yevgeniya Zhukova but they could definitely be game changers. Seda in particular is of a much stockier and compact build than her fellow pixies and is consequently more powerful. Thankfully, she can point her toes too! She won the all-around in her category at Russian Junior Championships, and also won bars and vault, along with bronze on floor. Yevgeniya also looks like she could be a little powerhouse, she won vault in her category and was third on floor and beam, with a 4th place on bars too. She really came out of nowhere this year, vastly improved.
While talented juniors are definitely in the ranks, Russia are wisely holding on to their Olympic team, all five of whom are actively training and competing. This year their new seniors will not be a massive help, though I'd expect Evgeniya Shelgunova in particular to be an asset next year for team competitions. For the AA they have Aliya Mustafina, hopefully Viktoria Komova, Anastasia Grishina and probably Ksenia Afanasyeva too. Bars remain strong as ever, and even if Komova cannot do AA she can surely do bars. The strongest routines unsurprisingly belong to her and Aliya who are essentially guaranteed to be in the bars final at worlds if they are healthy and do not monumentally screw up. Anastasia Grishina is also very strong on bars and Maria Paseka has made great strides of improvement there too. Looking to the future, Maria Bondareva and Viktoria Kuzmina are glorious on bars, and some other juniors look promising also.
Floor belongs to Ksenia Afanasyeva who can hopefully stay consistent with her routine this year at worlds. Aliya is probably still their second best floor, and then a healthy Komova and an upgraded Grishina are very valuable too. I'd expect Bondareva, Kharenkova, Tutkhalyan and Zhukova to contribute high scores here also. Vault-wise they should have two amanars, and Afan is definitely training one. Aliya's DTY is rock solid and if she can at all clean up her legs in the second twist then it could outscore a Pasekamanar. Paseka is still quite an asset for vault alone, they don't have a huge number of vault specialists climbing the ranks just yet. Beam remains an issue though their use of new connections particularly in the case of Aliya and Afan is very heartening, despite numerous wobbles and falls plaguing this pair on this event. Komova also should boast a difficult routine in time, and Grishina hopefully can execute a more difficult routine while staying on the beam. Kuzmina, Kharenkova and Bondareva in particular stand out as ones to watch here.
The worlds team will most likely be some combination of the Olympic team. Who to leave at home though? If healthy then Aliya Mustafina and Ksenia Afanasyeva are locks. A fully restored Viktoria Komova would be too. Unfortunately for Anastasia Grishina, she's unlikely to take the fourth spot as she's not a medal threat without quite a few upgrades, and would be bumped out of AA and UB finals by her teammates unless by fluke. I would say Maria Paseka will take it.
Aliya Mustafina- AA, UB, (BB and FX attempts)
Viktoria Komova- AA, UB, BB
Ksenia Afanasyeva- FX, (BB attempt)
Maria Paseka- VT
Quite a strong team. Who do you think will be featuring on the horizon coming up to Rio? Favourite juniors? Can Grishina continue to stay on the beam and get her big chance soon?
Some video highlights after the jump..
Monday, 22 April 2013
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.
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.
Thursday, 18 April 2013
Euro Qualifications and NCAA Nationals begin
Really nail-biting qualifications! First and foremost, I am devastated that Gabby Jupp is injured. She hurt her knee on her double pike beam dismount and was carried from the arena. She has been pulled from competition and is being flown home shortly for medical examination. Really really hoping that it's a very minor thing she has done, it would be awful for this bright young star to be sidelined in her first senior year by an ACL tear. Awful for anyone of course..I'm really missing the presence of the glorious Mariya Livchikova.
I expected the Russian battle for the AA to be a good one and it ended up being much more tense and shocking than any scenario I could have thought up. Who would have thought that Anastasia Grishina with her two falls would be the highest Russian qualifier? Beam was the ultimate decider for these three as they all came to grief there (Mustafina spectacularly so) with the other two counting bars falls into the bargain. A sad day for Afan who started so well with an explosive DTY and what sounds like an amazing floor routine..with upgrades, no less. Really looking forward to seeing her whip-whip triple and turn combinations. Good to see she did not risk the amanar after crashing them wholesale in podium training, I for one am still amazed she actually tried.
Quite a nervous day for others too, though the Romanians got away lightly with 3 strong routines from both girls. Larisa Iordache had some massive errors on bars and came away with a 12.933. She will quite clearly be aiming to better that by a point or so in order to defeat Mustafina..a Mustafina who stays on the beam, that is. Speaking of beam, one Icelandic girl had the misfortune of failing to mount the beam twice, and the fell off it three times..incurring a 5 point deduction. Sadly, extremely talented new seniors Noemi Makra and Chantysha Netteb will be dissapointed with their performances, Makra was very mixed and Netteb had errors on vault and falls on beam. We also won't see Vasilliki Millousi gracing beam finals as she fell also. Noel Van Klaveren stormed her way into vault finals and will be looking to retain her lead on Larisa Iordache there, who qualified fourth.
Unsurprisingly, there were quite a few savvy downgrades. Larisa performed a layout instead of a layout full, still easily claiming the highest qualifying spot on beam, and Diana Bulimar who was training a full-twisting DLO in PT performed it without the twist today. We won't see Ksenia Afanasyeva's amanar now of course, if she was planning to throw it in the AA. It sounds like Sophie Scheder and Giulia Steingruber have stepped up their games, Sophie has a very dynamic bars routine, earning her the third spot, and Giulia's first two passes on floor are now a full-twisting double layout and a double layout.
This post is quite disjointed but it's hard when you're going off quick hits! Don't forget that Moscow is GMT+3 and that WAG is due to start at 17:30 local time. And it's still too close to call with both top contenders have one rough event each, equal enough vaults, bars of one equalling the beam of the other and floor with not much between them...
It will also be an exciting weekend with NCAA Nationals on also. I've watched a few meets this year, free ones, free replays etc. though not as many as I would have wanted to as there were loads of them on at ridiculous times for me. I think the Super Six will be Florida, Alabama, Oklahoma, Georgia, Michigan and LSU. Sadly, UCLA are not looking great. I'd like to see the title go to either Florida or Oklahoma. AA wise, Rheagan Courville, Taylor Spears or Bridget Sloan would be nice. Vanessa Zamarripa for bars, one of the Oklahoma girls or Mackenzie Caquatto for beam, Marissa King (LOVE that Tsuk 1.5) for vault and Llomincia Hall or Jessica Savona for floor. Anyway those are my picks, who are you rooting for?
I expected the Russian battle for the AA to be a good one and it ended up being much more tense and shocking than any scenario I could have thought up. Who would have thought that Anastasia Grishina with her two falls would be the highest Russian qualifier? Beam was the ultimate decider for these three as they all came to grief there (Mustafina spectacularly so) with the other two counting bars falls into the bargain. A sad day for Afan who started so well with an explosive DTY and what sounds like an amazing floor routine..with upgrades, no less. Really looking forward to seeing her whip-whip triple and turn combinations. Good to see she did not risk the amanar after crashing them wholesale in podium training, I for one am still amazed she actually tried.
Quite a nervous day for others too, though the Romanians got away lightly with 3 strong routines from both girls. Larisa Iordache had some massive errors on bars and came away with a 12.933. She will quite clearly be aiming to better that by a point or so in order to defeat Mustafina..a Mustafina who stays on the beam, that is. Speaking of beam, one Icelandic girl had the misfortune of failing to mount the beam twice, and the fell off it three times..incurring a 5 point deduction. Sadly, extremely talented new seniors Noemi Makra and Chantysha Netteb will be dissapointed with their performances, Makra was very mixed and Netteb had errors on vault and falls on beam. We also won't see Vasilliki Millousi gracing beam finals as she fell also. Noel Van Klaveren stormed her way into vault finals and will be looking to retain her lead on Larisa Iordache there, who qualified fourth.
Unsurprisingly, there were quite a few savvy downgrades. Larisa performed a layout instead of a layout full, still easily claiming the highest qualifying spot on beam, and Diana Bulimar who was training a full-twisting DLO in PT performed it without the twist today. We won't see Ksenia Afanasyeva's amanar now of course, if she was planning to throw it in the AA. It sounds like Sophie Scheder and Giulia Steingruber have stepped up their games, Sophie has a very dynamic bars routine, earning her the third spot, and Giulia's first two passes on floor are now a full-twisting double layout and a double layout.
This post is quite disjointed but it's hard when you're going off quick hits! Don't forget that Moscow is GMT+3 and that WAG is due to start at 17:30 local time. And it's still too close to call with both top contenders have one rough event each, equal enough vaults, bars of one equalling the beam of the other and floor with not much between them...
It will also be an exciting weekend with NCAA Nationals on also. I've watched a few meets this year, free ones, free replays etc. though not as many as I would have wanted to as there were loads of them on at ridiculous times for me. I think the Super Six will be Florida, Alabama, Oklahoma, Georgia, Michigan and LSU. Sadly, UCLA are not looking great. I'd like to see the title go to either Florida or Oklahoma. AA wise, Rheagan Courville, Taylor Spears or Bridget Sloan would be nice. Vanessa Zamarripa for bars, one of the Oklahoma girls or Mackenzie Caquatto for beam, Marissa King (LOVE that Tsuk 1.5) for vault and Llomincia Hall or Jessica Savona for floor. Anyway those are my picks, who are you rooting for?
Tuesday, 26 March 2013
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.
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.
Sunday, 24 March 2013
Weekend Highlights
I love when there's so much gymnastics going on that it's tough to keep up with everything. Jesolo EF videos are not up yet (Edit- They are now) and I'm missing some routines like Mariya Livchikova's beam which would surely be a highlight but I think I have enough to go on. Here's my thoughts on the highlights of this weekend's gymnastics feast.
Simone definitely made her mark as a junior last year when she won the Secret Classic and placed third as US Nationals and her explosive amanar and sky-high double layout attracted widespread attention. But I don't think anyone could have predicted the vast improvement she has made, not just on her pet events- but as an all-arounder, and America's most valuable one right now at that. Her new double-double on floor is done with such ease that a triple twisting version looks like a matter of when, not if. As it is she always has power left over landing that pass and it's SO high. Not content with the very dynamic 1.5 twist into double pike she debuted at American Cup, Simone busted out a full-in tuck in place of the double pike this weekend. Her last pass also looks like it could be upgraded to a triple and her routine is not making the most of the code, she needs more CV from leaps and/or punchfronts as she only amasses 6.2 from her incredible floorwork. The amanar is even better than last year, and she has stuck two so far that we know- one in warm-up at American Cup and the other yesterday. Again, the TTY is only a matter of time as we know for a fact she is training it.
After a dissapointing beam at American Cup where she fell on the new layout pass she had nailed in training, Simone was much more confident at Jesolo with it. Thankfully she has ditched the terrible tour-jete leap too. Extremely powerful in her full in tuck dismount, yet another upgrade...and that could quite easily become a pike. Of anyone who has done a wolf turn with more than one rotation- hers is the best. She still flails her arms a bit like all the rest but she gets it around so fast that it manages to look great instead of a giant wobblefest. Bars really is the most surprising of all, with new releases including a great piked Tkachev straight into Pak. Her dismount is so high above the bar that it needs to become a Fabrichnova. All in all Simone is the most valuable all-arounder USA has, most valuable vaulter and probably most valuable floor worker- Lexie's potential routine has 0.5 more difficulty but it will lose some of the difference in execution and it's not likely that Simone's d-score is final for this year. It's really hard not to say we have found the 2013 World AA, FX and VT champion. And it IS ridiculous to say that, because it's still more than six months away and you never know what will happen in this unpredictable and injury-prone sport. Enthralled as I am with Simone's enormous improvement and potential, I am not blind to her faults. Her backhandsprings on beam could do with being a lot tighter in form, she flexes her feet on bars transitions and some releases, her foot form on vault could do with being tighter too and she's not going to win any rewards for her dance on floor..particularly the parts where she practically stops dead. But it doesn't change the fact that she is exceptional. The new Jesolo AA, FX, VT and BB champion is on a roll.
Anastasia hit a beam routine with absolutely NO wobbles. Not on the layout, not on her beautiful but incredibly troublesome Onodi-illusion. She gives us all hope that with her coaching change, more relaxed and confident demeanour and shiny new beam and bars titles at Cottbus that she will finally fulfil her massive potential. Check out the close-up of her feet on the perfect Onodi-illusion. Glorious. Her floor still needs attention and I'm not sure she will ever hit a perfect floor routine as long as the double double remains to exhaust her..but, baby steps. She has not fallen off beam yet so far this year, and that alone is incredible.
Bailie, a 2015 senior, not only won the junior AA at Jesolo by three points, she also the VT, FX and BB titles already having qualified first into each. Something happened on bars where she 'only' got third, but the winner- Enus Mariani- is incredibly similar to Bailie on this event. This from a girl who is capable of far more than what she showed and who wasn't even the top ranked Junior in USA when she landed in Italy. Coach Kim Zmeskal has practically wrapped her in cotton wool in her preservation attempts. Long may it continue, with almost two full years until she (hopefully) explodes onto the senior stage. A great boost for this tiny young one.
Gabby was not sorely tested as big rival Rebecca Tunney is out with an unspecified injury. However, she still had to beat veteran Hannah Whelan who has years of experience compared to her and has high difficulty. But it was a breeze for Gabby, as Hannah counted numerous falls throughout the weekend while trying out new bars skills. Say hello to the new British AA, beam and floor champion and bars silver medallist. If she can possibly get a DTY in time for Euros she would be a legitimate threat, but that's optimistic to the point of foolishness. As it is, hopefully she can break out into podiums this quad. This is a great start to her senior debut, she impressed everyone with her steadiness and confidence at American Cup and has continued the trend on home soil.
Routines-
Floor. 1. Simone Biles, Jesolo TF/AA 2. Enus Mariani, Jesolo TF/AA 3. Mariya Livchikova, French Nationals (??)
Beam. 1. Anastasia Grishina, Cottbus EF 2. Gabby Jupp, British Championships EF 3. Elisabetta Preziosa, Cottbus quals
Vault. 1. Simone Biles, VT 1 Jesolo AA/TF 2. Oksana Chusovitina, VT 2 Cottbus quals 3. Maegan Chant, VT 2 Cottbus quals
Bars. 1. Becky Downie, British Championships quals 2. Enus Mariani, Jesolo TF/AA 3. Brenna Dowell, Jesolo TF/AA (most improved!)
Skill/composition highlights-
Kyla Ross' backhandsprings on beam look even better now she's grown. Enus Mariani's floor choreography is beyond wonderful. Peyton Ernst's sheep jump was stunning, and surprising given the weakness of the rest of her leaps. Mariya Livchikova's Memmel was out of this world (and her double front and tuck), as was Anastasia Grishina's Onodi. The height of Brenna Dowell's front double pike was crazy, and the ease of it. I am still in love with Simone Biles toe-rises and Gabby Jupp's BHS-LOSO-LOSO. Spectacular to see such clean vaulting from Oksana Chusovitina and I'm really impressed with Maegan Chant's form on hers too, and she can obviously upgrade.
Great week for- Simone Biles- AA, TF, FX, BB and VT champion. Bailie Key- AA, FX, VT and BB champion, and bronze medallist on bars. Anastasia Grishina, flake extraordinaire- UB and BB champion. Gabby Jupp, AA, FX and BB champion, and silver medallist on UB.
Good week for- Maggie Nichols and Peyton Ernst. International competitive debut and although they both fell off beam they both showed some really nice work and coped well. Onwards and upwards. Brenna Dowell who snatched a medal on bars with a surprisingly strong and much improved routine. She's known as an extremely hard worker and it's good to see someone achieve a medal on a weak event through hard graft. Enus Mariani would not have won the AA even if she hadn't fallen, but she did well to take AA silver, bars gold and floor silver.
Bad week for- Vanessa Ferrari who was doing very well until her new upgrade on beam, the tuck full. Vanessa's injury is not thought to be much more than a sprain but it's not known yet if it will impact her inclusion in Euros and other competitions. Such bad luck for this tough veteran. Mai Murakami who had a disaster on 3/4 events. So gutted. She did show some lovely beam work and her quad spin on floor was great. But she lost it everywhere else and although Japan are not deep, they don't have to put her on major teams.. Lexie Priessman and Amelia Hundley who both performed similarly. Not just messy but sluggish too. Lexie came to grief on beam, with errors elsewhere and Amelia had some seriously dodgy landings on floor today. Hopefully they are not going to be resigned to the broken pile just yet. Lexie at least is recovering from an injury, but I don't know what the story is with Amelia- more growth maybe. Also Kyla Ross who has just had her irrelevancy if she doesn't upgrade thrown in her face. I get that she has lost training time and given her growth spurt, significant upgrades in that timeframe would have been tough but they'll have to do something with her routines if she wants to make a major team, especially if she expects to do AA. Huang Huidan's disaster at Cottbus took her out of contention so early that I forgot all about it in the wake of so much gymnastics. Thanks Annie for reminding me, though it's sad to remember. It is the first competition of the season but she doesn't have any kind of track record for consistency. This won't convince anyone that she's any more reliable than Wu Liufang and she could well be left high and dry when major international teams are being chosen. Such a shame she lost it completely as her routines are so beautiful.
Best leotard- Can't choose between Japan's two podium training leos and Italy A's team leo. I also liked Becky Downie EF.
Worst leotard- USA TF. I'm sick of this nauseating colour and not even the pattern redeems it, one of the worst hot pink ones which is very low to sink.
I can't seem to embed anything Jesolo, Cottbus or British Championships..yet anyway, it's either a delay on recent videos or an embed block. So I will link uploaders instead. The excellent Gympower has a ton of yesterday's Jesolo videos and will be uploading event finals there too. Gifwatermark has some of the missed ones, and a different angle on repeated routines. Ninalfee has routines from French Nationals, including Mariya Livchikova's floor. Javier Collados has everything Cottbus, Xoxociara has some Jesolo EF routines and BGTV have all of the British Championships routines. I'm sure people have seen videos around the place, but it's handy to collect uploaders in one place here for convenience.
Who and what did you enjoy most?
Simone Biles' performance
Copyright- Gymnastike
After a dissapointing beam at American Cup where she fell on the new layout pass she had nailed in training, Simone was much more confident at Jesolo with it. Thankfully she has ditched the terrible tour-jete leap too. Extremely powerful in her full in tuck dismount, yet another upgrade...and that could quite easily become a pike. Of anyone who has done a wolf turn with more than one rotation- hers is the best. She still flails her arms a bit like all the rest but she gets it around so fast that it manages to look great instead of a giant wobblefest. Bars really is the most surprising of all, with new releases including a great piked Tkachev straight into Pak. Her dismount is so high above the bar that it needs to become a Fabrichnova. All in all Simone is the most valuable all-arounder USA has, most valuable vaulter and probably most valuable floor worker- Lexie's potential routine has 0.5 more difficulty but it will lose some of the difference in execution and it's not likely that Simone's d-score is final for this year. It's really hard not to say we have found the 2013 World AA, FX and VT champion. And it IS ridiculous to say that, because it's still more than six months away and you never know what will happen in this unpredictable and injury-prone sport. Enthralled as I am with Simone's enormous improvement and potential, I am not blind to her faults. Her backhandsprings on beam could do with being a lot tighter in form, she flexes her feet on bars transitions and some releases, her foot form on vault could do with being tighter too and she's not going to win any rewards for her dance on floor..particularly the parts where she practically stops dead. But it doesn't change the fact that she is exceptional. The new Jesolo AA, FX, VT and BB champion is on a roll.
Anastasia Grishina's redemption
Copyright- RGF, Russian Gymnastics Federation
Bailie Key's domination
Copyright- USAG USA Gymnastics
Gabby Jupp's continued steadiness
Copyright- Alan Edwards
Routines-
Floor. 1. Simone Biles, Jesolo TF/AA 2. Enus Mariani, Jesolo TF/AA 3. Mariya Livchikova, French Nationals (??)
Beam. 1. Anastasia Grishina, Cottbus EF 2. Gabby Jupp, British Championships EF 3. Elisabetta Preziosa, Cottbus quals
Vault. 1. Simone Biles, VT 1 Jesolo AA/TF 2. Oksana Chusovitina, VT 2 Cottbus quals 3. Maegan Chant, VT 2 Cottbus quals
Bars. 1. Becky Downie, British Championships quals 2. Enus Mariani, Jesolo TF/AA 3. Brenna Dowell, Jesolo TF/AA (most improved!)
Skill/composition highlights-
Kyla Ross' backhandsprings on beam look even better now she's grown. Enus Mariani's floor choreography is beyond wonderful. Peyton Ernst's sheep jump was stunning, and surprising given the weakness of the rest of her leaps. Mariya Livchikova's Memmel was out of this world (and her double front and tuck), as was Anastasia Grishina's Onodi. The height of Brenna Dowell's front double pike was crazy, and the ease of it. I am still in love with Simone Biles toe-rises and Gabby Jupp's BHS-LOSO-LOSO. Spectacular to see such clean vaulting from Oksana Chusovitina and I'm really impressed with Maegan Chant's form on hers too, and she can obviously upgrade.
Great week for- Simone Biles- AA, TF, FX, BB and VT champion. Bailie Key- AA, FX, VT and BB champion, and bronze medallist on bars. Anastasia Grishina, flake extraordinaire- UB and BB champion. Gabby Jupp, AA, FX and BB champion, and silver medallist on UB.
Good week for- Maggie Nichols and Peyton Ernst. International competitive debut and although they both fell off beam they both showed some really nice work and coped well. Onwards and upwards. Brenna Dowell who snatched a medal on bars with a surprisingly strong and much improved routine. She's known as an extremely hard worker and it's good to see someone achieve a medal on a weak event through hard graft. Enus Mariani would not have won the AA even if she hadn't fallen, but she did well to take AA silver, bars gold and floor silver.
Bad week for- Vanessa Ferrari who was doing very well until her new upgrade on beam, the tuck full. Vanessa's injury is not thought to be much more than a sprain but it's not known yet if it will impact her inclusion in Euros and other competitions. Such bad luck for this tough veteran. Mai Murakami who had a disaster on 3/4 events. So gutted. She did show some lovely beam work and her quad spin on floor was great. But she lost it everywhere else and although Japan are not deep, they don't have to put her on major teams.. Lexie Priessman and Amelia Hundley who both performed similarly. Not just messy but sluggish too. Lexie came to grief on beam, with errors elsewhere and Amelia had some seriously dodgy landings on floor today. Hopefully they are not going to be resigned to the broken pile just yet. Lexie at least is recovering from an injury, but I don't know what the story is with Amelia- more growth maybe. Also Kyla Ross who has just had her irrelevancy if she doesn't upgrade thrown in her face. I get that she has lost training time and given her growth spurt, significant upgrades in that timeframe would have been tough but they'll have to do something with her routines if she wants to make a major team, especially if she expects to do AA. Huang Huidan's disaster at Cottbus took her out of contention so early that I forgot all about it in the wake of so much gymnastics. Thanks Annie for reminding me, though it's sad to remember. It is the first competition of the season but she doesn't have any kind of track record for consistency. This won't convince anyone that she's any more reliable than Wu Liufang and she could well be left high and dry when major international teams are being chosen. Such a shame she lost it completely as her routines are so beautiful.
Best leotard- Can't choose between Japan's two podium training leos and Italy A's team leo. I also liked Becky Downie EF.
Worst leotard- USA TF. I'm sick of this nauseating colour and not even the pattern redeems it, one of the worst hot pink ones which is very low to sink.
I can't seem to embed anything Jesolo, Cottbus or British Championships..yet anyway, it's either a delay on recent videos or an embed block. So I will link uploaders instead. The excellent Gympower has a ton of yesterday's Jesolo videos and will be uploading event finals there too. Gifwatermark has some of the missed ones, and a different angle on repeated routines. Ninalfee has routines from French Nationals, including Mariya Livchikova's floor. Javier Collados has everything Cottbus, Xoxociara has some Jesolo EF routines and BGTV have all of the British Championships routines. I'm sure people have seen videos around the place, but it's handy to collect uploaders in one place here for convenience.
Who and what did you enjoy most?
Tuesday, 5 March 2013
Everything else :) Updated!
Even Afan can't make this abomination work- Copyright RGF- Russian Gymnastics federation
LOVE- Both copyright of the RGF- Russian Gymnastics Federation
My observations here come from videos from a mix of all three events- quals, AA and TF. I missed the quals and AA livestream and gave up on the TF one because it was too laggy on my laptop. There seems to be suprise that Tatiana Nabieva did not do her named release. I'm not surprised, she has not done it in a good while. Good bars from her though and she scored well on vault. New face (to me) Alla Sosnitskaya had impressive difficulty on floor- a DLO (almost to her knees in the video I saw, but still) and triple full, looking forward to seeing more of her. Watching her TF floor now, her landings were out of control. Nice to see someone with a lot of power all the same! As for Mustafina, at this point of the year she is wisely not stretching herself too much. There's a lot of dissapointment that she's not selling her floor routine as well as she has her old routines, but I see no reason to do that this early. I'm sure it will be improved by Euros and stellar by the time Worlds rolls around. Her vault, DTY, was great- well landed and controlled. Bars were a delight as always, very clean and crisp. Totally watered down from London as expected. Aliya's beam was the highlight for me, she has some great new connections. She didn't connect them in the AA but they were much better in the team final which was great to see. My favourite is the Onodi-double turn. Glorious. Her arabian looks pretty solid too and it's nice to see a double back dismount in place of a twisting one. It looks like the new beam connections were designed for her, I'm sure she will have more up her sleeve. As expected, she debuted a new floor routine. At some points, she isn't selling the routine and looks disinterested. Again, not to beat a dead horse, but she's not in London and doesn't need to go all out. I do like the music though and it looks like it will be great. The double arabian-stag and triple full looked very solid though she had a deep landing on her second pass and lots of (now deductible) long pauses in corners. Really excited to see how this routine develops this year. Grishina did well to place second. Her first floor routine looked exhausting for her, low double-double and a double pike to her hands and knees. Thankfully she performed better in team finals- watered down with no scary passes or falls. She seems more mentally ready to compete, more confident. Bars were improved, and she has brought back her beautiful Onodi-illusion beam combination. Not many creditable connections present in the routine as of yet though and she's still shaky. It is a big victory that she stayed on beam all the same. She did crash a DTY, but she was still improved on what we saw of her all last year, and it's only just begun. I am surprised to see Afanasyeva compete AA. I thought she would specialise on beam and floor, but maybe she is planning to do that in the very near future.Nice new beam work from her apparently though the video has been taken down before I got to it. Thankfully someone described it- switch half (new), aerial (2 feet) to jump (dunno what one- split leap? scissone?), Kotchetkova- tour-jete 1/2 (fell in between), aerial-1.5 L turn (awesome!), Onodi-side somi. Now she did have major issues with the routine and barely qualified to EF but it seems like she was trying out a whole load of exciting connections. It sounds like a very interesting routine, especially with her execution. Her floor is the same from London, still with very strong tumbling. She is EF worthy on both events, excellent stuff.
I will always have a soft spot for Anna Myzdrikova who was just phenomenal on floor 2009-2010. She has resurrected her floor from that (perfect) time, and her double arabian is still great. She is still captivating to watch. Ekaterina Kramarenko seems to have improved, good for her. I didn't see any Ekaterina Baturina videos but word is she wasn't great and is recovering from an injury. Missing were Viktoria Komova, Yulia Inshina (back problem), Anastasia Sidorova (back problem) and Anna Rodionova (foot..I think)
Videos and more after the jump!
Wednesday, 19 September 2012
News- UPDATED Mustafina training video
Aliya Mustafina training beam and some vault timers from Mallorca. Anna Dementyeva can be seen on the other beam. Lovely work from Aliya, she looks very comfortable on all of her skills. Seemed to be the harder acro skills and leaps giving her trouble in London, but she has plenty of time now to get back up to her old level on beam. BEAUTIFUL spins from her and Demy. Her timer is refreshing as without twisting she has great form. Looks like there will be a part 2.
Lexie Priessman and Amelia Hundley are both injured, Lexie training at her gym and Amelia from doing split leaps at camp. Neither sound like very serious injuries, moreso sprains.
Zeng Siqi has won the all-around at Chinese Individual Games. Huang Huidan was second with an error and Shang Shungsong was third, with a few mistakes. Tan Sixin only did bars and beam and Wu Liufang had a pretty bad day, including a fall off beam. Scoring is notoriously harsh at internal competitions- nobody broke a 15 that I can find, however I haven't seen the results of those who did not do AA- ie. Li Yiting on vault probably scored over 15.
Here is a fascinating translated interview of Alexander Alexandrov. http://rewritingrussiangymnastics.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/lupita-translates-interview-with.html
He never holds back and in this one blasts Anastasia Grishina's coaching- with good reason- and damns the chances of any of them making the 2016 team.
A video of Vika training has emerged. I can't get it to embed here but here is the link- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELmc1fchr80&feature=player_embedded
The very start is interesting, standing double tuck. If she could train that in combination it would be extremely valuable in the new code, but she doesn't really seem like someone who would have the power or endurance to do that. The uploader has said that a video of Mustafina will appear on Friday.
Word is that Maria Paseka has broken her ankle in Mallorca. Maria is not at 100% this year as she is still coming back from a long list of injuries, so she would probably be more prone to a further setback like this. Unconfirmed as of now. May just be giant fat rumour. Update: Vika has posted on her vk (Russian social media) that Maria does not have a fracture and no need to worry about her ligaments so sounds as if she's fine. Relief!
China's roster has been confirmed for the National Individual Games, prelims for which are taking place now. You can see the full list here:
http://chinesegymnastics.tumblr.com/post/31862842545/chinese-national-gymnastics-individual#disqus_thread
Lots of these names are new to me, but I hope the whole comp is put up- or all routines. Ones to watch are Shang Chungsong, Wu Liufang, Tan Sixin, Luo Peiru, Lou Nina, Xie Wenwei, Li Yiting, Cui Jie, Zeng Siqi and Huang Huidan. WAG takes place on Friday. I'll stick up videos if they are available.
McKayla Maroney has her cast off, still looks quite swollen though. Judging by the location of the scar, people in the know are saying that it is a tibial plateau fracture, which is quite a nasty one apparently. However, McKayla IS rejoining the tour soon and the cast is off so that's good. Most likely she will come out and wave, and maybe do a few dance moves.
Just to clarify my top 10 lists- all of them are individual favourite routines- not all-time favourite floor workers etc. as some of the gymnasts listed never hit the big time, and quite a few were seriously inconsistent or had extremely short careers. If I don't have the seriously big names in them, it is because I prefer other routines, not that I despise Nadia, Olga etc.
Lexie Priessman and Amelia Hundley are both injured, Lexie training at her gym and Amelia from doing split leaps at camp. Neither sound like very serious injuries, moreso sprains.
Zeng Siqi has won the all-around at Chinese Individual Games. Huang Huidan was second with an error and Shang Shungsong was third, with a few mistakes. Tan Sixin only did bars and beam and Wu Liufang had a pretty bad day, including a fall off beam. Scoring is notoriously harsh at internal competitions- nobody broke a 15 that I can find, however I haven't seen the results of those who did not do AA- ie. Li Yiting on vault probably scored over 15.
Here is a fascinating translated interview of Alexander Alexandrov. http://rewritingrussiangymnastics.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/lupita-translates-interview-with.html
He never holds back and in this one blasts Anastasia Grishina's coaching- with good reason- and damns the chances of any of them making the 2016 team.
A video of Vika training has emerged. I can't get it to embed here but here is the link- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELmc1fchr80&feature=player_embedded
The very start is interesting, standing double tuck. If she could train that in combination it would be extremely valuable in the new code, but she doesn't really seem like someone who would have the power or endurance to do that. The uploader has said that a video of Mustafina will appear on Friday.
Word is that Maria Paseka has broken her ankle in Mallorca. Maria is not at 100% this year as she is still coming back from a long list of injuries, so she would probably be more prone to a further setback like this. Unconfirmed as of now. May just be giant fat rumour. Update: Vika has posted on her vk (Russian social media) that Maria does not have a fracture and no need to worry about her ligaments so sounds as if she's fine. Relief!
China's roster has been confirmed for the National Individual Games, prelims for which are taking place now. You can see the full list here:
http://chinesegymnastics.tumblr.com/post/31862842545/chinese-national-gymnastics-individual#disqus_thread
Lots of these names are new to me, but I hope the whole comp is put up- or all routines. Ones to watch are Shang Chungsong, Wu Liufang, Tan Sixin, Luo Peiru, Lou Nina, Xie Wenwei, Li Yiting, Cui Jie, Zeng Siqi and Huang Huidan. WAG takes place on Friday. I'll stick up videos if they are available.
McKayla Maroney has her cast off, still looks quite swollen though. Judging by the location of the scar, people in the know are saying that it is a tibial plateau fracture, which is quite a nasty one apparently. However, McKayla IS rejoining the tour soon and the cast is off so that's good. Most likely she will come out and wave, and maybe do a few dance moves.
Just to clarify my top 10 lists- all of them are individual favourite routines- not all-time favourite floor workers etc. as some of the gymnasts listed never hit the big time, and quite a few were seriously inconsistent or had extremely short careers. If I don't have the seriously big names in them, it is because I prefer other routines, not that I despise Nadia, Olga etc.
Sunday, 29 July 2012
Subdiv 4: Aliya rocks her gameface
Ooo, another very interesting subdivision. This one saw Russia square off against China, Germany and a mixed group (and against USA's mammoth team total earlier). Sadly, Yao Jinnan is very much affected by her injury recovery and newly sustained recovery..I didn't see her bars, but everything else had huge errors and falls. Such a shame. Vika brought IT to competition, seems to have had errors on floor (..not broadcast), but nailed everything else. Slightly crossed legs on her amanar, but it was good and clean and high. (Paseka's not seen..). I am impatiently waiting for footage of Afan's floor to emerge, damn you BBC! No amanar from Qiushuang and plenty of missed connections for the Russians on their upgrades, but very exciting nonetheless as they almost reached USA's total.
Highlights
- Sui Lu's beam. BEAUTIFUL. Absolutely solid, and so clean.
- Vika's bars. She has the edge over Musty here, but not by much. So precise and crisp
- He Kexin ROCKED that bars routine. She does have more SV in the bag, competed a 7.1 here. Looks like enough to really challenge for the top so maybe she'll keep it safe and stick to the 7.1. Delighted for her
- Chuso once again throwing a huge vault, for which we must forgive those form errors
- Huang Qiushuang's floor. Yes her tumbling landings weren't great but she got sooo into her choreo, fantastic expression
- Elizabeth Seitz on bars. Did a def and has really cleaned up on her form, great to see
- Grishina's floor. Lovely as always AND she really did an excellent job on the Silivas, even with the OOB
Jessica's Gil Ortiz and Lopez had pretty bad leotards, Gil ortiz gets a bonus point for her fabulous hair though. Russia's was pretty boring, bring out the fabulous elegance! Interesting that they brought a side angle for He Kexin's bars when we've been looking at dead-on angles all day. Hmm. Hope for multiple angles at TF, AA and EF! The hot pink and purple is fine..until an aerial shot when it really starts to hurt the eyes! Enjoying the slow-mo on leaps and vaults that BBC are providing, but wow did not need to see Yao Jinnan crash over and over again.
So Russia and USA are really close, both over the 180 mark. What will Romania bring??? 2 hours to go!
Highlights
- Sui Lu's beam. BEAUTIFUL. Absolutely solid, and so clean.
- Vika's bars. She has the edge over Musty here, but not by much. So precise and crisp
- He Kexin ROCKED that bars routine. She does have more SV in the bag, competed a 7.1 here. Looks like enough to really challenge for the top so maybe she'll keep it safe and stick to the 7.1. Delighted for her
- Chuso once again throwing a huge vault, for which we must forgive those form errors
- Huang Qiushuang's floor. Yes her tumbling landings weren't great but she got sooo into her choreo, fantastic expression
- Elizabeth Seitz on bars. Did a def and has really cleaned up on her form, great to see
- Grishina's floor. Lovely as always AND she really did an excellent job on the Silivas, even with the OOB
Jessica's Gil Ortiz and Lopez had pretty bad leotards, Gil ortiz gets a bonus point for her fabulous hair though. Russia's was pretty boring, bring out the fabulous elegance! Interesting that they brought a side angle for He Kexin's bars when we've been looking at dead-on angles all day. Hmm. Hope for multiple angles at TF, AA and EF! The hot pink and purple is fine..until an aerial shot when it really starts to hurt the eyes! Enjoying the slow-mo on leaps and vaults that BBC are providing, but wow did not need to see Yao Jinnan crash over and over again.
So Russia and USA are really close, both over the 180 mark. What will Romania bring??? 2 hours to go!
Wednesday, 25 July 2012
Bits and pieces
Unfortunately not much news on training, since WAG training doesn't appear to really have been covered today- all bloggers pegged it over to watch MAG podium training in the arena instead. Understandable I suppose!
Anna Li fell off bars and was taken to hospital for testing. All tests came back clear and according to USAG with their favourite phrase, she is or appears to be 'fine'. Is it really 'routine' to be taken to hospital after a bars fall? Clearly it must have been more than just a simple fall on release. Of course this isn't a disaster for USA because she is an alternate, but still newsworthy. I hope Anna is back on her feet very soon and continuing to train. EDIT: Clearly it was serious, she's out for six weeks and is in a neck brace. So she's 'fine' according to USAG...
Larisa Iordache had a meltdown in training, stopped doing tumbling passes, did not vault and only really did bars after that. She got a bit of a talking to and cried. She does not appear to be injured as she was seen jogging normally. Too much injury speculation about this..she's young, known to be hyper and may just be experiencing a crash in energy levels and mood related to jetlag. Hopefully team vets Cata and Sandra can get through to her, and B&B. I'd hazard a guess she'll get over it and be a rock to the team come Sunday, and PT tomorrow. It's worth remembering how much pressure there is on her, not only is she a top AA contender, she will also compete all 4 events in TF AND is expected to medal in 2 EF's. Certainly she is not the only girl doing all of that for her team, but if you take the case of Jordyn- Larisa's scores are more important for her team. Larisa's bars score will be significantly higher than her teammates, her amanar will score higher than Sandra's Cheng and their third vault, and her beam and floor will be the highest scoring too. By contrast, while Jordyn may have the highest beam and floor scores it's not a certainty, and her bars will be the lowest and her vault in between. Vika and Musty will be more of a double act as the strongest contributors, rather than shining by themselves. So it's very tough on Iordache, who isn't as experienced as some others. EDIT: she is injured, see above post. Does not mean she can't compete, but it is in doubt.
Video has emerged of Grishina's Silivas (Priakhina!!). Her coach is helping her, but she does look perfectly capable of getting it around herself. Musty looks very sharp on beam and has ANOTHER upgrade there. Vika's amanar has been described as both very off-direction and beautiful. Interesting! Seeing as Paseka's was reliably described as wonderful, looks like they have improved their amanaring and can eat into USA's vault advantage.
Russia's team total d-score now stands at a phenomenal 78. USA's is 76.8, China's 76.7 and Romania 76.2. Headcasing not counted blah blah disclaimer! Without Musty's amanar it's 77.3, still a decent headstart. How exciting.
No word on McKayla Maroney that I have seen. In her own words in an instagram of the team sunbathing 'after a great practice'. I highly doubt she would say great practice if she spent the majority of it on the sidelines. Probably reading too much into it but I infer from that that she at least trained more fully today. Here's to that pesky toe clearing up, NBC have reported worst scenario is a cortisone shot and she will be able to compete. Sounds good to me that that is the 'worst' scenario. EDIT: Did not train fully yesterday either- no beam or floor.
Here is the best photo I've seen from training so far.
USA have had plenty of high-flyers in the past (Sey, Dawes, Kupets, Tricase) but Gabby looks to be the highest, it's actually incredible how high that is. This photo is ripe for a caption, especially since it looks like they might be telling her to fix that cable..or the air-con! Here in Ireland we normally get Britain's weather first, it moves west from the Atlantic. Plenty of rain since but it's still pretty humid, so I don't see any difference for them in their stifling training gym yet.
I am reading a gymnastics thread on a Romanian sports forum through google translate, www.onlinesport.ro I found it because they linked to here! Anyway, it's very very interesting to get a patriotic view on things that isn't American. Just like the Russian translations, there are some good ones here too. Beam translates as drink and amanar as delay. 'Diana Bulimar killed it on drink!' In sadder news, it looks like I won't be able to access at least some of the Olympics coverage on TV as I'm unsure if I'll receive any of the extra Olympic channels BBC are providing. Although I have all of the BBC terrestial channels, I've no access to their online coverage so will have to use an IP shield. Probably just for prelims, but as a back up for the rest too. Still, whatever works!
Anna Li fell off bars and was taken to hospital for testing. All tests came back clear and according to USAG with their favourite phrase, she is or appears to be 'fine'. Is it really 'routine' to be taken to hospital after a bars fall? Clearly it must have been more than just a simple fall on release. Of course this isn't a disaster for USA because she is an alternate, but still newsworthy. I hope Anna is back on her feet very soon and continuing to train. EDIT: Clearly it was serious, she's out for six weeks and is in a neck brace. So she's 'fine' according to USAG...
Larisa Iordache had a meltdown in training, stopped doing tumbling passes, did not vault and only really did bars after that. She got a bit of a talking to and cried. She does not appear to be injured as she was seen jogging normally. Too much injury speculation about this..she's young, known to be hyper and may just be experiencing a crash in energy levels and mood related to jetlag. Hopefully team vets Cata and Sandra can get through to her, and B&B. I'd hazard a guess she'll get over it and be a rock to the team come Sunday, and PT tomorrow. It's worth remembering how much pressure there is on her, not only is she a top AA contender, she will also compete all 4 events in TF AND is expected to medal in 2 EF's. Certainly she is not the only girl doing all of that for her team, but if you take the case of Jordyn- Larisa's scores are more important for her team. Larisa's bars score will be significantly higher than her teammates, her amanar will score higher than Sandra's Cheng and their third vault, and her beam and floor will be the highest scoring too. By contrast, while Jordyn may have the highest beam and floor scores it's not a certainty, and her bars will be the lowest and her vault in between. Vika and Musty will be more of a double act as the strongest contributors, rather than shining by themselves. So it's very tough on Iordache, who isn't as experienced as some others. EDIT: she is injured, see above post. Does not mean she can't compete, but it is in doubt.
Video has emerged of Grishina's Silivas (Priakhina!!). Her coach is helping her, but she does look perfectly capable of getting it around herself. Musty looks very sharp on beam and has ANOTHER upgrade there. Vika's amanar has been described as both very off-direction and beautiful. Interesting! Seeing as Paseka's was reliably described as wonderful, looks like they have improved their amanaring and can eat into USA's vault advantage.
Russia's team total d-score now stands at a phenomenal 78. USA's is 76.8, China's 76.7 and Romania 76.2. Headcasing not counted blah blah disclaimer! Without Musty's amanar it's 77.3, still a decent headstart. How exciting.
No word on McKayla Maroney that I have seen. In her own words in an instagram of the team sunbathing 'after a great practice'. I highly doubt she would say great practice if she spent the majority of it on the sidelines. Probably reading too much into it but I infer from that that she at least trained more fully today. Here's to that pesky toe clearing up, NBC have reported worst scenario is a cortisone shot and she will be able to compete. Sounds good to me that that is the 'worst' scenario. EDIT: Did not train fully yesterday either- no beam or floor.
Here is the best photo I've seen from training so far.
USA have had plenty of high-flyers in the past (Sey, Dawes, Kupets, Tricase) but Gabby looks to be the highest, it's actually incredible how high that is. This photo is ripe for a caption, especially since it looks like they might be telling her to fix that cable..or the air-con! Here in Ireland we normally get Britain's weather first, it moves west from the Atlantic. Plenty of rain since but it's still pretty humid, so I don't see any difference for them in their stifling training gym yet.
I am reading a gymnastics thread on a Romanian sports forum through google translate, www.onlinesport.ro I found it because they linked to here! Anyway, it's very very interesting to get a patriotic view on things that isn't American. Just like the Russian translations, there are some good ones here too. Beam translates as drink and amanar as delay. 'Diana Bulimar killed it on drink!' In sadder news, it looks like I won't be able to access at least some of the Olympics coverage on TV as I'm unsure if I'll receive any of the extra Olympic channels BBC are providing. Although I have all of the BBC terrestial channels, I've no access to their online coverage so will have to use an IP shield. Probably just for prelims, but as a back up for the rest too. Still, whatever works!
Tuesday, 24 July 2012
Russia suprise everyone!
WOW. Today in afternoon training, Grishina did a double double on floor, while Vika did a triple full to back tuck and a double tuck to split leap. They are really filling in their floor weakness! This brings Grishina's floor up to 6.1 and Vika's to a 6.3...26.4 total difficulty! Insane. It doesn't seem that Afan and Musty did full routines, lots of dance throughs and random passes instead. Afan's music sounds interesting, can't wait to see her routine. Who knows, they might start pulling out Dos Santos's passes from the bag. Delighted to hear this, it makes TF even more exciting and close. Amanaring seems to have gone okay too, none from Musty as expected at this point but Komova stood two up..very off direction though, but Paseka's was apparently 'wonderful'.
McKayla has injured her toe on her right foot, NOT her ankle- good news. No real need to panic about her.
McKayla has injured her toe on her right foot, NOT her ankle- good news. No real need to panic about her.
Saturday, 7 July 2012
Russia and Romania teams named!!
Team Russia: Komova, Mustafina, Grishina (like duhh), Afansayeva and..Paseka! Wasn't sure if Afan could do it, but Inshina and Bebelo were dissapointing and Sidorova was injured, so..good for her! Paseka is in a way a surprise, she crashed both her vaults at the Russian cup. Apparently she verified them, including the amanar, the other day. This means Russia have two amanars, maybe a third (though Musty only did a DTY at the verifying), killer bar routines and really good beams, though staying on is slightly questionable. Floor is a bit of a weak spot with this team- Grishina and Afan have beautiful floors, but not with amazing SV. Komova's is weak, Musty's is a tad unusable.
Team Romania: Ponor, Izbasa, Iordache, Bulimar (duhh) and..Chelaru! This differs from the victorious Euros team, replacing Haidu with Chelaru. Haidu has better bars than her, but Chelaru is safer. It doesn't matter a huge amount because the first four are so strong. No amanars or Cheng's were competed at the meet today- their being flung for the first time in comp in London is terrifying.
Team Romania: Ponor, Izbasa, Iordache, Bulimar (duhh) and..Chelaru! This differs from the victorious Euros team, replacing Haidu with Chelaru. Haidu has better bars than her, but Chelaru is safer. It doesn't matter a huge amount because the first four are so strong. No amanars or Cheng's were competed at the meet today- their being flung for the first time in comp in London is terrifying.
Friday, 6 July 2012
Romania and Russia bring their A-game
Competition is hotting up a bit now. I still think USA will get the gold, but it will be tough especially if Russia don't fall off the beam, a skill they have been showing for quite a while now.
Sandra Izbasa has a Cheng vault, Larisa Iordache has an amanar and Viktoria Komova has one too. Mustafina is extremely likely to have an amanar, and was shown doing a timer for one. All of these were pretty going to happen anyway, but here is the proof. What does this mean for America? Unfortunately it means that Russia's massive bars d-scores and now amanars mean the gap is closing bigtime there for America's vault advantage. However, everyone still has weaknesses. Let's look at them.
America- Has no obvious weakness. Yes, bars are not a strong point but they are very decent in comparison to Romania. It would help if Gabby could up her D-score to 6.9, but nevertheless, even Jordyn's d-score is now a 6.4. Beam is good and strong, and nobody is likely to headcase and fall off. Two aggressive routines with high d-scores, and one beautiful artistic one. Vault obviously one of the strongest points- McKayla's vault will score more than 16, NOBODY else will touch that. Her vault will make shit of sloppy amanars elsewhere, which is great for her score. If she wasn't there, amanar scores would be more generous. Jordyn's amanar is very reliable, with great form and landings. Gabby's is getting better all the time, a bit flat but well landed with good form. Floor another strong point- Aly has the highest d-score of all with an AWESOME first pass, one of the most difficult ever. Form likely to take a hit, lucky the difficulty is massive. Jordyn's is strong, clean and difficult. I do think McKayla's should be here, and it's a 6.0 with artistry, it will score well.
Romania- It's amazing how much they have come on. Iordache is decent on bars, everyone else is weaker. They will fall down bigtime here. Vault has picked up a lot. Iordache's amanar looks clean and safe and fully rotated, with not a bad landing. It doesn't look sloppy. Sandra's Cheng looks messy and low, unlikely to break more than a 15.7 as it stands, but the video wasn't made yesterday and she has time to improve it. Same goes for Iordache. It's unknown whether they have a second amanar, but Bellu has hinted at more than one. Ponor appears to be the likely candidate for this. If not, they have a big deficit there against USA if they have to count a DTY. America will outscore significantly on vault, as they have the best amanar in the world and two very clean ones. Beam is their strong point- very high SV's, Iordache is probably the best beamer in the world right now, along with Sui Lu. Beam is traditionally awesome and Ponor and Iordache in particular will do very well here. Floor looks good- Iordache is likely to outscore Raisman as she has better form, and is only one tenth down in diffculty. The two routines will match America. Consider floor equal, beam better, bars and vault worse. However- consistency is their midde name, they can win if someone else falters.
Russia- Here we have extremely strong bars, more than a point over USA and even more over Romania. Not even China can get close. Komova and Mustafina both have beautiful 7.0 bars that will score extremely well, possibly breaking the 16 mark. Grishina's are a very respectable 6.5, which Romania would kill for. Vault is a bit more up in the air. Komova's amanar is neat with very good form, it is likely to outscore pretty much every other, except Maroney of course. Certainly it looks like it can rival Jordyn, Gabby and Larisa. It looks like Mustafina will have one too. Mustafina of the clean DTY, frightening helicopter-legs amanar and of the ACL on the same skill. Let us hope she can land it safely every time, with NO locked legs. Even before the injury she was doing that. It will be shot in execution, but the 0.7 is has over the DTY isn't to be sneezed at but even so, it's likely to be the messiest one we'll see in London. It is unclear whether Russia have another amanar. If not, using a DTY and Musty'a messy amanar will hurt them and seriously eat into their bars advantage. I predict Romania to score higher on vault, and USA to outscore Romania by a comfortable lead. Likely beamers are Komova, Musty and Grishina. Both Vika and Grishina have fallen off beam a LOT in the last year. Their beams are beautiful, if they fall it will hurt their scores a lot. If they stay on, they are a massive threat. Musty's looks better every time, but she is uncertain on it too. Floor is a weakness. Musty's tumbling isn't near as clean as it used to be, and that twisting ability has really deteriorated when it was already bad before. Komova's floor is weak and she has low landings which will cost her. If Afan makes the team she will go ahead of Musty I think, but although her and Grishina's floors are awesome, the SV is several tenths below what USA and Romania are bringing.
In short:
Russia- Vault- Good, Floor- Weak, Bars- Super strong, Beam- Potentially strong
Romania- Vault- Strong, Floor, Strong, Beam super-strong, Bars- very weak
USA- Vault- super strong, Floor- Strong, Beam- Strong, Bars- weak
In short, I think Russia could take it if they counted no mistakes, but they are the one country where it is almost a certainty, much more so than the other two. I still see USA taking the gold. Romania is uncertain- they are stronger than ever and will be fierce challengers. How exciting! I cannot WAIT!
In AA news, this means that Gabby, Jordyn, Larisa, Vika, Huang and almost certainly Musty have amanars. Yao Jinnan is unknown, China have only confirmed Huang. I predict Larisa and Vika will fight the USA fiercely here, it's impossible to call. I no longer see both Gabby and Jordyn as podium almost certainties.
Sandra Izbasa has a Cheng vault, Larisa Iordache has an amanar and Viktoria Komova has one too. Mustafina is extremely likely to have an amanar, and was shown doing a timer for one. All of these were pretty going to happen anyway, but here is the proof. What does this mean for America? Unfortunately it means that Russia's massive bars d-scores and now amanars mean the gap is closing bigtime there for America's vault advantage. However, everyone still has weaknesses. Let's look at them.
America- Has no obvious weakness. Yes, bars are not a strong point but they are very decent in comparison to Romania. It would help if Gabby could up her D-score to 6.9, but nevertheless, even Jordyn's d-score is now a 6.4. Beam is good and strong, and nobody is likely to headcase and fall off. Two aggressive routines with high d-scores, and one beautiful artistic one. Vault obviously one of the strongest points- McKayla's vault will score more than 16, NOBODY else will touch that. Her vault will make shit of sloppy amanars elsewhere, which is great for her score. If she wasn't there, amanar scores would be more generous. Jordyn's amanar is very reliable, with great form and landings. Gabby's is getting better all the time, a bit flat but well landed with good form. Floor another strong point- Aly has the highest d-score of all with an AWESOME first pass, one of the most difficult ever. Form likely to take a hit, lucky the difficulty is massive. Jordyn's is strong, clean and difficult. I do think McKayla's should be here, and it's a 6.0 with artistry, it will score well.
Romania- It's amazing how much they have come on. Iordache is decent on bars, everyone else is weaker. They will fall down bigtime here. Vault has picked up a lot. Iordache's amanar looks clean and safe and fully rotated, with not a bad landing. It doesn't look sloppy. Sandra's Cheng looks messy and low, unlikely to break more than a 15.7 as it stands, but the video wasn't made yesterday and she has time to improve it. Same goes for Iordache. It's unknown whether they have a second amanar, but Bellu has hinted at more than one. Ponor appears to be the likely candidate for this. If not, they have a big deficit there against USA if they have to count a DTY. America will outscore significantly on vault, as they have the best amanar in the world and two very clean ones. Beam is their strong point- very high SV's, Iordache is probably the best beamer in the world right now, along with Sui Lu. Beam is traditionally awesome and Ponor and Iordache in particular will do very well here. Floor looks good- Iordache is likely to outscore Raisman as she has better form, and is only one tenth down in diffculty. The two routines will match America. Consider floor equal, beam better, bars and vault worse. However- consistency is their midde name, they can win if someone else falters.
Russia- Here we have extremely strong bars, more than a point over USA and even more over Romania. Not even China can get close. Komova and Mustafina both have beautiful 7.0 bars that will score extremely well, possibly breaking the 16 mark. Grishina's are a very respectable 6.5, which Romania would kill for. Vault is a bit more up in the air. Komova's amanar is neat with very good form, it is likely to outscore pretty much every other, except Maroney of course. Certainly it looks like it can rival Jordyn, Gabby and Larisa. It looks like Mustafina will have one too. Mustafina of the clean DTY, frightening helicopter-legs amanar and of the ACL on the same skill. Let us hope she can land it safely every time, with NO locked legs. Even before the injury she was doing that. It will be shot in execution, but the 0.7 is has over the DTY isn't to be sneezed at but even so, it's likely to be the messiest one we'll see in London. It is unclear whether Russia have another amanar. If not, using a DTY and Musty'a messy amanar will hurt them and seriously eat into their bars advantage. I predict Romania to score higher on vault, and USA to outscore Romania by a comfortable lead. Likely beamers are Komova, Musty and Grishina. Both Vika and Grishina have fallen off beam a LOT in the last year. Their beams are beautiful, if they fall it will hurt their scores a lot. If they stay on, they are a massive threat. Musty's looks better every time, but she is uncertain on it too. Floor is a weakness. Musty's tumbling isn't near as clean as it used to be, and that twisting ability has really deteriorated when it was already bad before. Komova's floor is weak and she has low landings which will cost her. If Afan makes the team she will go ahead of Musty I think, but although her and Grishina's floors are awesome, the SV is several tenths below what USA and Romania are bringing.
In short:
Russia- Vault- Good, Floor- Weak, Bars- Super strong, Beam- Potentially strong
Romania- Vault- Strong, Floor, Strong, Beam super-strong, Bars- very weak
USA- Vault- super strong, Floor- Strong, Beam- Strong, Bars- weak
In short, I think Russia could take it if they counted no mistakes, but they are the one country where it is almost a certainty, much more so than the other two. I still see USA taking the gold. Romania is uncertain- they are stronger than ever and will be fierce challengers. How exciting! I cannot WAIT!
In AA news, this means that Gabby, Jordyn, Larisa, Vika, Huang and almost certainly Musty have amanars. Yao Jinnan is unknown, China have only confirmed Huang. I predict Larisa and Vika will fight the USA fiercely here, it's impossible to call. I no longer see both Gabby and Jordyn as podium almost certainties.
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