Competitions! And news

First up since it's freshest in my mind is the Chinese National Games prelims. This competition will have team, AA and event finals, with a limit of two-per-province for each non-team final. Prelims have already told us a lot, relying on translated quick hits as the livestream did not function for me and videos are unlikely to surface today (time difference, it's quite late there now).

- Yao Jinnan hit an excellent bars set, scoring 15.567 with 6.7 difficulty. No Mo salto but there's still time for that and her 7.0 routine is said to be ready. She connected a Chow-Pak-Chow 1/2. She landed low on her full twist on beam, had wobbles and then fell on her layout :( Her floor was extremely watered down and she seemed to hurt herself on her DTY. She may have exacerbated an injury she was already dealing with.On seeing the video, that definitely looks to be the case.
- Shang Chunsong HIT 4/4, sticking her FTY, nailing her floor set with the first pass done well and in bounds, earning 14.634, wobbling but staying on the beam and a great bars set earning her a score of 57.101, which is huge in China. She did have an upgrade on bars but did not do another connection, so the 14.9 she got there should hopefully be higher in the future. Lost some of her start value on beam due to wobbles, but her full potential is 7.0 UB, 6.6+ BB, 6.1 FX and 5.0 (training DTY, unlikely to appear this year though) VT. Watch out..
- Tan Jiaxin was a heartbreaker. Hit a DTY and full twisting Tsuk (FTT- same vault set as Larisa Iordache and plenty of others) but she crashed her full twisting double layout bars dismount, placing ninth and therefore needing someone to drop out in order to prove herself.
- Huang Huidan HIT bars and beam, highly unusual. Her bars score was a huge 15.5! I can't help feeling more confident now about her. Third qualifier to the AA final too.
- Zeng Siqi had a disaster, falling on beam and sitting her dismount, as well as wobbles and downgrades. She did not come close to qualifying for event finals as a result. Bars, vault and floor were okay, but she is really going for one event and one event only and this has very much jeopardised her worlds spot..especially since while the routine may have been a fluke, her lack of endurance is not and the dismount has long been a problem.
- Huang Qiushuang fell on beam, but hit bars. We'll see her in both the AA and bars finals.
- Sui Lu had a great day, 1st on beam and 2nd on floor. Who knows, she could maybe be persuaded to go to worlds..
- Fellow veteran He Kexin hit her bars, scoring 15.367. They were reported not to be to the best of her ability however, but still a fantastic score.
- It was not to be for Deng Linlin who sat her beam dismount, unfortunately, and was devastated.
- Wu Liufang touched the beam during her routine and fell on bars. This is not going to be a worlds where she is unfairly left behind, I think she is done as regards big competitions.
- Junior superstar Lv Jiaqi did really well, fourth qualifier to the AA and will compete in beam finals as a major challenger. She is a whopping 8 years younger than Sui Lu..
- Some other star juniors were hampered by injury, like Wang Yan who fell on beam but hit a new double twisting tsuk, and Liu Tingting who also fell on beam and had a very messy floor. Others like Mei Jie were absent altogether.
- Gorgeous Yang Yilin-esque Fan Yilin had a killer bars set, scoring a huge 15.234! Right in the medal hunt.
- Tan Sixin fell on bars but hit beam. 

So, Shang Chunsong solidified her place on the worlds team and even lessened doubts over her consistency into the bargain. We have seen some super-solid beam sets from her this year so I'm confident she can do that in at least one of the all-around and beam finals at NG. Yao cemented her place for bars alone..hopefully she can do the all-around but it's not looking good. Huang Huidan did herself a lot of favours for one of the most inconsistent gymnasts they have, and her spot on the team which was provisional as they all were, now looks even more likely. Zeng Siqi though is teetering on the edge. If Sui Lu can be persuaded to put off her retirement by about a month, that spot could well be hers.

Some videos already! Here. Hopefully more from either this channel or another. No Piibunina this time! The long two hour video is subdivision 2, which includes Yao Jinnan and Huang Huidan, amongst others. You might notice that the beam doesn't look right..because it wasn't, tilted to the right near the dismount mats. Lots of complaints about it, and lots of falls in the one place/one side. Frustrating to say the least. I heard the link above has taken down individual routines, so there is another link here. Running it through translate, from left to right, row by row- He Kexin FX, Wu Liufang BB, Yao Jinnan FX, Yao Jinnan BB, Deng Linlin FX, Deng Linlin BB, Guan Wenli BB, Shang Chunsong (whose name translates as providers Haramatsu??) FX, Zeng Siqi FX, Shang Chunsong BB, Zeng Sigi BB, Shang Chunsong UB, Jiang Tong VT, Sui Lu BB, Tan Sixin BB, Tan Sixin UB, Wang Wei FX, Yao Jinnan UB, He Kexin UB.

At Interland, Diana Bulimar won the AA title. Unfortunately, her difficulty remains much the same. It's extremely disappointing that a gymnast with such ease in her floor and beam routines has routines that won't get her anywhere near event finals. I will still hold out some hope...there is still Romanian Nationals as well as worlds itself. On a more positive note, she's got a new floor and I really like it! Nice and quirky, not childish but still fast-paced. It has been suspected for a while that Sandra Izbasa would only do floor, which indeed was exactly the case. Her floor in qualifications/AA was watered down but she made some upgrades for event finals which was nice to see- a very respectable 6.1 difficulty. It will be interesting to see if she can bring back the front full instead of the front layout, or any dance upgrades. I'm not a fan of her new choreography yet, I love the music but she seems to have little interest in the routine and it's dull and lacklustre. Hopefully she can sell it more.

I was so thrilled that Noel Van Klaveren hit in the all-around, but she was back to her inconsistent self by event finals. That 1.5 tsuk upgrade is causing problems, probably best to downgrade for the moment. Her beam was beautiful, really nice work. Chantysha Netteb won vault and wisely had her beam dismount downgraded. These two are obvious locks for the worlds team. Sanne Wevers had a 6.2 beam but some difficulty with it...not sure if she could be in contention for a spot or not.

The British girls were a bit of a mixed bag. Thrilled Rebecca Tunney is bursting with potential and new upgrades including a Bhardwaj because..why not, but she was having a good few problems and didn't qualify for either bars or beam finals as a result. Being out for so long with injury and recovery undoubtedly set her back, hopefully she can come back fighting at worlds. Hannah Whelan majorly impressed me with her beam including my favourite series- aerial to two layout stepouts (think Dudnik), and so did Ruby Harrold with an amazing bars routine in event finals, which was not only hit but more flighty and cleaner than it has been. Becky Downie was 50/50, big errors on bars both days but she seems to be back to her best on beam. That will be an interesting team to pick..

TCG have got a lovely post about event finals with all of the best routines, here. The sponsors of the meet have made a great video edit, just like they did at EYOF.

Dun dun dun! Russia have named their worlds team. Aliya Mustafina, Tatiana Nabieva, Maria Paseka and either Viktoria Komova if she's ready or Anna Rodionova if not. First things first, while Ksenia Afanasyeva's surgery was not serious, it was ill-timed. She'll be fine by December apparently, so she just about misses out. So disappointing as she has looked better this year, her sixth year as a senior, than ever. And....that was the sound of the floor title being blown wide open and Maria Paseka getting very lucky to get her spot. Paseka's vaults have been very hit or miss lately, so she's a bit of a gamble. Komova if she's ready will do beam and maybe bars. Rodionova if she goes will just do beam. The third bars spot if Komova doesn't do them goes to Paseka. Where is Anastasia Grishina and why on earth is she not down in place of Rodionova? Good question. Either her back isn't fully there yet and she is being wisely rested, or she has joined Anna Pavlova in the dungeon of beautiful unwanted gymnasts. Rodionova is delicate, injury-prone, inconsistent and has low difficulty. Despite all that her gymnastics is beautiful but when you add it up like that..she's not a great prospect, this year at least. The major problem I have with this team is the huge pressure Aliya Mustafina will be under, as the expectations on her in proportion to the rest of the team will be immense. She's not a gymnast who would shy away from that and will probably thrive to some extent under the strain..but it's still a lot for one person!

Brazil and Ukraine have also joined the ranks of naming their teams. Brazil will send Danielle Hypolito whose first worlds was in 1999 and has competed in almost all to date, Laetitia Costa and Jade Barbosa. It is not known yet if Barbosa will actually compete, it depends on how her injury is doing. Ukraine are sending Angelina Kislaya, Krystyna Sankova, Olesya Sazonova and Olena Vasylieva. No worlds for Daria Matveyeva. Kislaya is pretty good on bars, and Sankova and Sazonova have good potential on floor but their entire WAG programme is so fractured I would be very surprised if any of them made an event final.

News just in- the Netherlands have named their team. Chantysha Netteb, Noel Van Klaveren, Wyomi Masela and Sanne Wevers will go. The first two are locks, and will do the AA. I'm very glad about the last two, Masela because she had the London spot and lost it and Wevers because her beam is nothing short of awesome. A really nice team.

And Australia are sending...nobody! They upped their qualifying standards I believe across the board, but it's bad timing for a post-Olympic year and a gymnastics programme that it's in the process of rebuilding. In a way it makes sense, but it's a wasted opportunity for their new seniors. Maddie Leydin and Kiara Munteanu show huge promise, as indeed do some of the older girls. Only two showed up for trials, with the others crying off from injury or inability to hit the standards which were..wait for it..6.3 difficulty on balance beam with a score of 14.8. Optimism to the point of foolishness. I suppose they would have needed an amanar too.

Drop everything! Read read read..

..this unbelievably amazing interview with Alexander Alexandrov! It's in 5 parts, with links to the next at the bottom of each. It's very candid, he doesn't hold back on anything and you really get the full inside story of what happened last year. Read it and weep that the Rodionenkos are STILL in power. It will take at least half an hour to read, but so so worth it. Great work by Elizabeth in bringing the whole thing together, providing the canvas for it and all of that editing for such a long glorious interview. We should all bow down :)

The Canadian WAG team has been announced, with zero surprises. It will be Victoria Moors, Elsabeth Black, Kaitlyn Hofland and Maegan Chant. With the injury of Gabriella Douglas and her withdrawal from selection, the inclusion of Kaitlyn has looked more and more of an uncertainty. This is a nice strong team, with the possibility of three spots in finals (two for floor and one for vault) as well as all-around spots. I'm not convinced that the latter two can make any finals with their current difficulty level, but who knows.

Here is a beautiful beam routine by Wu Liufang in training for worlds 2011. So close to being perfect, the stumble after the tuck back was the only thing marring it from the Ekaterina Vandisheva/Fan Ye school of perfect beam routines. That is Jiang Yuyuan in the background completely biffing a Ruflova, didn't notice the first time as Wu is so absorbing!

This weekend podium training for the National Games in China is taking place. We are unlikely to get anything from this really, but competition is starting soon and hopes for videos are high. Any absences you might notice are down to injury, unfortunately. This is far more important than worlds to the individual provinces, coaching teams etc. no matter what they say, and the girls do seem to be pushed as a result. The Interland friendly meet starts sooner, this weekend. This forms the second part of the Dutch worlds trials, and looks to be a test meet for the rest- particularly Britain who are sending a lot of girls, but also for Sandra Izbasa who hasn't competed since London. There will definitely be quick hits and a summary video, not sure about routines though- which is a pity as aside from it being an interesting competition- the Romanian girls have new floor routines!

I'm sure I'll add to this post with more gymnastics news, but for now I will throw in some photos I took on my phone when I was away this week. I was in Cork city and went for a daytrip to Cobh (pronounced Cove, formally Queenstown) which is pretty much my favourite town in Ireland. It's so so pretty and it's steeped in history too, this was the port where everybody from the west and south of the country emigrated from before, during and after the Great Famine and it was one of the stops Titanic made before crossing the Atlantic. We have an Irish priest who got off here having travelled from Southampton for the majority of the photos of its voyage. Cobh is incredibly steep which is difficult but those coloured houses..beautiful.

This cathedral is enormous. Bad perspective due to high ground!

Source- beautifulgymnastics

Antwerp musings

So the team for Japan has been named, and the elite season for the US has not even begun. Most gymnastics programmes are somewhere in between, but a picture of the main players is definitely swiftly emerging.

Teams

In America, the first elite meet, Classics, is just under a month away. Traditionally, this meet can often be a splatfest as the girls use it to test new routines in preparation for Nationals. The Olympic team plus alternates have already qualified through to Nationals and so have the girls who competed internationally so far this season- so Maroney, Ross, Biles, Price, Nichols, Priessman, Dowell and Ernst do not need to compete at Classics but more than likely will anyway. Katelyn Ohashi is presumed out as she is not training yet, Sarah Finnegan is still recovering, and the status of Peyton Ernst is not known as she too had surgery recently. We can pretty much assume that Simone Biles is a lock for Antwerp unless she's injured. Her biggest problem is consistency as she could blow everyone else out of the water for difficulty if she includes one or two upgrades this year, but not if she biffs a bar release. No, not the TTY which as we have seen is not yet ready (if you have not seen it- she gets it around enough to be credited, but it's slightly under. She does not have the height and lands in a deep squat, deeper than sitting- and then falls back. She states that it is scary because her upper body gets it around but her lower body twists slower and her feet don't get around, making it a recipe for ACL tears if she competes it before she masters it) but maybe the full-in double layout, double wolf turn on floor and/or arabian on beam. Simone is the strongest all-arounder that they have, and can potentially qualify for all 4 event finals.

With the more than probable absence of previous contenders Katelyn Ohashi and Jordyn Wieber, the composition of the rest of the team is up in the air. Kyla Ross I would call at this stage another lock, though she needs a hefty upgrade stick to beat off the challenges Brenna Dowell, Ebee Price and Lexie Priessman pose for the second all-around spot. Even if she loses out for the second AA spot in prelims, her bars and beam are definitely needed and should get her easily into both finals. Medalling is quite another matter- her bars would need to approach 6.6+ and her beam roughly the same, the latter is quite a tall order. So, spots one and two are thought to be nearly guaranteed as long as both girls stay healthy. There will be another spot going to be a vault/floor specialist, to complement Simone and potentially take home more than one medal in both finals. McKayla Maroney, Ebee Price, Lexie Priessman and Mykayla Skinner are all contenders for this spot. McKayla, as we have seen, has her amanar back and her old vault, the Lopez. She is also training a double layout which is new, and a double arabian which isn't new but hasn't featured in her routines in years. Her floor could definitely break 6.0 but the combination of her passes she plans on competing is unknown. 3.5 twist or double layout, 2.5-front layout, 1.5- double arabian (unfortunately the dance-through video appears to indicate a hurdle for a 1.5 for the third pass :( and which had so better have the 1.5 placed earlier in her run or she's sunk already) and double pike would probably be the best bet. I don't see her competing the 3.5 twist AND double layout as she was never one for killer endurance on floor, even though she has grown.

Mykayla Skinner has a 6.5 floor routine, and 6.4 and 6.3 vaults. She has trained a half-on double full (Cheng half) though it's unknown if it's something she played around with once or could actually be done this year- after all, her Cheng is explosive. All of which makes her very, very interesting. Lexie Priessman has a full potential on floor of 6.7, not yet competed, and her second vault is unknown. Ebee's second vault is supposed to be a Mustafina, so 6.3 and 6.0 difficulty. McKayla is the one with Olympics and Worlds experience of course, whereas gymnasts like Mykayla have no international experience at all. Should be a great battle. That leaves one spot left, and they don't really have any amazing specialists aside from vault and floor remaining unless Katelyn is back in time to potentially take gold on beam. If not, a solid back-up like Brenna Dowell, who MAY be able to take the second all-arounder spot is the best bet. Ebee too is another very strong contender for that spot. But we might get an unknown like Abigail Milliet, who has a very strong beam routine in training- proving herself capable of medalling at worlds. I do see a team of Biles, Ross, Dowell (insert healthy Ohashi here) and Maroney being the most likely. But I wouldn't bet on it! Nevertheless, my team consists of:

Simone Biles, AA, VT, FX and UB and BB attempts
Kyla Ross, battling for AA with Dowell, UB and BB
Brenna Dowell, battling for AA with Ross, FX and UB attempts
McKayla Maroney, VT and FX attempt.

Beam and bars are not THAT strong but not weak enough to be called a void. Vault, floor and the AA itself are bursting with potential medals.

Romania are only utilising 3 spots. This time I would put money on this team's composition of Larisa Iordache, Diana Bulimar and Sandra Izbasa. But don't be fooled by such lack of depth, as these three are fierce contenders for medals. Although Sandra placed an astonishing fifth in the London AA, it is expected she will do vault and floor only. I say 'only' but the fact is she would be a favourite to take medals on both. The other two will compete all-around. Larisa, with her swish new second vault and 6.9 beam difficulty should have no issues making a number of finals, though she could potentially be pushed out of floor finals if Sandra and Diana (with upgrades) score higher. She's the favourite for gold on beam and is expected to feature on the AA podium. Vault and floor are definitely much more uncertain, especially vault where her current difficulty is not the highest. Her biggest weakness, big surprise, is a weak and badly composed bars routine which lost her the Euros AA gold despite a huge lead after the other three events. She needs upgrades to in any way overcome the handicap her bars pose to her AA chances. Diana's bars are a little better, except for her releases, but her difficulty here is far too low. Her beam too is just 5.9. On a happier note, she is FINALLY getting a new floor routine this summer. Her best shot for a medal is floor, and even then she could get squeezed out of the final if she does not upgrade and if Sandra is back to her best on that event. Bad news for Ana Maria Ocalisan and Stefanie Stanila who once again are not being given a chance. They may not be ready to represent Romania in a major competition...because they don't get any assignments! So this team, barring injuries, will be:

Larisa Iordache AA, BB, VT and FX (battle with teammates)
Diana Bulimar AA, FX (see above)
Sandra Izbasa VT, FX (see above)

With the exception of Viktoria Komova who was injured at the start of this year, last year's Russian Olympic team have not taken a break from training. Which is just as well since this year's seniors are sadly not up to much- with the exception of steady but Sheep-pak'd Evgeniya Shelgunova who appears to be injured. Ekaterina Baturina is probably the second strongest new senior but her difficulty leaves a lot to be desired. If Viktoria Komova is healthy, then she is on this team. So too is Aliya Mustafina who has competed a few times already and will do so again at Universiade. Viktoria's AA scoring potential will be enormous if she's fully recovered, and she should quite easily qualify to bars finals, beam too. Aliya is having quite a few issues with her beam, but she did hit a completely steady routine this year and one or two others that were nearly as good. She's expected to add 0.4 to her bars to up them to 6.7, more than likely a carbon copy of her London routine as difficulty has gone down in the new code. The third spot will go to Ksenia Afanasyeva, who unlike most veterans who stay the same or go downhill, has actually improved. She added bars back to her arsenal but she won't compete them at Universiade. She also has an amanar in the works and is training a full-in double layout. Her floor difficulty is the highest yet competed (Mykayla Skinner competed hers this year in the JO code) so far this year and she stands a great chance of medalling there. If she can hit bars then she's also a very good AA backup. The fourth spot will I think go to Maria Paseka. Even if she just competes the DTY, she should qualify for finals. Anastasia Grishina on the other hand, even if she hits every routine is unlikely to qualify for any final above her teammates. If Viktoria is not ready in time, then Anastasia would take her spot. If Maria proves unable to hit her vaults then I'd take Alla Sosnitskaya instead. My Russian team is:

Aliya Mustafina AA, UB and BB and FX attempts
Viktoria Komova AA, UB, BB
Ksenia Afanasyeva FX
Maria Paseka VT

For the Chinese team, worlds falls just in between two other major competions- the first of which, National Games, is actually more important to them. There are a bunch of retirements of the Beijing and London Olympians expected right after this meet, but should any of them hit and win medals I think we can expect a little delay in their retirement plans. There is only one new senior of importance this year, Lou Nina, and she is out with an arm injury. Consequently, we can expect Yao Jinnan as a lock for this team. In particular, she needs more upgrades on floor to fulfil her AA potential. She is, however, training probably the most exciting upgrade we'll see all year- a Mo Salto! I'd also put Shang Chunsong on this team. Tiny Shang has impressive difficulty across three events, and may yet grow enough to execute a DTY. She has proven herself to be inconsistent however, though not nearly as much as gymnasts like Huang Qiushuang who made a number of important teams on the back of her difficulty. No matter who else goes on the team, they will be fighting amongst each other to make bars and beam finals. They do have a very good vaulter, Li Yiting, but her vaults are quite unpredictable and a bit scary. The third spot will I think be up for grabs between bars specialists Tan Jiaxin and veteran He Kexin, depending on who hits in September. I know Huang Huidan is the one who snatched gold earlier this year but she's very flaky and I don't expect her to hit again when it counts, sadly. Although Yao Jinnan and Shang Chunsong are top quality beamers, I'd still take a beam specialist like Sui Lu or Zeng Siqi for the last spot, due to the lack of floor/vault specialists.

Yao Jinnan AA, UB and BB attempt
Shang Chunsong AA, UB, BB and FX attempt
Tan Jiaxin/He Kexin UB attempt
Zeng Siqi/Sui Lu BB attempt

Japan's team is a bit of a no-brainer, seeing as it has already been named. Two-time Olympian Yu Minobe joins the girls long seen as locks- Asuka Teramoto, Natsumi Sasada and Mai Murakami. The question is, who will join Asuka in the AA? Mai is the obvious bet, but she has very very rarely hit 4/4. For that reason, Natsumi is the best choice. Mai will be looking to make floor and vault finals, Yu beam finals, Asuka bars, beam and floor and Natsumi beam and floor...though she's very very shaky and beam is unlikely for her. Their best hope for a medal is Mai on floor, whose difficulty ranges from 6.0 to a monster 6.7. The latter is very unlikely to ever be credited, as her tumbling and dance skills have unfortunately gone downhill compared to when she was a junior.

Asuka Teramoto AA, BB, UB and FX attempt
Natsumi Sasada AA, BB and FX attempt
Mai Murakami FX and VT attempt
Yu Minobe BB attempt

Canada have lost some of their best seniors to NCAA- Brittany Rogers, Peng Peng Lee and Kristina Vaculik which is more than a bit of a blow. Nevertheless, they do have quite a few promising seniors. Girls like Victoria Moors and Ellie Black are locks if they are healthy. Victoria, who is training a double double laidout, unfortunately had a disastrous time at Nationals as she was sick and had calf issues. Even with that, she has competed very strongly when healthy and her floor is really her ticket to the team as it has huge medal potential. Ellie is a fierce competitor and has made great strides on previously weak events, bars and beam. I'd add Gabriella Douglas and Maegan Chant to this team, the former for her spectacular floor and the latter for her vaulting- not super strong yet, but showing enormous potential there and both need the experience to improve. This team, like Japan, is fairly devoid of someone for bars but should do well anyway.

Victoria Moors AA, FX
Ellie Black AA, FX, VT and BB attempt
Gabriella Douglas FX and BB attempt
Maegan Chant VT and FX attempt

Britain are not exactly in a brilliant position, they have lost the excellent Gabby Jupp to an ACL tear, Rebecca Tunney had a disastrous comeback from injury recently, new seniors like Georgina Hockenhull and Angel Romaeo have not proven themselves yet, bars specialists Ruby Harrold and Becky Downie have fallen more times than they have hit and seriously strong gymnasts like Amy Tinkler, Tyesha Matthis, Ellie Downie and Catherine Lyons are all juniors. Beth Tweddle has refuted rumours that she is retiring but she is almost certainly not going to suddenly knock out a killer 7.0 bars routine as she's still taking a break. Rebecca and Hannah Whelan have definitely not had great competitions so far this year, but both have plenty of time to improve on what they have shown. I believe Rebecca aside from the long break with her recovery, has also grown a bit which will of course impact her routines. That said, I'd put both girls on the team to do AA. In a similar vein, despite the inconsistency of both Becky and Ruby, they are still good hopes for the bars final if they don't fall, so they'd be on the team also.

Rebecca Tunney AA, FX, UB attempt
Hannah Whelan AA, FX attempt
Becky Downie UB attempt
Ruby Harrold UB attempt

Italy's Vanessa Ferrari has made noises about retirement but she's been competing so much this year and just won the AA at Mersin so I think she'll hang on until after worlds. Her presence alone is a huge motivation and boost for the rest of the team. Along with her I think Elisa Meneghini will do the AA and then some combination of Carlotta Ferlito/Giorgia Campana/Elisabetta Preziosa for the other two spots..but I think we'll see Carlotta and Giorgia.

Vanessa Ferrari AA, FX, BB, UB attempt
Elisa Meneghini AA, FX and BB attempt
Carlotta Ferlito FX, BB attempt
Giorgia Campana FX, UB, BB attempt

The All-Around

For a Post Olympic year, I don't think we run the risk of a weak field whatsoever. (In 2005, Monette Russo won bronze and in 2009, Koko Tsurumi). The top Russian and Romanian girls have not taken a break, and while some of the Americans are only getting back to training now, there are enough that the idea of them scrambling to field two top all-arounders is ludicrous. Currently, Simone Biles is the one to beat. She boasts huge difficulty- 6.3 vault and beam, 6.2 floor and 6.1 bars. It's quite likely she'll sneak some upgrades into floor and beam also. Aliya Mustafina has 5.8 vault, 6.3 bars, 6.4 beam and 6.1 floor. Similarly, she has upgrades planned for bars and her beam difficulty may reach 6.7 or higher. The key for both girls is to stay on the beam. That won't be an issue for Larisa Iordache who could well be dragged down by her weak bars instead, but her 6.9 solid beam is a huge boost for her. Her floor is 6.2 and her vault 5.8. Her bars were in and around 5.7 but she can upgrade there. It's far from concrete how USA's second all-arounder will be but we should, from past experience, except them to be strong. China's Shang Chunsong could well be up there if she gets a DTY- her difficulty is 6.7-8 bars, 6.6 beam and 6.1 floor. Yao Jinnan could be the slow and steady threat for bronze either. We are of course, far too far out to really pick the medals but this lot plus a healthy Viktoria Komova are definitely in the forefront for medals.


Vault

Astonishingly deep, potentially much moreso than the lacklustre Olympic final. Expect Simone Biles, a second American, Phan Thi Ha Thanh, Giulia Steingruber, Ri Un Ha, Janine Berger, Oksana Chusovitina, Noel Van Klaveren, Chantysha Netteb, Alexa Moreno, Jade Barbosa, Adrian Gomes, Mai Murakami, Hong un Jong, Ellie Black, Maegan Chant, Sandra Izbasa, Maria Paseka, Yamilet Pena, Fadwa Mahmoud and Larisa Iordache to bring all they can to the (vault) table.  Let us just hope the Produnova chuckers can get up afterwards..though Yamilet's coaching and injury status is unclear, so maybe she is sticking to safer vaults if possible. Last year has taught us that even the surest of sure things can crash a vault so I will not even attempt to divine a top 8 from this. I'd love to see the top 4 make the final though the latter two failed to do so last year. Giulia is upgrading her second vault- doubling it, but both vaults are in danger of being downgraded or heavily deducted due to piking, unfortunately.

Bars

Although Beth Tweddle has said she's definitely not retiring, but as mentioned above she's not in a position to shine this year. Aliya Mustafina and Viktoria Komova will be expected to be in the front of the hunt for medals- and whichever two Chinese gymnasts qualify. Elizabeth Seitz is doing her Def again, newcomers Sophie Scheder, Jonna Adlerteg and Roxana Popa all have strong sets and the brilliant but inconsistent Ruby Harrold and Becky Downie will be pulling out all the stops to make finals. Kyla Ross, Kim Bui, Asuka Teramoto, Noemi Makra and Lisa Katherina Hill are all ones to watch too. There are also one or two Australians like Maddie Leydin who may be in with a shot. All of last year's routines are down about 0.3 in difficulty in this code so I would be surprised if we saw a 7.0 routine. Certainly the Chinese have a few approaching 6.8 though, and there are quite a few girls doing exciting release-release and/or release-transition combinations in their routine to boost difficulty. Whoever makes the final, it will definitely not be a snoozefest.

Beam

We've all been namedropping Katelyn Ohashi for this title when it emerged that her routine has a 7.2 d-score. Although she is very steady with it, her connections are too slow and consequently she has not yet hit past a 6.8 in competition. That's not saying much, since she only competed twice and is currently recovering from surgery. She may be able to get this event back in time and we shouldn't count her out of the running to make the team, but the focus has definitely shifted onto other high-scoring beam routines, or at least until Katelyn's ability to compete this year is clearer. Larisa Iordache is another favourite, and one who is definitely suffering from a few health issues herself that are hindering her usual precision if her recent performance at Anadia is anything to go by. Larisa's beam difficulty is 6.5, she competed 6.7 at Doha and has now competed 6.9. Certainly the latter is the routine she will be unleashing at worlds, and that will be hard to beat. Shang Chunsong remains a major threat, especially if she can improve her dismount. Simone Biles may increase her beam difficulty to 6.7, and Kyla Ross would be a contender too if she upgrades. We should expect an Italian or two, like Elisa Meneghini and Carlotta Ferlito and maybe a Russian if their routines are steady, but this looks like a clear-cut fight between the Romanians and the Chinese.

Floor

The girl to beat is Ksenia Afanasyeva who whipped out an almost perfect routine at Euros and an upgraded difficulty of 6.4. But Ksenia is inconsistent and there are quite a few snapping at her heels- Simone Biles, the second American, Larisa Iordache, one of Sandra Izbasa/Diana Bulimar, Victoria Moors, Mai Murakami, Giulia Steingruber and more. Full-in double layouts, double doubles, 1.5 twists to tucked full-ins and maybe even laidout double doubles will abound. Definitely not shaping up to be a weak floor final.

I updated the predictions that I did last November. You can see them, marked in blue, here.


Do you disagree with my 'teams'? Who I have missed factoring in for event finals? Will we see a laidout double double or TTY? What will Vanessa Ferrari wear?

News and stuff

Romania's senior team are moving from their base in Izvorani to Dinamo club in the capital, Bucharest. This is for a few reasons, according to Mariana Bitang. One, education. They need access to better education for their gymnasts (this comes after a bunch of them failed part of their BAC this summer). Health, they will now have better access to a doctor with less concerns about travel etc. They also feel they will have better equipment. Unfortunately the club is a little rundown so they need to do some work first. This is the second move, back in the day they trained in Deva which now hosts the Junior national team. It appears that it has not been officially written off on as a decision but it is something they are determined to do and they are already there 'and hoping to stay there'.

North Korea are officially back this month after their long ban. I really hope something emerges! Aside from using underage gymnasts, they are also known innovators- Pak salto, counter Kim, double front vault and for using hard skills like the Def and vaults like the Amanar and Cheng. I laughed my head off when someone enquired on the USAG Facebook page as to whether Hong Un Jong is still in training as if anyone has any insight into the country at all, nevermind its gymnastics programme. Hopefully we will see them at worlds next year and before then.

Sandra Izbasa and Catalina Ponor are set to perform at the Univ Gym Gala in the Netherlands in December. Looking forward to videos appearing, especially as I doubt it will contain any LMFAO shuffling.

Kennedy Baker's withdrawal from the Mexican Open is down to a mild calf injury- a tweak I think. So it is more precaution than anything else. On the subject of meets this year- not sure about Voronin Cup. The Russians are withdrawing from the Stuttgart World Cup but the word in interviews is that they are not going to compete this year, which would also rule Voronin out. Remains to be seen.

There is a South American Championships taking place this week. Competing will be one of my favourite juniors, Rebeca Andrade of Brazil. Rebeca won the Brazil Trophy meet recently ahead of tipped favourites Jade Barbosa and Daniele Hypolito. Considering she is 13 and is still has quite a way to go building her difficulty, that is amazing. I will stick up a few videos when they're up.

McKayla Maroney is flying to Oklahoma City with Kyla Ross. The tour is currently there, looks like she's rejoining soon..

Thoughts on London's podiums

Not literally podiums, though the team finals one could have been bigger of course and they reminded me of Cadbury's (way way nicer than American chocolate). Moving on..

TEAM FINALS

USA on top looked like a foregone conclusion earlier this year, until USA's amanar advantage suddenly seemed to be eaten up by Russia's 2 confirmed and 1 possible amanar which along with their bars advantage made them a formidable threat. This only increased closer to the games when beam and floor upgrades started emerging practically every day.  Romania's resurgence with such a small pool of talent was realised probably most forcefully at Euros, which they won. Obviously dismal on bars, the huge start values on beam and floor and the videos of an amanar and cheng made their case for potential gold, especially if mistakes were forthcoming from the other two teams as consistency has long been Romania's greatest weapon in the hunt for medals.

Only a few days before prelims, disaster struck when the news of Larisa's very painful injury came to light. She was immediately struck out of the AA, then reinstated. Doubt over her ability to perform at her best was realised when she watered down in prelims and fell on floor. Romania on the whole played it safe and did not unleash all of their potential upgrades, which lessened their chances of gold or silver even before team finals. Russia did quite well in prelims, but played it safe too and had a good few wobbly beams and a weak floor from Komova to contend with, as well as being one amanar short of USA. USA on the other hand despite showing some errors like Kyla hitting her feet off the low bar (please stop growing Kyla..) and Gabby running out of bounds on floor, fulfilled their promise and stayed ahead of the pack. A great advantage to have going into team finals, even though it did not do their men's team any good in the end.

In the end of course, USA got it together and even though their team had a giant headcase, made no big or even medium errors. Gabby was clearly coached to peak for the right DAYS. Russia had to count a low-scoring amanar from Paseka, very wobbly beams and not one but two disastrous floors from Grishina and Afanasyeva. Romania had a subpar star, who could not do the amanar her team needed to push ahead further, or produce an excellent floor. Bulimar did a beautiful job in Larisa's stead, but counting 5.8 SV when you had a potential 6.7 is galling. Both Russia and Romania played it safe again, while USA fired ahead with all of their long-term upgrades. A closer fight would have been great, but there's no arguing with the final result. Had Russia hit 12/12 they would have gotten a LOT closer, but a 5 point lead is too much. A well deserved win, even if it was heartbreaking to see Russia crumble and Romania unable to fight as hard as they could have done with Larisa at her peak.

Too long, didn't read: Well done USA on a very decisive win, pity Russia and Romania weren't able to give it their all.


ALL- AROUND

This AA was much less exciting than everyone expected heading into the games. In fact, it was anti-climatic and a bit boring. Frustrating too, as overscores were blatant. Not that Gabby was the only culprit- hers were the worst but Komova, Raisman and Mustafina got some gifts too. Larisa Iordache, who could quite convincingly have taken gold had she been able to perform at her best with full difficulty, was placed in the second group. Yao Jinnan fell foul of the two-per-country rule, a thigh injury prevented her from being anywhere near her best, and Deng Linlin and Huang Qiushuang both qualified ahead of her. Not forgetting reigning world champion Jordyn Wieber who also fell foul of it, but much more controversially as she placed 4th, not 19th and did not have an outright 'bad' performance at all. So all in all, a deflating start to the competition, minus three possible stars. Gabby and Vika were always going to be top contenders, as long as both did not headcase in prelims and face the likelihood of being ousted by another all-arounder in their respective teams. Doubt was in evidence as to whether Mustafina had it in her to medal, a bad performance at Euros and a difficult road of recovery being the main reasons fuelling the speculation. Raisman was expected not to qualify at all, with a slim likelihood she could have done so if Gabby had messed up. Surging ahead of Gabby and placing higher than her in prelims, which knocked Jordyn out as she placed behind Gabby- was a huge suprise to everyone. Miss Raisman obviously worked intensely hard to improve her form, and that's all it took. Unfortunately, it also meant she faced a backlash from the media for knocking out the world champion (even though technically Gabby did) and huge attention was placed on Jordyn's plight while Aly's triumph was ignored. Not a great start to the biggest competition of your life.

Gabby retained the quality of performance she showed at team finals, her headcase label was nowhere to be seen. A strong amanar, a steady beam set, great bars and staying in bounds on floor was all it took, 4 great performances in all. Komova unquestionably would have taken the title off her IF she had performed at her best, but she couldn't get it together. A bad landing on her amanar right at the start sunk her, as she scored a huge four-tenths less than she could have done. Great bars, a very strong beam and THE best performed and most beautiful floor of the quad, which nobody thought she had in her..was not enough, she fell just short of Gabby's enormous total. We can argue all day long  about whether Komova's higher standard of beauty in her gymnastics should have swung the gold in her favour, but I don't think so..not with THAT vault. Although Gabby got some sickening scores like the second highest beam score from the whole competition, outscoring all of Sui Lu's and Catalina's magnificent team finals beam, and an insane score on bars, Vika was quite frankly gifted in some of her scores too, most notably beam. I would not blame the judges for marking her execution higher there because of her exquisite form and leaps, but it's clear to see that it wasn't just one gymnast being overscored.

Moving on, wow a tiebreaker. The first of five, but we weren't to know that. And how heartbreaking, especially as both Aliya and Aly had to bear the knowledge that they both had big errors. If either had hit all four, it wouldn't have been an issue. Had they both hit, it most likely wouldn't have been either. But to know that if you were in a tiebreak situation because you didn't do your best is really tough. Aly's big error on beam did her in, as it meant her bars had to be counted. Every other time, her beam could be relied on for a nice high score, but not this time. Aliya had to handle the fact that she fell off beam, staying on would have put her substantially ahead of course. Every tiebreaker sucked, this one the worst I think. Both deserved the bronze. Aly had to go back with the knowledge that she missed out on a medal she earned thanks to a ridiculous rule, and knowing there would be lots of smug fuckers thinking 'Should have given her place to Jordyn'. All in all, a very dissapointing competition. Gabby and Vika's positions were correct thanks to the latter's errors but a tiebreaker really sucked the fun out of it in the end,

Too long didn't read: Gutting that Jordyn, Larisa and Yao weren't in it. Gabby's gold deserved due to Vika's crappy vault. Tiebreaker sucked.


VAULT FINAL

There are no words to describe the horror of this event final. It is almost reassuring to note that the biggest proof of Maroney's talent is not that she still managed a silver, it is that had she repeated the amanar she performed in team finals again here, she would have gotten gold. Gold with a fall. That's incredible. It received a three tenth deduction of landing on the red (fascinating to note that the FIG don't care if your vault landing is so bad you have to come off the mat entirely and practically hug the judges- just as long as you land on white there's no deduction!) and another for landing offline. Anyway, it was very dissapointing that the fantastic Giulia Steingruber failed to qualify after falling on hers, that Maksiuta fell also and that Ti Phan's struggles this year were very much in evidence as she bombed as well.

Disaster struck early on when Elsabeth Black crashed her vault and got a zero. Clearly injured, she had the unbelievable determination to line up again for her second vault. Luckily she realised that it wasn't worth it and she ran past the vault, subsequently being treated for her injury. Very sad to see. Tension struck again when Pena arrived to cannonball her way to a deep squat, the best that could be hoped for. Her coaches clearly believe that instead of correcting her technique- she has the power but it is converted into unneccessary distance instead of height- the best way was to teach her to always get her feet to touch first to avoid a zero. Brilliant. Usually thrilled to be alive after her vault, Pena was absolutely devastated, which was not only saddening to see but also to realise that she must have had insane pressure to medal despite the fact that she had never stood up any of her life-endangering handspring double-front's. It should have been a lesson when not even Produnova managed an upright landing more than once.

On it went, with Chuso being the beast she is and landing both of her vaults. The second one was actually really nice in the air. Her Rudi has deteriorated in form but since we are all in awe that she can handle the pounding of vault there's not much you can really criticise. WHAT a career she had had. Janine Berger proved her selection by landing two really well done vaults, the same as Chuso's but much better performed. She has a lot of power, so much that she could not control the landings well. One to watch. Here comes Paskeka with a 2.25 amanar! What a joy it is to note that the judges DID do their job and award it as a DTY but a certain ex-Soviet Nellie Kim overruled it and gave it as an amanar. Oh Nellie. What an absolute travesty. There's also a furore over Paseka's second vault, which although lovely to watch is being debated as to whether it was laid-out or not, the general consensus being that it wasn't. And up comes Maroney and because she nailed the best amanar ever in team finals, it was almost dissapointing to see her amanar here lost a little form on its usual perfection, was offline and landed out of bounds. But no matter, she'll still win..except the unthinkable happened. Although her Mustafina is much lower than her amanar, she herself stated she has never crashed it. Of her vaults total, she crashed the amanar once as a Junior in competition. It was extremely hard to process that she was sitting in the middle of the mat. So what a huge surprise it was when she found it hard to come to terms with and didn't grin like a maniac afterwards. Sandra landed two very good vaults afterwards and her gold was deserved. But it doesn't change anything about Maroney's status as best vaulter in the world, especially since even with the fall a better amanar would have put Sandra in silver and it doesn't negate the horror of seeing crashes, an injury, a death-defying vault, a wrongly awarded amanar and a deserving bronze winner being screwed over.

TL; DR: Awful, awful, awful. Nellie Kim screws Berger over, numerous crashes and an injury. Worst vault final ever. Gold and silver deserved, rightful bronzer winner robbed.

BARS FINAL

How refreshing, and what a deep field. Komova the defending world and euro's bars champion, He Kexin the defending Olympic champion, Beth Tweddle former world champion and Mustafina and Douglas, both national champions. He Kexin proved the doubters wrong, Jinnan redeemed herself after a miserable experience up until then, and Mustafina showed just how valuable all of the extra time she spent training on bars when she was too injured to tumble or vault has been. Crushing to see Vika miss out again after a fluke mistake and to see Beth's steps on dismount cost her a higher medal- but she is very lucky to hold onto that bronze, for which she can thank Komova! Lovely to see her finally medal, great moment.

Not much else to say here, this was a fabulous final even with Vika and Gabby's errors. Fully agree with this podium.

BEAM FINAL

Quick, women's haven't had a tiebreaker in a while! After the awesomeness of bars final, hopes were high for another final with fair scoring and few errors. It was not to be. Iordache, controversially subbed in for the may-or-may-not-have-been-ill (cough low difficulty..?) Bulimar, fell off. Komova gave up entirely, failing to fight to stay on and then sitting the Patterson. A clearly knackered Gabby who had been fighting inconsistency for so long prior to the bars final, returned to her former hit-or-miss self and fell. The veteran Catalina showed nerves and had an error and wobble-filled routine, breaking hearts everywhere. Afanasyeva gave a gloriously elegant performance without much of a chance at medalling due to her low difficulty. Fabulous to watch. Deng Linlin and Sui Lu nailed EVERYTHING, but they got the order wrong..Deng's routine was stiff with too many pauses, compared to Sui Lu's sensational exercise. Lu was robbed. Oh, and they couldn't even get Aly's d-score right, and Mihai was too dense to contest it. Luckily the Karolyi's saved the day and got his ass in gear by screaming at him from the stands. Certainly not the best beam she's ever done, but it deserved bronze in light of the amount of disasters in this final. Along with vault in particular, a huge argument for ONE-TOUCH WARM-UP!! I agree with the three on this podium, but silver and gold should have been switched.

FLOOR FINAL

A mixed final, though not with quite the same disaster level as beam or vault. I had high hopes of Afanasyeva's amazing routine medalling, Raisman or Ferrari clinching the bronze and either Sandra or Cata taking the other medal. A redemption by Jordyn for her non-AA appearance would have been great too, although her difficulty with uncredited leaps would effectively have thrown her outside of the medals anyway. It was tough to see her not at her best, going out of bounds and lacking fire in her eyes. Afan did well to maintain her stamina and land everything, but those out of bounds were a killer. Very dissapointing for this wonderfully choreographed and exciting routine. Crappy to see Sandra fall on her last pass after doing so well also. I would not have put Aly in gold medal position  but her performance was mindblowing, amazing landings, the first showing of her phenomenal first pass these games and she had such a sparkle and surety in her oft-contested leaps. No question here, Aly killed it and deserved that medal. Her difficulty was very tough to beat, especially as Cata did not do her full-twisting double layout and the other two main contenders faltered.

Beautiful routine by Mustafina, but Ferrari was really destroyed here. She deserved a higher score. Graceful dancer she is not- but neither are Raisman or Cata. She is furious over being in a position to lose that tiebreaker, which is no surprise as she really was screwed. The fifth tiebreaker, and probably the scabbiest one of all, especially as Aly went on to her own glory after her AA dissapointment.

In case you couldn't tell, writing overly long sentences is an ingrained habit of mine and which required heavy editing of all of my essays in university before printing..ah the frustration before deadlines when I realised there were were sentences of six or more lines. Anyway, I'll try to be more cautious of this in future but I'm too tired to edit it here!

Beam and floor event finals

Two more event finals, two more tiebreakers! FIG need an overhaul, and a huge kick up the arse. Moving on.

Beam had quite a few top contenders, Sui Lu and Cata Ponor the top favourites, with Deng Linlin, Aly Raisman, Gabby Douglas and Viktoria Komova relagated somewhat but still top contenders.

Sui Lu  Up first. She has the old school beam grace, fluidity and form. Although the Chinese are awesome at beam, she's the best they've produced in quite a while. I could watch this over and over again. Her tumbling line is my favourite, incredibly difficult and she stuck it cold. Gorgeous leaps and toepoint. Tiny step back on a pike back. So close to perfection. Very nice red glittery leotard 15.5

Catalina Ponor After being incredibly fierce in the team finals, she loses it and returns to her qualifying routine. Overcooked a turn, wobbles everywhere. Fierce otherwise, chucked the full twisting double pike but it was incredibly low. Unfortunately not at her best today. Wearing a fierce black leotard with lots of silver swirls, decent enough but the silver kind of killed it 15.066..too high, that was a crap routine by her standards

Deng Linlin Total precision, great form and an incredible combination..almost ran out of beam when she stuck the Korbut on the end. She doesn't have the grace of Sui Lu and didn't have great rythmn, too many pauses. White leo with some colour swirls, decent. 15.6..too high, Sui Lu has been robbed already.

Larisa Iordache Larisa did not qualify, she was the first reserve. Diana Bulimar qualified ahead of her and was pulled. Sounded like a Bitang and Bellu stunt of old, but it has emerged that Diana is injured. Regardless of whether this is true or not, Larisa is quite clearly injured herself. So much so that Marina Bitang said she regretted allowing her to do the AA at all. Anyway, Larisa comes off on her tumbling line, which she has struggled with since her injury. Fought hard to stay on. Rest of the routine was lovely, beautiful jumps and total precision in her standing fulls and connections. Gorgeous triple twist with a small hop. Sigh. Larisa really regained herself well, but it was a mistake to allow her to compete in the state she's in. That was a heartbreaker. Brings back her yellow Pikachu leo from Euros and it is fabulous. 14.2

Ksenia Afanasyeva She of the amazing floor routine delivers again here on beam, lovely long lines in her tumbling and a fabulous full turn tour jete leap. So lovelyly but her difficulty kills her, 5.8 against 6.5/6.6. Wearing the bland but absolutely not offensive or ugly Russian team leo. 14.583

Gabby Douglas Here comes Gabby! Huge roar from the crowd. Has delivered strong beam routines THREE times in a row now, plenty are predicting it's too much to ask of her and her former headcase-ness to deliver again. Lovely lay-out step-out's, she has become more graceful I think in the last while. Leg up on a standing full but she fights it back on, but it bodes ill for her as she misses her foot seconds later, clings onto the beam and puts a foot down. Wow. Not nice to see- although I was afraid of her emdalling as I believe she is outclassed here and has been overscored on this event, I don't enjoy seeing falls from her, or anyone. Recovers well and finishes strongly. Can't help but mention she is wearing McKayla's vault EF leo and I'm surprised. It suits her more than McKayla but with the choice available she went for an unlucky one. Hmm. I can't see any of them going for white again, especially her and M. BBC's feed was really kind to her, the slow-mo recap showed absolutely nothing except her fall. Three times. 13.633

Viktoria Komova Can she put her unbelievably shitty Olympics behind her and deliver? Strong contender for a bronze. Wobbles on her first skill. Such extension and leaps, divine. Looking rattled and far from composed. Great sheep jump and lovely tumbling series. Huge wobble on a punch front, fights to regain control and comes off anyway. DAMN. Vika is pissed and rattled now. I would not have been surprised if she stormed off and gave up. Anyway, continues and goes for her Patterson, which she sits. Wow. Stupid move to go for that, she quite clearly had neither the frame of mind or energy to land it properly. Wearing the lovely red and white AA leotard. Vika should be watched, that is too much for her to handle. 13.166

Aly Raisman I thought Aly had only an outside chance at a medal but Vika and Larisa have just handed her an opportunity, as has Cata with her underpar routine. Wobbles and misses a connection but she fought fiercely to regain her rythmn..you could almost hear her thinking 'You must be joking if you think I'm going to fall NOW'. Rest of the routine is typical Aly, nails all of the rest of her connections, tumbling and leaps. Obviously a totally different style to Vika and Sui Lu etc. but so enjoyable to watch her attacks and she really has cleaneed up her form. Great stuff from her. She is so determined here. Rocks that Patterson, small hop forward. Yes! Wearing the patriotic flag leo seen in a press photo a while ago, and which trampolinist Savannah Vinsant wore the other day. Suits her really well, though it's not fabulous. 14.966, well harsh. Didn't have her full d-score due to the missed connection but that thing deserved around a 15.1

Annnnd Mihai files an inquiry. D-score lowballed. And it's successful, Aly jumps to 15.066 and ties with Cata. Aly's execution is far higher due to her really clean routine and she has the bronze!

Deng Linlin takes gold, Sui Lu silver and Aly Raisman takes bronze ahead of Catalina Ponor on a tiebreaker. Wow. Deng had a great routine but it was too slow. Sui Lu deserved that gold, she was only a shade off absolute perfection and had the difficulty behind her. She's in absolute bits, and I'm not surprised or critical. She was robbed and she knows it. Deng was a VERY worthy silver, would have had no issues with that. Catalina was just not on form today, she looked like she knew it too from right after she finished. Gifted that score and Aly deservedly took her bronze. Another tiebreaker- and another huge mistake from the d panel whose ONLY job is to calculate d-score.

Vika is getting huge criticism for her attitude. She probably is too fragile, but she really has had a miserable time of it. Let's just hope she can get some sports psychologist and regain her consistency and her potential to be the most fabulous gymnast in the world. Sui Lu, McKayla Maroney, Vika Komova, Mustafina last week are all being called horrible names. It's such a shame, the work that goes into their routines, their huge potential, and their age and crushed dreams...it's a disgrace that they have to face public outrage because they did not look thrilled in the process. I say, good for them for not being fake. Vika though needs help to get through this, as she is now showing she's as fragile as porcelain. I hope she can take a leaf from Mustafina's fierce bitch book and come back fierce. (Disclaimer: Fierce bitch doesn't mean 'bitch')

And after that heartbreaker, what a FANTASTIC high bar final. Horton and Leyva did really well but this thing belonged to Hambuechen and Zonderland. Amazing stuff.

And onto floor. Ksenia Afanasyeva is the artistic favourite, though lacking in d-score a bit. Romania's Sandra Izbasa and Catalina Ponor are favourites, but Aly Raisman with a complete first pass is right up there.

Ksenia Afanasyeva Oh, Ksenia. Great double layout but goes OOB. LOve this music and her choreography is just amazing, best floor I've seen in a long time. Lovely two whips to triple. OOB on the third pass, she's lost it now. Good finish, but that was really costly 14.566

Jordyn Wieber Girl with a point to prove. Jordyn seems a little skittish or just not as 'on'- Geddert has said she is carrying a stress fracture. How crap for her. Great double double but has to hop back, and a leap on another pass brings her out of bounds. Devastating. Gets through the rest of the routine fine and nice double pike at the end. She's miserable, really sad to see such a star falter at the games. Looking well in the same flag leo as Aly. 14.5 Ouch :(

Aly Raisman Hopefully that bronze and Jordyn's errors have inspired her. Needs that layout! She's on fire, sticks the first pass WITH layout. Fabulous double piked arabian with a leap. Showing her determination in her choreography, she has improved here. Lovely triple full, stuck. Enormously high double pike to end. Form issues as always but she has improved, that was the best floor she's ever done. And what a reward, 15.6! That's too high, even for how great that was and how high her d-score is. 15.4 would be perfect.

Catalina Ponor Needs to really top Aly here, but her difficulty is lower. Throwing a Chusovitina first pass would help but she stays safe with the double layout- stuck! Wow, fire in her to beat Aly after that tiebreaker. Sticks her triple twist but it's still quite fugly with leg form. Great routine, she really brought it. 15.2 That's correct, too high with her messy legs in her triple perhaps considering she has already lost three tenths to Aly on difficulty. Romanians in the crowd are pissed and boo! Too bad, they're not looking at the d-score and after a fabulous crowd all through these games, that shit is annoying.

Lauren Mitchell Has had issues with a tear in her stomach muscle but that was at podium training..she's definitely improved on that, really strong tumbling and great double arabian. Unfortunately she sticks a leap on everything and they are quite low and fugly. Not cool. Though she is not the only one by a long shot, it she is the inventor and the worst offender and it artifically boosts her d-score to within range of Aly. Code's fault, not hers. Great floor from her and possibly her last performance at this level, so well done to her for hitting when it counts. Wearing the Aussie team final leo, pink with a cobwebby sleeve pattern. One my my least favourites these games. 14.833, that's fair.

Vanessa Ferrari Wow. I was waiting for her to compete individually to really bring the ugly back to leotards and she has delivered more than I ever thought possible. The AA one was actually really nice, until you spotted the cut-outs on her shoulders. But she stepped it up a notch here. The body of the leotard is really nice, blue with some glittery pink siz-zag pattern on her sides. Works really well. And then...it's one-sleeved with a shoulder cut-out on the other sleeve! Why Vanessa why! On to her routine, lovely double double and full twisting double pike to back tuck. Fast enough to get credited. Decent choreo and some great leaps. Best she's been in a long time. 14.9. ROBBED It's as if they deducted for lack of sleeve. There was nothing overtly wrong with that routine.

Aliya Mustafina Interesting to see how she contends. She has really matured on floor and this music is really growing on me. Must find the Cradle of Filth song that the start and end come from, Dani Filth would be proud. This really showcases how dramatic and fierce she is. Anyway, textbook double arabian to stag jump- which is my favourite leap out of a pass, and a great leap in general. Falls out her turn, DAMN. That's expensive. Very messy legs on the triple full, but judges don't seem to judge that too harshly here. D-score downgraded to a 5.9 and she gets a 14.9! It's a well deserved score as she really was great here, but..Ferrari is screwed on the tiebreak. Yes, another tiebreak. Wearing the red and white leo again. She's thrilled! Ferrari is gutted, feel for her as she totally screwed over on her own score.

Sandra Izbasa It's not over yet! The defending champion is here to knock someone off a medal, probably not Raisman as she doesn't have the uber-difficulty to contend with that score. Beautiful tumbling, great full twisting double pike to start. Going well and she brings her front tuck with a half twist to her hands and knees. Crap. It was her last pass, she didn't get enough purchase on the ground before she launched into the punchfront but she was too far advanced to stop it. Very sad to see, but she certainly has done so well here already. She looks very accepting of that. Wearing her vault final leo in turquoise. 13.333

Two tiebreaks and two more people screwed! I hope immense pressure is put on FIG to change that. Everyone would like a modification to the two per country rule too, or its abolition. For the AA, it would be nice if the third girl per country could qualify if she has over a 58. For event finals, a score over a 14.8.

And..no more gymnastics :( At least, not artistic. Beam was a heartbreaker, tough to see so many falls and errors. And very sad to see more overscoring and underscoring. Sui Lu is absolutely justified. Jordyn stands out as someone with just as much cause to be as devastated as Vika- Vika doesn't have TF gold, but she medalled in the AA Jordyn wasn't able to even compete in. Really wanted to see Jordyn end on a high note, and we didn't get that either today. Injury or not, she peaked too soon.

OH MY GOD

WORST. VAULT EF. EVER

Absolutely devastated for McKayla Maroney. To expect a gold and have EVERYONE in the world ever expecting you to get a gold and then to have that to happen has to be the worst moment of her life. But did she rage and cry? No, and I am sbolutely amazed she didn't cry. She held it together, hugged Sandra and smiled on the podium. WOW. That takes guts, considering this was far more assured than even Komova's gold chances. Komova had at least one fierce contender to deal with, Maroney had none- just a strong fight for silver and bronze below her. Nor was she ungracious about her medal, she stated 'I am not disssapointed with silver, I am dissapointed with my performance'. If anything good comes of this it is that she will be fired up to beat everyone next year and probably to stick a TTY in the process. Ultimate respect for her reaction and quotes.

'OMGZZ she should NOT have gotten silver with a fall, it's disgraceful.'As long as you blame the system, not the gymnast. However, I agree with her silver. She has far and away the best technique not only of her fellow finalists, but in general. Nobody has done the amanar better. We see textbook form and great landings often, but with the rest of her vaults Maroney stands as the best vaulter of all time. This will never happen again, vault scoring is being changed. As it stands now, nobody can touch McKayla for vaulting and it's too bad that Paseka and Berger are too far below her difficulty and execution combined to touch her. Hardly McKayla's fault now is it.

Paseka's 'amanar' was actually a 2.25 yurchenko. Not only was it not fully around, she came OFF the mat and looked like this on her block:

 

Her landing looked exactly like Shawn Johnson's infamous 2.25 "amanars". So, Maroney was gifted with her silver? More like Paseka was gifted 0.7 in crediting this as an amanar, and on top of that- it got a 15.4! What a joke.

But it doesn't end there! Not only was Paseka's score a disgrace, it edged Janine Berger out of bronze. Janine had two excellent vaults, big steps back but really great vaulting. Janine was devastated and furious, and no wonder. Clearly was not going to challenge for gold or silver with Maroney and Izbasa around, but that WAS a bronze.

Is that it? NO! Elsabeth Black had a nightmare, crashed her first vault and got a zero. It's another controversial zero too. She was injured after that and balked out of doing her second vault, running past the mat. Wise decision, but what a nightmare for her. Even BBC thought she should appeal the first vault.

But wait for it! We were also treated to Yamilet Pena Abreu trying to land her handspring double front. Produnova must rue the day she introduced that vault to WAG (yes she was't the first attempt, a Korean tried..but everyone forgets her) if she cops any of Pena's efforts. Now, because Pena comes from a nonentity of a country in the gymnastics world, it's really not suprising that she attempts the most difficult vault in order to qualify and try to medal. However, her technique is flawed on this and it's hard to watch when you know she has no chance of landing ir properly. What was REALLY wrong with this was the expectation placed on her. Normally after crashing it, she gets up with a smile and a shrug and looks happy to be alive. Not here, she was absolutely gutted. Clearly, far too much pressure was placed on her to medal. Ridiculous.

I AM happy for Sandra Izbasa, who clearly vaulted the best today and was elated with her win. But a vault final featuring the golden favourite sit down a vault, a crash and an injury, a cannonball sit down, a vastly overscored and wrongly credited amanar and devastation on the face of no less than three girls is a nightmare. Scoring has been a letdown in ALL events in London. I am absolutely disgusted and heartbroken at how shoddy this has been.

McKayla is going to continue training apparently. FANTASTIC NEWS. I would have expected her to continue even if she did get gold, but this will hopefully inspire her further. What do I want to see from her? I would like to see her unleash a fabulous floor routine with an unscary third pass and a consistently strong beam routine. IF she continues training bars which I hope she does as she has great potential there- I'd be thrilled if she threw a Def. The height and flight she gets on her geinger is the highest I have ever seen, and the fastest and best twister in the world is probably very capable of a Def. As for vault, I would be thrilled with a TTY and she absolutely deserves a vault named after her (not the amamanr renamed..). Having a TTY would also give her the opportunity to downgrade her second vault. Her Amanar is well capable of more twists. BUT if it's not consistent, keeping the amanar is still enough to keep her ahead of the pack.

To everyone freaking out that Maroney didn't hug Paseka, shut up now. Evidence suggests she was looking so far up that she didn't realise and the camera panned away very fast. Who are you to suggest from a second of footage that Maroney didn't hug her? Who cares anyway? She was in absolute shock. And I'm not a hypocrite- I will absolutely not pass judgement on ANY gymnast regardless of nationality for being in shock/crying instead of smiling like a loon while their dreams crash around them.'Komova's a bitch, Musty is a brat, Maroney is spoilt and ignored Paseka'. Just horrifying to see this ignorance and spite everywhere. Update: McKayla has seen all the fuss about her, and has tweeted about how she hugged both girls, both are her friends, that she was in absolute shock and didn't know what she was doing and that sportmanship is very important to her. Hopefully that will shut everyone up, but I'm gutted she had to see it. Because what you really need after the worst day of your life is to find everyone turning on you for not being thrilled about it. Mustafina had had to ask people to stop contacting her, Vika and Grishina on vkontakte (Russian facebook). Clearly they were getting lowballed too. Disgraceful. I hate people. I have to go back and edit the sl** word out of a mocking post about USAG facebook because it's leading a lot of sick sick people to this blog who are searching 'McKayla Maroney sl** Mckayla Maroney bu** McKayla Maroney as*'. Just vile.

I'll never predict medals or describe anyone as a lock for gold again. Predicting favourites is one thing but this just shows you're never safe from being suprised until you're dead.

And thank you Reddit, I am well aware that this reads like a rant. But what vault final were you watching? The one I watched was a disgrace, and I wrote this right after. It is absolutely rant worthy. I am not professional and am allowed sound like a teenager if I want..especially since it's only a few years since I was one. Also, I am not American. In fact, only a few posts down I mention being Irish. 

2 days with no gymnastics :(

It's getting tough to cope I have to say. But, all event finals still to come! Tomorrow we have men's floor finals, women's vault finals and men's pommel horse finals. For men's I'd like Denis Ablyazin of Russia to win floor and Louis Smith of GB or Kristian Berki of Hungary to win pommel horse. Vault is of course obvious and the most predictable victory of all. The highest execution score in FIG approved competition is 9.8, Dragulescu's 2008 vault. It would be awesome if McKayla could beat that and officially have the highest e-score since the new code. I know the deduction they are taking but that thing deserves higher than 16.233 if having a low vault that is offline and onto the red is 15.966. Her Mustafina is textbook too. Cannot WAIT.

Silver and bronze is more of a fight. Certainly Sandra Izbasa is the next highest contender, but Chuso, Paseka and Berger could give her a good run for her money. Am I worried about Pena? No. I admire her ability to fling that thing regardless, and I understand why it's important for her to do such a difficult vault and stand out from the crowd and qualify, but seeing a vault crash like that and still score high goes against the spirit of gymnastics somehow. I don't want her zeroed, but I don't want to see it rewarded with a medal or for her to be injured either. Ideal podium? Maroney, Izbasa, Chuso..but I think Chuso could be pipped as her execution is pretty bad these days. But this is the Olympics of insane scoring, so who knows!

10 days to go OMGOMG

Anticipation unbearable at this stage! USA are on their way, Russia are leaving on the 21st. I have not heard anything about Romania as of yet. China are getting acclimatised in Salto, Northern Ireland and are a bit miffed with all the rain, glad they got here early so.

Full Twist has some excellent photos up and is uploading footage http://www.facebook.com/FullTwist.net A BBC news clip briefly shows He Kexin nailing her Li Ya combo, she looked sharper than she has in a good while, good for her if she gets her peaking right. The coaches got to visit the Titanic musuem (Titanic was built in Belfast) but made the gymnasts stay back and rest! Apparently they have a heavy police escort at all times, who patrol outside the gym. This is a volatile time of the year in Northern Ireland, usually referred to as 'marching season'. History bit at the bottom if you want an explanation. Anyway, not a time of year you would choose to travel there, so fair play to Salto and everyone involved for managing it in spite of the difficulties with the time of the year.

USA are picking up all of their swag in Washington right about now before continuing to London. Photos on twitter all show healthy girls. However, GGMB rumours state that Ebee is injured, and Sarah is having issues with her foot. Also states that Marta wants Jordyn to lose ten pounds and that McKayla has not fixed her third pass, and went OOB in camp. Brilliant. Anyway, these are all unconfirmed. If Ebee IS injured that's a disaster because she can fill in anywhere and has an awesome amanar. Sarah too is very valuable. Let's hope this is just rubbish. Diet rumours, although Jordyn has looked a bit bulkier this year, I cannot see her extremely protective coach allowing her to be starved. That infernal third pass of McKayla's had better be fixed, she has no hope of replacing Gabby in TF if it's still dodgy.

Translations of interviews with Sandra Izbasa and Larisa Iordache have been pasted onto intlgym forums. They are worth a read, even though not that extensive. Lovely positive attitudes, they seem extremely ready for this and appear to be peaking at the right time. Komova's personal coach has stated that he wants the hype around Vika to relax for her own good. In a way, this is a tad worrying as it suggests that Vika is a bit fragile and could be thrown off by extra attention. Anyway, let's hope she's able to stay focused and on her game. It's going to be a sloooow ten days waiting for all of this to kick off!










Skip if you've no interest in what the deal is in July in Northern Ireland
(History bit: On the 12th July 1690 the Protestant claimant to the British throne defeated the Catholic claimant, after he fled to Ireland to drum up Catholic support. This is celebrated by Protestants building massive towers of pallets for bonfires on which are burned numerous tricolours, the flag of the Republic of Ireland. The Orange order, an order dedicated to upholding Protestant traditions,  hold marches and deliberately provoke unrest by marching in Catholic areas, insisting on their right to do so. It has provoked bloodshed and mayhem in the past. This year they stopped outside a Catholic church which wasn't on their route and played an anti-Irish song. Lovely. Basically, it causes unrest every year, drags up the old hatred. Disclaimer: I have no issue with Protestants or Catholics who want to live peacefully. Those who deliberately antagonise and provoke the order side are basically, scum. The Orange order are known sectarian bigots. I would have the same problem if it was the other way around, but in this instance it's not)

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.

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.

Other challengers for TF gold

I do expect USA to clinch TF gold but I can't say I would be devastated if they didn't. Dissapointed obviously as they really have the most potential by far and such great depth of athletes compared to other countries BUT as my country is not a contender at all, not having patriotic ties sure helps!

Now I really don't think Russia can take that gold from US. Komova appears stronger and better able to contend than she was last year. I also love the fact she appears much healthier looking and lost the waif look, yay! Mustafina, great to see her back. I would say she will have regained almost all of her previous difficulty by now, but she has lost the sharpness. Her twisting ability while never perfect, has deteriorated badly. Ponor on the other hand improved hers, so all is not yet lost for Aliya, I wouldn't count out a big improvement there but she will still be hurt from floor scoring and vault. If she competes an amanar I will cry. She was never able to land it perfectly, her legs were always locked and dodgy looking so the ACL wasn't a big surprise. But the pressure is on with USA fielding 5 amanars (this is using MY team of Wieber, Raisman, Ross, Douglas, Maroney. AND another with Price as alternate). Komova could have it beautiful in the air however and really help scoring. Bars of course a HUGE strong point. Floor is a little bit weaker. Grishina's is amazing, Komova and Musty at this point do not appear able to really outscore US on this, but we'll see.

Loving Romania's comback from basically nothing! It was great to see them victorious at Euro's. Hopefully that means they can really motivate themselves against an improved Russia and the dominant US in London. I see them fighting spectacularly for silver with Russia, couldn't call a winner at this point! Iordache is just fantastic, love her energetic and difficult floor- that double double looks great. Isbaza looks in great shape with lovely routines and Ponor's beam is spectacular. Her floor has improved, but I doubt they'd use her in TF on it. They will get high scores on floor and beam. their lacklustre to say the least bars and uncertain amount of Amanars/great DTY's might pull them down.

After such an amazing TF in 2008, China have lost their sparkle. They still obviously have strong points but it all looks a bit scrappy and as if they won't complement each other near as much as the 2008 team did. Beam and bars will no doubt be beautiful but other events just do not look as if they have high scoring potential. Which is a great shame after such a phenomenal performance but hey, they might pull a few surprises out of the bag.

I am devastated Ukraine will not field a team. United Kingdom on the other hand may well be able to place better than 5th. Hannah Whelan and Rebecca Tunney in particular are very strong competitiors, Pinches, Tweddle and Francis also looking very well. Tweddle's bar routine is astonishingly difficult, yet she seems to be hurt with her execution score. Hopefully she can tidy it up because if anyone deserves EF gold on bars, it's her.