Everything else :) Updated!

 Even Afan can't make this abomination work- Copyright RGF- Russian Gymnastics federation
 

Lots of other fabulous non-American Cup gymnastics going on! First and foremost, Russian Championships, which still have event finals to go. The AA was predictably won by Aliya Mustafina, who did not have Viktoria Komova present to challenge her. Anastasia Grishina was second and new senior Evgeniya Shelgunova was third. Sadly, Anna Dementyeva seems to have continued her inconsistency, placing sixth, just in front of Anna Pavlova. Maria Paseka landed an amanar in team finals. It was by no means great, but better than London and a very valuable addition for their Euros team. I was so hoping that Demy would step up and be counted, but it's far more likely to be either Ksenia Afanasyeva or Shelgunova taking the fourth spot- I would be inclined to believe Mustafina, Grishina and Paseka are locks. Unfortunately, Shelgunova is still displaying notable form issues, especially with her Pak which truly is horrifying. She does have a very competitive level of difficulty though, and Afan was having endurance issues, so it could go either way. EDIT- Rodionenko named Mustafina, Grishina and Paseka to the Euros team. Last spot is between Afan, Shelgunova and Demy.

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!

THE ALL AROUND

Gabby Douglas wins, Vika in second and Musty third. This was not really exciting, it was frustrating, difficult and annoying to watch.

Did Gabby deserve to win?
Yes, her greatest rival messed up her vault and Gabby hit four for four. She has really peaked at the right time, got all of her former inconsistency out of the way and she was exciting to watch. However, she was very overscored.

What overscores?
 Her vault was offline and she stepped into the red. It scored the exact same as her stuck TF vault which was itself overscored. The judges basically said that if Gabby had stuck in the middle line, they would have given her McKayla's score. What kind of bullshit is this? Even 4 year fans KNOW McKayla's vault is of much higher quality. Her beam score was higher than Catalina Ponor's routine from TF's, and both of Sui Lu's beautiful routines. Gabby is a great beam worker when she's on, but she had an error and the other two are excellent beam workers, with a few tenths higher difficulty, so a 15.551 for Gabby is insane. Vika's beam was overscored too, but not in the same range. Gabby's inflated bars score was inline with Musty's, who also jumped  four tenths. But Vika only jumped two. Floor was fair for all concerned, but the judges of the other three basically were applying Gabby bonus. It is unfair and so frustrating to see, regardless of whether she would have won without them.

But Vika came off the mat on her vault!
Yes she did, and that's what killed her. Keeping with overscored amanars, Vika could have scored in the 15.8-9 range, like she did in quals, with a well landed one. If she had, she would have won. Even with that, the fight between Vika and Gabby for gold should have been a lot closer and would have been if both were scored fairly.


Gabby hit everything though!
Yes, and well done to her. She is not responsible for her scores. But it is hard to watch someone being handed gifts like that. We all want a fair all-around. Gabby would have won regardless since Vika's vault was a big mistake, but FAIR SCORING should still be expected.


 Would Musty have won without her fall?
No. She would still have gotten bronze. Her lack of an amanar sealed the deal for her really, as well as her wobbly beam.

Aly and Musty got the same score, so why is Aly in 4th?
They determined bronze by looking at combined e-scores. As is expected and fair, Musty's were higher. Very tough for Aly who was rattled after her huge error on beam though. Correction: They actually looked at the the three highest scores of each and combined the total. This is where Aly's beam sank her, instead of her weak bars being dropped, her beam was dropped instead- usually so strong, it had a big error. That meant her bars were up against Musty's hit 3 routines, and Aly's amanar was not enough to save her. Tiebreakers are unfair, what's the harm in two bronze medals?


Where was Larisa?
Languishing way down the rankings. Larisa's bars got a half decent score, but she watered down hugely on floor, downgrading her double double to a full-twisting double pike and her triple twist to a double twist. Very costly. That, her big wobble on beam and her DTY sealed the deal. Very sad to see, let's hope she can get back on track.


Highlights
- Vika, Musty and Gabby's bars. BEAUTIFUL
- Vika having the floor of her life knowing she would not be able to catch Gabby's score.
- Deng Linlin's beam. Proved her worth, nailed everything
- Musty's floor. Such a strong performance. Music is growing on me, probably because the start and end sound like Cradle of Filth.
- Vanessa Ferrari's floor. Great as usual!
- Rebecca Tunney having a GREAT competition
- Same for Elizabeth Seitz! Well done to her
- Deng Linlin and Huang Qiushuang both nailing everything! Deng had a rough time in TF, and HQS is headcase extraordinaire
- Sandra Izbasa beating both and placing fifth! WOW. Nobody expected that. Larisa was always set to outshine even the top contenders, and it wasn't really known who they would have as their second contender. Sandra's bars are not at Larisa's standard, but they were good, and great for a Romanian. Along with her excellent vault and floor and her decent beam, they were enough to boost her right up there. Great finish.


Not-so highlights
- Hannah Whelan's crashed vault, score of zero and her devastation. Awful to see, especially as she was in front of a home crowd
- Musty falling off beam, it looks like she could have fought for that, she wasn't so offline that it would have been the point of no return
- Larisa watering down bigtime to stay safe, which cost her very dearly. Hard to watch someone with the highest potential not on form in the AA
- Vika's vault landing, which cost her gold.
- Gabby's beam, bars and vault scores. Far too high.
- Aly's huge wobble on beam and hand down. Heartbreaking to see.
- HQS wayyy underscored on her excellent beam. 14.133 for that?? That's 1.4 under Gabby's, who had roughly the same SV and a leg up.
- Aly's bars outscoring Deng Linlin's and Larisa Iordache's. This is outrageous! While the other two also count bars as a weak point, both have substantially better swing and form than Aly. Aly HAS improved her form on this event, but it is still fugly compared to the other two.  Aly also has the lowest SV out of the three..

I'm so annoyed about this! I would have preferred as I said, a podium of Larisa, Vika, Musty. I do not begrudge Gabby's win, she hit everything and she deserved it, especially in light of Vika's vault. I direct my ire at the judges who were on crack. She was not the only overscore- Musty's bars and Vika's beam spring to mind, but just like US trials and nationals, Gabby was on a different plane. It taints the whole thing when one is favoured.

Best leo: Larisa Iordache. I LOVE that Pikachu leo. Musty and Vika's was second, but a bit dull for me. Then Hannah/Rebecca's, then Gabby/Aly's. Would have preferred more variation from that lot. Vanessa Ferrari's had such promise, until I saw the cut-out shoulders- what the hell? Worst was the Australian leos. Bit fed up of Japan's now, it's gotten old.

Subdiv 3- Beth is a hero

WOW. This was an insane subdivision. USA, France, Canada and the home team GB all competed. First up was USA on vault hammering out their amanars, which went very well. No very costly errors this time around really, Gabby ran out of bounds on her double arabian pass, Jordyn had an overarched handstand, Kyla had an OOB, Hannah Whelan fell off beam..I didn't see any other mistakes, but then not every routine was broadcast.

Highlights

- Beth Tweddle getting up amidst huge expectation, nailing EVERY part of her impossibly difficult routine and then almost sticking her Fabrichnova dismount! HUGE roar from the crowd, great amount- and a whopper score to match, sending her straight to the top of bars EF- 16.133. Well done Beath!
- Aly Raisman on floor. Same as always, but cleaner form and leaps! Brilliantly done, and another huge score to match
- Victoria Moors on floor. Like, duh. I probably love her a bit too much to really analyse her floor, which isn't going to make floor EF with a 14.1. She's very young though, I want to see her with more difficult third and fourth passes to match her potential.
- McKayla Maroney on vault. Yes, she had a big step and a shuffle on landing. For two reasons: One, her broken toe. Two, THAT HEIGHT! Literally her block just gets better and better, but that makes landing much harder. BBC were dead right, she gets TOO MUCH HEIGHT. It's insane. Beautiful form in the air, she's gotten back to her best there. A 15.9 that you could expect to hit 16.2 if stuck, or even higher given what they were giving the other amanars. Phenomenal. I DIDN'T SEE HER MUSTAFINA- they tried to show it after but it cut out. Can't wait to see.
- Gabby and Kyla on bars. Clean, precise, insane squirrel releases, beautiful double layout dismounts. Just lovely to watch
- Hannah Whelan on floor, she's such a great performer.

There's a big shock which you'll find in the spoilered post below. It has exploded over twitter but if you're relying on tape delay and trying to avoid the internet, don't read it either! And on to subdivision four!

I am in LOVE with the GB leo. I don't like the ones that were publicised a while ago, but this was a great use of red and a lovely bling pattern. Canada's wasn't as nice as expected. USA's was a great colour- love it on a leo, but I do NOT like that star mesh explosion on the front, gross.