In good news, my laptop is my own again rather than shared which is great and will make blog posts much less rushed. I'm also firmly on the jobhunt and the fatigue is definitely starting to lift. Happy new year to me!
In much more exciting news, it's 2016-year of the Olympics AND a whole bunch of new seniors are eager to make an impression in time. I can't believe that we are in the Olympic year, although I can well believe as seen on twitter and tumblr earlier today that Simone Biles has won 27% of available WAG world medals this quad.
Anyway, today is all about the new seniors. I have an incomplete list here. A slightly depressing document given the sheer number that have retired, injured out or faded away already but anyway, it's a super exciting new bunch!
The USA of course are going to net quite a few, Laurie Hernandez, Norah Flatley, Emily Gaskins, Sydney Johnson-Scharpf, Jazmyn Foberg, Abby Paulson, Ragan Smith, Christina Desiderio, Margzetta Frasier and Rachel Baumann. People have been waiting for the first two to turn senior for years as they've been well known since or nearly before turning senior. The power of youtube! Of course, several of the others have been making waves for quite some time too, like Ragan Smith and Sydney Johnson-Scharpf. Rachel Baumann is more of a newcomer to the scene, qualifying elite in 2014 although having an elite older sister in the same gym did mean she had a following. Jazmyn Foberg has been one of the quiet types, firmly in Laurie's shadow until she surprisingly won Nationals in 2014 and had a very close-fought silver last year.
As regards Rio, all eyes are on Laurie Hernandez, Ragan Smith and Norah Flatley for a look-in, but for all of them it's a super tough ask even with their talent. It all depends on what the team needs once the core of the team is built and that's impossible to call at this time. I will say that I think it will be easier for people outstanding on one/two events like the latter two rather than Laurie because even though she's so strong in the all-around, she's not as high-scoring as some of the others they already have.
For other countries, it will be much easier for the new seniors to slot in to the Olympic picture. Catherine Lyons is poised to be a major asset to Team GB, she complements the powerhouses they already have in spades perfectly. They could definitely do with a fabulous beam but I think what will be most helpful is her execution scores, she is significantly cleaner than the others in general, and messy execution is what's holding GB back a bit. Teal Grindle is a major prospect too, but I think the size of the team could be against her. I'm unsure about Georgia Mae Fenton, she's always been lovely to watch but hasn't seemed to improved much. There will always be surprises though.
Russia will be hoping for some super-consistent beamers to join their ranks! Angelina Melnikova is a no-nonsense all-arounder that hopefully will make a big splash in the senior ranks, she gives off the impression also that she has a lot more to give. Daria Skrypnik has been well known for years, she's got beautiful lines and is typically Russian in style. Best on bars, DTY under her belt like Melnikova and potential on beam...overall I'm not convinced about her though. Maybe with more time. Natalia Kapitonova is outstanding on bars, but like Skrypnik will struggle to make an impact there when they already have such strength on the event. She's nice on floor too but not very high-scoring. Ekaterina Sokova has been dealing with injury, hopefully she'll be back in fine fettle this year. She's built like Melnikova and is similar, a good all-arounder and beamer.
Romania could do with about 15 or so new seniors to replenish the ranks. Asiana Peng who was a big deal a few years back seems to have faded from the equation gradually so we can pretty much count her out, sadly and she's probably not the only one given Romania's recent-ish track record with junior/premature retirements. Andreea Ciurusniuc and Andra Stoica were the ones I had my eye on, but I haven't heard anything about the latter lately. Ciurusniuc competed quite a bit in 2015, she's solid..not outstanding but has good potential. Good floor. I've definitely fallen out of touch with Romania's juniors/new seniors this last year, Maria Holbura who's a new senior is a relatively new name to me, whereas others on my list seem to have fallen by the wayside.
China has gained a LOT of fresh faces to the senior ranks, although for now they can be roughly divided into those poised for Rio selection and those who are focused more towards next quad given their lack of upgrades. Among them are Liu Tingting, Lv Jiaqi Luo Huan, Zhou Linlin, Liu Jinru, Lu Yufei, Fu Yuyao, Gong Kangyi, Wu Jing and Zhang Jin. Some names are much, much more familiar than others and I've got some catching up to do. Not much has been heard of Lv Jiaqi or Luo Huan lately- they could be dealing with injury etc. but hopefully they'll be in the mix this year- I've been awaiting them for years, along with Liu Tingting. The latter shines on beam with some fantastic connections but she's super solid everywhere. Very sparky and energetic, as well as super-clean. Still has a good bit of future potential to unlock and difficulty to improve throughout the next quad, but I would definitely say she's one to watch for this year too. Fu Yuyao is fabulous also with massive potential. Another great beamer but in general her difficulty is so low that it's all about the future with her. Likewise Zhou Linlin although hers is higher- beam is her strong event so she'd need to improve elsewhere and/or pile on the difficulty to stand out, at the moment her bars and floor are a bit uninspiring however. Gong Kangyi breaks the mould a bit- she excels on floor where she's got some very nice tumbling already and an ambitious first pass. She's got a nice beam to her name but is surprisingly super weak on vault and bars are not her thing, but her floor is quite valuable. She's falling somewhere between the two groups. Firmly in the first camp though is Liu Jinru who is developing nicely into the powerhouse she showed flashes of years ago- she was interestingly once coached by Cheng Fei, albeit briefly. Her floor is strong but vault is the main attraction with very difficult vaults already under her belt. Rudi and DTT I believe, although I am hopeless at differentiating Tsuk and handspring vaults. All in all seems like exciting times ahead for China.
Shallon Olsen is finally a senior! Her floor and vault should be a great boost to Canada, there's video proof of the amanar in training that she has looked capable of for years and she HAS competed a Silivas. Definitely one to watch. Canada will also net Rose Kaying-Woo and Megan Roberts.
Elizabet Vasileva of Bulgaria is also a senior. She's always exciting to watch just for the fun of her ridiculous flexibility.
And last but not least, I'm excited to see Koko Dobashi of Japan who is really lovely to watch on all events.
Who are you most excited about? Which country/team will be most impacted in your view? How long until off-season is over??
Showing posts with label Liu Tingting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Liu Tingting. Show all posts
Friday, 1 January 2016
Tuesday, 2 June 2015
Chinese Nationals AA results
I hate being too busy/worn out to blog. Hoping to make some changes this year that will have a positive impact. The first, and easiest, is buying a new laptop. This one after 5 years and even switching OS to linux to increase its longevity is now running so slow I expect to hear dial-up noises any time now. When typing, text appears in bursts. Fun...
Anyway, Nationals! Here are the results of the AA today, translated by the wonderful Golden China
Translating ain't easy and english-speaking regularly-posting great sources for Chinese gymnastics are extremely rare, so hurray!
By all accounts, we were not blessed with a hit-fest. Very, very few went clean. One of which, astonishingly, was Shang Chunsong with a very respectable score. I always expect her to come to grief on bars somewhere. Made up for that a bit with a very nervy beam, but all in all, a great day for her. Wang Yan was lucky to place second after she sat her beam dismount, left out skills, and then had some big error/possible fall on her double double on floor. I am waiting and waiting for her to learn to be a competitor since she has so much to give, and now that she's senior, I'm getting impatient. She could be so great! But, it's early in the season and I'm prepared to keep rooting for her. Chen Siyi is a nice surprise considering she has some health issues, although her scores aren't particularly outstanding. Liu Tingting had a meltdown on beam sadly but Mao Yi seems to have been quite impressive today. She's a super twister and is definitely one to watch.
Hoping to catch up on available videos sometime this week! It will be very interesting to see how the team is formed for Glasgow. Shang Chunsong is the only lock, I expect Wang Yan and Mao Yi/Deng Yalan to feature. The rest is very much dependent on health. In our top 10 from today, the top 5 are age eligible, plus Bai Yawen. Let us hope Yao Jinnan continues to be not in contention. Rio is far more important and shoulders are so pesky and fragile.
Overall, I'm uneasy about the amount of falls today. It's early, and there are health issues, but I continue to despair over how ill-suited China is to this code. And so injury-prone with their body types.
Anyway, Nationals! Here are the results of the AA today, translated by the wonderful Golden China
 |
| Source- golden-china.tumblr.com |
Translating ain't easy and english-speaking regularly-posting great sources for Chinese gymnastics are extremely rare, so hurray!
By all accounts, we were not blessed with a hit-fest. Very, very few went clean. One of which, astonishingly, was Shang Chunsong with a very respectable score. I always expect her to come to grief on bars somewhere. Made up for that a bit with a very nervy beam, but all in all, a great day for her. Wang Yan was lucky to place second after she sat her beam dismount, left out skills, and then had some big error/possible fall on her double double on floor. I am waiting and waiting for her to learn to be a competitor since she has so much to give, and now that she's senior, I'm getting impatient. She could be so great! But, it's early in the season and I'm prepared to keep rooting for her. Chen Siyi is a nice surprise considering she has some health issues, although her scores aren't particularly outstanding. Liu Tingting had a meltdown on beam sadly but Mao Yi seems to have been quite impressive today. She's a super twister and is definitely one to watch.
Hoping to catch up on available videos sometime this week! It will be very interesting to see how the team is formed for Glasgow. Shang Chunsong is the only lock, I expect Wang Yan and Mao Yi/Deng Yalan to feature. The rest is very much dependent on health. In our top 10 from today, the top 5 are age eligible, plus Bai Yawen. Let us hope Yao Jinnan continues to be not in contention. Rio is far more important and shoulders are so pesky and fragile.
Overall, I'm uneasy about the amount of falls today. It's early, and there are health issues, but I continue to despair over how ill-suited China is to this code. And so injury-prone with their body types.
Saturday, 21 December 2013
Mish mash
First, here are some of the Chinese juniors I was discussing. Google images doesn't have a clue who they are...yet.
Luo Huan, master beam and bars technician.
Liu Tingting, the light and floaty all-arounder.
Lv Jiaqi, old-school fabulousness. How striking is she?!
Wang Wei, tumbler extraordinaire.
Wang Yan, the star.
Yuan Xiaoyang (on right. Lv Jiaqi on left), diver turned powerful all-arounder.
We will hopefully see some of them at Pac Rims.
Moving on to (somewhat) recent competitors before it gets too hazy in my mind..
Ebee
Back to the AA with a bang. Really great to see her in action after US Nationals where she just wasn't ready. The amanar looked great in the training video, at Stuttgart and...at Glasgow too. She looked to me to have the height to land it there also, but I'm sure it will only improve. Lovely open double double, some awesome bar work especially the Church to bail but I think she most surprised me on beam. Her routine at Glasgow was just awesome, I don't think she even betrayed a flicker. Interesting composition also. The battle between her and Larisa Iordache was very interesting to see, however, I thought they would be closer. Ebee gets hit for her switch half leap I believe, and she was penalised on bars at Stuttgart for not hitting handstand in her bail, but other than that I thought the scoring was a little harsh on her. Or maybe not, but in comparison to some others.
Fantastic comeback performances and I'm very interested to see where she goes from here. Her bars alone are very valuable, though she is committed to Stanford starting next year. She could always defer..but then maybe conservation for college is better than staying in elite and getting injured.
Larisa Iordache
What a heartbreaker this girl is. The last time she hit in the AA was at Euros. At worlds of course she hadn't returned to training long enough to be consistent. But since then she has fallen more than once, with one fall at each of Stuttgart and Glasgow. Bars has majorly improved, when she doesn't rush through the routine. But consistency has dogged her before the injury that nearly kept her from worlds, and the plandular fasciitis that dogged her Olympics. It's strange, she doesn't seem like an inconsistent gymnast but when you look back at her record..
Anyway, I'm very pleased with how her bars are looking, and it looks like the 6.7 beam if not the 6.9 is well within her reach. I thought her vault was noticeably worse at Glasgow but then she went right after a balk so maybe she just got a bit nervous. All in all, she did very well to beat Ebee at Glasgow and looks to be set on course for a good year. Especially if she can gain more consistency.
Roxana Popa
I was absolutely thrilled when she won Mexican Open AA. And not surprised at all. This girl is on fire with three events out of four, and beam, her weakest, is getting stronger I think. Floor is just fabulous, her second pass is fantastic and her Memmel is surprisingly good. Bars have some technical issues letting them down, they really are so strong otherwise. On the back of that win over not one but two Americans (granted..both of them fell), I had high hopes she could hold her own in Glasgow and fight for bronze. But it wasn't to be when on her first event, vault, she balked and threw a layout yurchenko worth 4.4 instead of her usual dynamic DTY. A very smart decision since she obviously felt something was wrong in her block or approach, but still very sad. Her bars score was I felt criminally low, but I'm no COP expert and apparently there are deductions there and quite a few. Maybe the angle isn't the best for me to tell as well.
So quite an up-and-down few weeks for her. Hopefully beam and bars can be further worked on, and the latter upgraded. I feel she has a lot to show and can make an impact on the world stage as well as Euros.
Asuka Teramoto
That Rudi came out of nowhere at Glasgow! She had been having issues with the DTY and a video was shown of her training a DTT..but a Rudi was totally out of left field. No, it was not super clean but it looked serviceable and a good foundation for further improvement. Sadly, she injured herself on it at the Toyoto Chunichi World Cup. Hopefully it's minor and she's back on track with the vault and her other upgrades, like beam, in time for Pac Rims at least.
Asuka in general is not as clean as the typical Japanese gymnast, but so very impressive nonetheless and her form doesn't stand out as bad on the international stage. Hopefully she can sparkle next year, like she did at her international debut (to the mainstream) in London.
Bailie Key
Is reassuredly human. I begin to think she's a robot of consistent clean routines, but she has counted two falls now this year, beam at Japan Junior and now floor at Mexican Open- though both off-season, of course. Not to mention that she seems to have grown a lot. Nonetheless, she managed to win the Junior AA Mexican Open, remaining undefeated in the AA for the entire year. What a gymnast this girl is. It's thrilling to think of what she will be like as a senior. In particular, I'm looking forward to seeing her bars develop, she's well capable of more, though I do admire her pacing so easy bars from her now isn't a bad thing.
Peyton Ernst
Peyton has been dogged by falls this year, and Mexican Open was no different, with one on beam and a fluke fall on floor. It's always hard to know, especially with the injury rate, who can make a major team but I can't see Peyton on one. She does not stand out enough on any event except maybe beam, but her execution lets her down somewhat.
Maggie Nichols
I see more hope with Maggie though. I'm not sure exactly why...she's cleaner and more solid but still doesn't stand out. But sometimes it's the quiet ones.
Zeng Siqi
Why is she getting assignments. She needs serious conditioning and excellent coaching to be of use again. In fairness to her, she is hindered still by an ankle injury she picked up two years ago. But her beam going downhill to the point that she now can't stay on it at all is a separate issue. Her beam at Mexican Open was not exactly surprising, but so sad. She has a beautiful beam and is a lovely dancer, but I can't help but write her off.
Edit- I may have forgotten Stuttgart's team competition...
A win for Team China is always going to be fabulous news in my book. Unfortunately, it was very much an A team against a lesser calibre from Russia..minus Aliya Mustafina of course, and she only competed one event. A little bit of 'who can fall less' was in evidence. Yao Jinnan and Tan Jiaxin's falls were heartbreaking though the latter was not surprising. Good news lies in the fact that Huang Huidan and Tan Sixin hit some beautiful routines on beam. Speaking of beam, Aliya Mustafina appears to have been fired up by her new worlds title there, producing yet more steady routines. Which have been changed, again..it's like she gets bored having the same routine for more than a few weeks. BUT I'm really loving the new front aerials..they're very precise and well done. An Onodi is classed as a front element so she was credited for a CR in team qualifications that she didn't do. I hate that..it's happening a bit too often in my book. Thankfully she snuck in a BHS in team finals. This little team showdown highlighted the fact that I think Nanning is going to be a very scrappy team finals since depth is non-existent except for the US, and I don't believe even their team will be really stellar.
Glasgow was the only competition that I was able to watch from start to finish. And what a splatfest it was. I suppose that is not surprising given the time of year, but it was so disappointing. Ruby Harrold and Raer Theaker coming to grief in front of a (pretty much) home crowd, Asuka on beam when it was all going so well and she looked like she could snatch bronze, Roxana and the troublesome vault, Ebee and the amanar, Larisa on beam...
Bring on next year :) Especially March and April which look to be crammed with competitions...
Who stood out in a good or bad way from the recent competitions? Should Ebee and Larisa have been closer like I thought? How annoying were the Glasgow announcers?
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| Copyright- ZhouYouShiJie |
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| Copyright- ZhouYouShiJie |
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| Copyright- ZhouYouShiJie |
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| Copyright- ZhouYouShiJie |
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We will hopefully see some of them at Pac Rims.
Moving on to (somewhat) recent competitors before it gets too hazy in my mind..
Ebee
Back to the AA with a bang. Really great to see her in action after US Nationals where she just wasn't ready. The amanar looked great in the training video, at Stuttgart and...at Glasgow too. She looked to me to have the height to land it there also, but I'm sure it will only improve. Lovely open double double, some awesome bar work especially the Church to bail but I think she most surprised me on beam. Her routine at Glasgow was just awesome, I don't think she even betrayed a flicker. Interesting composition also. The battle between her and Larisa Iordache was very interesting to see, however, I thought they would be closer. Ebee gets hit for her switch half leap I believe, and she was penalised on bars at Stuttgart for not hitting handstand in her bail, but other than that I thought the scoring was a little harsh on her. Or maybe not, but in comparison to some others.
Fantastic comeback performances and I'm very interested to see where she goes from here. Her bars alone are very valuable, though she is committed to Stanford starting next year. She could always defer..but then maybe conservation for college is better than staying in elite and getting injured.
Larisa Iordache
What a heartbreaker this girl is. The last time she hit in the AA was at Euros. At worlds of course she hadn't returned to training long enough to be consistent. But since then she has fallen more than once, with one fall at each of Stuttgart and Glasgow. Bars has majorly improved, when she doesn't rush through the routine. But consistency has dogged her before the injury that nearly kept her from worlds, and the plandular fasciitis that dogged her Olympics. It's strange, she doesn't seem like an inconsistent gymnast but when you look back at her record..
Anyway, I'm very pleased with how her bars are looking, and it looks like the 6.7 beam if not the 6.9 is well within her reach. I thought her vault was noticeably worse at Glasgow but then she went right after a balk so maybe she just got a bit nervous. All in all, she did very well to beat Ebee at Glasgow and looks to be set on course for a good year. Especially if she can gain more consistency.
Roxana Popa
I was absolutely thrilled when she won Mexican Open AA. And not surprised at all. This girl is on fire with three events out of four, and beam, her weakest, is getting stronger I think. Floor is just fabulous, her second pass is fantastic and her Memmel is surprisingly good. Bars have some technical issues letting them down, they really are so strong otherwise. On the back of that win over not one but two Americans (granted..both of them fell), I had high hopes she could hold her own in Glasgow and fight for bronze. But it wasn't to be when on her first event, vault, she balked and threw a layout yurchenko worth 4.4 instead of her usual dynamic DTY. A very smart decision since she obviously felt something was wrong in her block or approach, but still very sad. Her bars score was I felt criminally low, but I'm no COP expert and apparently there are deductions there and quite a few. Maybe the angle isn't the best for me to tell as well.
So quite an up-and-down few weeks for her. Hopefully beam and bars can be further worked on, and the latter upgraded. I feel she has a lot to show and can make an impact on the world stage as well as Euros.
Asuka Teramoto
That Rudi came out of nowhere at Glasgow! She had been having issues with the DTY and a video was shown of her training a DTT..but a Rudi was totally out of left field. No, it was not super clean but it looked serviceable and a good foundation for further improvement. Sadly, she injured herself on it at the Toyoto Chunichi World Cup. Hopefully it's minor and she's back on track with the vault and her other upgrades, like beam, in time for Pac Rims at least.
Asuka in general is not as clean as the typical Japanese gymnast, but so very impressive nonetheless and her form doesn't stand out as bad on the international stage. Hopefully she can sparkle next year, like she did at her international debut (to the mainstream) in London.
Bailie Key
Is reassuredly human. I begin to think she's a robot of consistent clean routines, but she has counted two falls now this year, beam at Japan Junior and now floor at Mexican Open- though both off-season, of course. Not to mention that she seems to have grown a lot. Nonetheless, she managed to win the Junior AA Mexican Open, remaining undefeated in the AA for the entire year. What a gymnast this girl is. It's thrilling to think of what she will be like as a senior. In particular, I'm looking forward to seeing her bars develop, she's well capable of more, though I do admire her pacing so easy bars from her now isn't a bad thing.
Peyton Ernst
Peyton has been dogged by falls this year, and Mexican Open was no different, with one on beam and a fluke fall on floor. It's always hard to know, especially with the injury rate, who can make a major team but I can't see Peyton on one. She does not stand out enough on any event except maybe beam, but her execution lets her down somewhat.
Maggie Nichols
I see more hope with Maggie though. I'm not sure exactly why...she's cleaner and more solid but still doesn't stand out. But sometimes it's the quiet ones.
Zeng Siqi
Why is she getting assignments. She needs serious conditioning and excellent coaching to be of use again. In fairness to her, she is hindered still by an ankle injury she picked up two years ago. But her beam going downhill to the point that she now can't stay on it at all is a separate issue. Her beam at Mexican Open was not exactly surprising, but so sad. She has a beautiful beam and is a lovely dancer, but I can't help but write her off.
Edit- I may have forgotten Stuttgart's team competition...
A win for Team China is always going to be fabulous news in my book. Unfortunately, it was very much an A team against a lesser calibre from Russia..minus Aliya Mustafina of course, and she only competed one event. A little bit of 'who can fall less' was in evidence. Yao Jinnan and Tan Jiaxin's falls were heartbreaking though the latter was not surprising. Good news lies in the fact that Huang Huidan and Tan Sixin hit some beautiful routines on beam. Speaking of beam, Aliya Mustafina appears to have been fired up by her new worlds title there, producing yet more steady routines. Which have been changed, again..it's like she gets bored having the same routine for more than a few weeks. BUT I'm really loving the new front aerials..they're very precise and well done. An Onodi is classed as a front element so she was credited for a CR in team qualifications that she didn't do. I hate that..it's happening a bit too often in my book. Thankfully she snuck in a BHS in team finals. This little team showdown highlighted the fact that I think Nanning is going to be a very scrappy team finals since depth is non-existent except for the US, and I don't believe even their team will be really stellar.
Glasgow was the only competition that I was able to watch from start to finish. And what a splatfest it was. I suppose that is not surprising given the time of year, but it was so disappointing. Ruby Harrold and Raer Theaker coming to grief in front of a (pretty much) home crowd, Asuka on beam when it was all going so well and she looked like she could snatch bronze, Roxana and the troublesome vault, Ebee and the amanar, Larisa on beam...
Bring on next year :) Especially March and April which look to be crammed with competitions...
Who stood out in a good or bad way from the recent competitions? Should Ebee and Larisa have been closer like I thought? How annoying were the Glasgow announcers?
Friday, 6 December 2013
Spread the Love for China
China are a little mysterious. A lot of news is closed, the juniors tend to only compete in internal competitions of which videos are hard to find if Piibunina isn't there...and there is just a general lack of news about them in the public English language domain. Not to mention that the mass retirement of China's veterans leaves a gap both in knowledge of the ones to watch in the next generation and also interest since the next generation are relatively unknown quantities. In this post I will look at who I think are the star juniors (thankfully I now know a LOT more about them than when I tried to do it more than a year ago :D ), starting with the list of the new National Team. I haven't forgotten the Mexican Open and Stuttgart but they will be amalgamated with Glasgow and inspiration has struck due to one or two posts I have seen wondering about the juniors.
Here's the new national team. I omitted the girl's provinces for clarity.
1. Coached by Xiong Jingbin and Zhang Xia
Shang Chunsong
Chen Siyi
Lu Qiuying
Deng Yalan
Liu Ying
Lv Jiaqi
Wu Jing
2. Coached by Wang Qunce and Xu Jinglei
Yao Jinnan
Huang Huidan
Liu Tingting
Wang Yan
Zhou Linlin
Zheng Lin
Luo Huan
3. Coached by some male coach and Sun Haiou
Tan Jiaxin
Zeng Siqi
Xie Yufeng
Hong Ke
Liu Jinru
Chen Chaohui
Bai Yawen
4. Coached by some male coach and Zhang Haiyan
Tan Sixin
Zhang Jin
Zheng Wen
Yuan Xiaoyang
Zhu Xiaofang
Li Ziqi
Gong Kangyi
5. Coached by some male coach and Sun Ping
Wang Wei
Qin Chang
Li Haiming
Fu Yuyao
Zhang Yuxin
Lin Jinyu
Zhao Wei
Obvious missing girls from the above are Mei Jie, Fan Yilin, Liu Zhilin and Xu Chujun. That doesn't mean all hope is lost, for one reason or another it may not have been in their interest to attend the selection camp, they may be recovering or injured, having routines restructured or it's just thought they might do better training provincially for the time being. But, some have fallen off the radar like Zhu Siyan and Xie Wenwei.
In my last post but one I detailed China's new bonus system. Obviously it aims to strengthen areas in which they are weak as a country; but as I said then I think it will be fairly messy or not really that effective in the short term. Quite frankly they do not have the body types necessary. But change has to start somewhere and hopefully they become more accepting in that regard. Huang Yubin is the (still fairly new) head coach and he is starting as he means to go on.
Recently, the MAG and WAG seniors were given a challenge. For the women, they are expected to show a 3.5 twist on trampoline at the end of winter training next spring. Trampoline will be incorporated more into training, and this is of course a good idea since it does help in developing new tumbles, spatial awareness etc. But I'd have to question a 3.5. It's not a viable option on hard surface for the vast, vast majority. Only one gymnast ever did it justice, it's so difficult to get fully around. Of course, a double layout or piked double arabian could be a little cruel since there are definitely more twisters than tumblers. Never fear, Shang Chunsong was straight off the bat and received the prize of an iphone for being the first girl to successfully complete the task. She gave it to her mother, of course.
China do not have much depth this quad. The 'old guard' are all at university. The current seniors that would make a team are: Yao Jinnan, Shang Chunsong, Huang Huidan, Tan Sixin, Zeng Siqi (maybe?) and Tan Jiaxin. There is also Lou Nina, a new senior, but she has been injured so is MIA at the moment. Next year, Wang Wei is the only new senior of note. And that's the problem, since their home worlds is next year. The quad is far from a write-off though as there is a glut of amazing juniors who will make their debut in 2015 and 2016. It doesn't appear that Russia or Romania are in an enviable position either, so who knows, 2014 may be fairly evenly matched in that sense.
Picture interlude! I have a feeling this post will be loooong..
And back to business with the upcoming seniors.
Name: Wang Yan
Turns senior: 2015
YOG elegible: Yes
Best event: Vault or beam
All-arounder: Yes
Skills: DTT, Rudi, Shawn Johnson's acro line on beam - BHS 2 feet, BHS 2 feet, layout.
Notable D-scores: 6.7 BB, 6.2, 6.0 VT
Why Wang Yan: Wang Yan is tiny and compact, but powerful. She has huge vaults, SERIOUSLY huge for China let alone a junior, but is far from a one-eventer. Her full beam d-score is 6.7 which I'll admit she hasn't hit this year, though she did get 6.5 at Chinese Nationals Prelims in May. Floor is not anything to get excited for yet, though her landings on tumbles are nice and high. Bars show potential, not great flow or handstands currently. She has had some issues with injury this year so didn't have a good National Games but thankfully looked a lot better at the Japan Junior, placing second behind Bailie Key in the AA, with 14.950 on vault and 14.7 on beam. At this competition she placed higher in the AA than Laurie Hernandez, Andreea Munteanu, Maria Bondareva, Maria Kharenkova and Kim Janas, amongst others. Little bean, as she is now known, also placed second on vault and third on beam. Not bad for one who seemed to spring up out of nowhere in the midst of well-known juniors. She's more than likely going to be China's representative at YOG next year so hopefully she will show more progress on floor and bars there.
She's had better landings than this (wasn't fully healthy here), but I can't find any others :( Youku is for obvious reasons impossible for me to search.
Name: Liu Tingting
Turns Senior: 2016
YOG elegible: No
Best event: Floor I think
All-arounder: Yes
Skills: Nothing worth mentioning so far. Her d-scores have increased dramatically since last year but it's moreso the potential at the moment.
Notable D-scores: 5.8 BB
Why Liu Tingting: Aside from lovely long lines and extension, despite being very short, Liu Tingting shows massive potential in the all-around. Her legs seem quite springy and powerful so she looks well capable of a good standard of difficulty in time, yet she's also very graceful. Fabulous execution on everything except twisting, where she unfortunately sickles a bit but even her double pike and tuck look amazing. It's so interesting how perfect execution on a skill can make it look quite different in a way to the norm. She had the highest beam execution score at Chinese Nationals Prelims this year and also the highest execution on bars last year at Nationals, where she scored 9.0 which is basically 9.7. She has a lovely swing on bars and the makings of a great routine there, and is similarly stunning on beam but I do think she shines on floor. Hard to pick really.
Bars Beam Floor
Name: Luo Huan
Turns Senior: 2016
YOG elegible: No
Best event: Beam
All-arounder: Beam/bars specialist but..maybe
Skills: Lin, Lin 1/2 and Ling pirouettes, BHS-BHS 2 feet-layout, Onodi-sheep
Notable D-scores: 6.2 UB, 6.3 BB
Why Luo Huan: For this. The best beam routine of the year, without question. Such a pity she was three years too young for Antwerp. Luo Huan is another princess of technique, execution and extension. Just look at that Onodi and double pike, and the layout which hangs in the air..I think there's a tiny skip there but it's still massive. She has the same precision on bars, with no less than three lovely pirouettes and a sky-high Jaeger. Ignore the silly fall. She is essentially a joy to watch and amongst a nation of bars and beam queens, still manages to stand out.
Name: Yuan Xiaoyang
Turns Senior: 2015
YOG elegible: Yes
Best event: Vault
All-arounder: Edit: Maybe. The 2.8 bars routine is not hers actually!
Skills: DTT, BHS-BHS 2 feet-Layout, switch ring leap.
Notable D-scores: 6.0 VT, BB
Why Yuan Xiaoyang: She's powerful, basically. Has a better build than quite a few of her fellow national team members, which is always helpful. Not quite as clean as the two above who are really quite textbook, but could be just as useful if not moreso since of course, vault is an issue with this team. Her inferior execution is explained by her late entry to the sport, she started off a diver no less, so hasn't had as much grounding in basics as the others. Her floor hasn't reached the same level as vault and nor has Wang Yan's actually, but I'm optimistic that both have the goods and the power to build difficult routines. Surprisingly, Yuan Xiaoyang is also good on beam, with a high difficulty solid routine. She may not be the most stylish or with standout execution but I have a feeling she might prove the old adage 'slow and steady wins the race'.
Beam Floor Unfortunately her DTT is not to be found, but it exists I swear..
Name: Lv Jiaqi
Turns Senior: 2016
YOG elegible: No
Best event: Beam
All-arounder: At the moment UB/BB but..I think she could well be
Skills: switch ring leap, BHS-BHS 2 feet-Layout-wolf jump-scissone, BHS-LOSO (go on, add another!), Lin
Notable D-scores: 6.0 UB, 6.3 BB
Why Lv Jiaqi: She's oldschool, I always feel like I'm watching a Chinese gymnast from the 90's glory days. There is an elegance and presence in the way she moves and performs that is beyond her years. Another who shines on beam and bars, but in a different way I feel. I thought last year she might be one of the fan favourites whose gymnastics is great to watch but who doesn't really get anywhere, but she has definitely shown this year that she means business. I'm hoping her floor and vault can progress too. And if your eyes watered at the killer dead hang below, the good news is she's in a good group to learn some shaps.
If you're looking for her on youtube, her name is Lv, or Lu with an umlaut (which stubbornly refuses to paste correctly..). Writing Lu will find the Lu (umlaut) videos though.
Name: Wang Wei
Turns Senior: 2014
YOG elegible: No
Best event: Floor
All-arounder: Bars are not her thing..I'm going with no
Skills: DTY (?) DLO, tucked full-in, triple twist, round off-layout
Notable D-scores: 5.8 VT (?), 6.0 BB, 5.6 FX
Why Wang Wei: Two main reasons; she can tumble AND she's turning senior next year, when she is badly needed in the small pool of girls China have for Nanning. It's quite an impressive skill selection she has on floor, with some connections either from tumbling or dance, it would boost her difficulty higher still. Her vault, as seen above, is in question. There WAS a DTY. It has not appeared in a good while and has caused some issues with bad landings, so she has reverted to a FTY. She's still classed as having a DTY and it may well reappear (safely, hopefully!) so I will leave it as a mystery. Leaps are not Wang Wei's friend and they're in sharp contrast to the girls above, but I wouldn't write off her beam either.
Beam
Floor
Other juniors to nerd up on: Fan Yilin 1999, Qin Chang 1999, Mei Jie 1999, Xu Chujun 1999, Zhou Linlin, 2000. It might be difficult as youtube is not overwhelmed with videos of Chinese juniors. But, names to keep in mind. Fan Yilin is glorious on bars, Qin Chang's event is beam, Mei Jie beam and bars, Xu Chujun beam and floor and Zhou Linlin leans towards AA.
There is quite obviously a dearth of floor workers and vaulters, and a gap as the glut of new seniors will be 2015 and 2016 - next year is lacking bigtime. Of course, China spend longer on and care more about basics and flexibility, so skills are added later, compared to other countries. I don't think they will be able to pull off great results next year under the circumstances. But I do expect the gymnasts mentioned here to make their mark. It's not unusual for teams to have off years and while China has deeper problems such as filtering by body type still, they can be up at the top again.
Here's the new national team. I omitted the girl's provinces for clarity.
1. Coached by Xiong Jingbin and Zhang Xia
Shang Chunsong
Chen Siyi
Lu Qiuying
Deng Yalan
Liu Ying
Lv Jiaqi
Wu Jing
2. Coached by Wang Qunce and Xu Jinglei
Yao Jinnan
Huang Huidan
Liu Tingting
Wang Yan
Zhou Linlin
Zheng Lin
Luo Huan
3. Coached by some male coach and Sun Haiou
Tan Jiaxin
Zeng Siqi
Xie Yufeng
Hong Ke
Liu Jinru
Chen Chaohui
Bai Yawen
4. Coached by some male coach and Zhang Haiyan
Tan Sixin
Zhang Jin
Zheng Wen
Yuan Xiaoyang
Zhu Xiaofang
Li Ziqi
Gong Kangyi
5. Coached by some male coach and Sun Ping
Wang Wei
Qin Chang
Li Haiming
Fu Yuyao
Zhang Yuxin
Lin Jinyu
Zhao Wei
Obvious missing girls from the above are Mei Jie, Fan Yilin, Liu Zhilin and Xu Chujun. That doesn't mean all hope is lost, for one reason or another it may not have been in their interest to attend the selection camp, they may be recovering or injured, having routines restructured or it's just thought they might do better training provincially for the time being. But, some have fallen off the radar like Zhu Siyan and Xie Wenwei.
In my last post but one I detailed China's new bonus system. Obviously it aims to strengthen areas in which they are weak as a country; but as I said then I think it will be fairly messy or not really that effective in the short term. Quite frankly they do not have the body types necessary. But change has to start somewhere and hopefully they become more accepting in that regard. Huang Yubin is the (still fairly new) head coach and he is starting as he means to go on.
Recently, the MAG and WAG seniors were given a challenge. For the women, they are expected to show a 3.5 twist on trampoline at the end of winter training next spring. Trampoline will be incorporated more into training, and this is of course a good idea since it does help in developing new tumbles, spatial awareness etc. But I'd have to question a 3.5. It's not a viable option on hard surface for the vast, vast majority. Only one gymnast ever did it justice, it's so difficult to get fully around. Of course, a double layout or piked double arabian could be a little cruel since there are definitely more twisters than tumblers. Never fear, Shang Chunsong was straight off the bat and received the prize of an iphone for being the first girl to successfully complete the task. She gave it to her mother, of course.
China do not have much depth this quad. The 'old guard' are all at university. The current seniors that would make a team are: Yao Jinnan, Shang Chunsong, Huang Huidan, Tan Sixin, Zeng Siqi (maybe?) and Tan Jiaxin. There is also Lou Nina, a new senior, but she has been injured so is MIA at the moment. Next year, Wang Wei is the only new senior of note. And that's the problem, since their home worlds is next year. The quad is far from a write-off though as there is a glut of amazing juniors who will make their debut in 2015 and 2016. It doesn't appear that Russia or Romania are in an enviable position either, so who knows, 2014 may be fairly evenly matched in that sense.
Picture interlude! I have a feeling this post will be loooong..
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| Shang Chunsong receives her prize. Source - Che Li's weibo |
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| He Kexin kisses a dolphin. Source - weibo.com/haiyanjidiguan |
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| The bed of a (UB) world champion. Source - weibo.com/xujingleiticao |
And back to business with the upcoming seniors.
Name: Wang Yan
Turns senior: 2015
YOG elegible: Yes
Best event: Vault or beam
All-arounder: Yes
Skills: DTT, Rudi, Shawn Johnson's acro line on beam - BHS 2 feet, BHS 2 feet, layout.
Notable D-scores: 6.7 BB, 6.2, 6.0 VT
Why Wang Yan: Wang Yan is tiny and compact, but powerful. She has huge vaults, SERIOUSLY huge for China let alone a junior, but is far from a one-eventer. Her full beam d-score is 6.7 which I'll admit she hasn't hit this year, though she did get 6.5 at Chinese Nationals Prelims in May. Floor is not anything to get excited for yet, though her landings on tumbles are nice and high. Bars show potential, not great flow or handstands currently. She has had some issues with injury this year so didn't have a good National Games but thankfully looked a lot better at the Japan Junior, placing second behind Bailie Key in the AA, with 14.950 on vault and 14.7 on beam. At this competition she placed higher in the AA than Laurie Hernandez, Andreea Munteanu, Maria Bondareva, Maria Kharenkova and Kim Janas, amongst others. Little bean, as she is now known, also placed second on vault and third on beam. Not bad for one who seemed to spring up out of nowhere in the midst of well-known juniors. She's more than likely going to be China's representative at YOG next year so hopefully she will show more progress on floor and bars there.
Name: Liu Tingting
Turns Senior: 2016
YOG elegible: No
Best event: Floor I think
All-arounder: Yes
Skills: Nothing worth mentioning so far. Her d-scores have increased dramatically since last year but it's moreso the potential at the moment.
Notable D-scores: 5.8 BB
Why Liu Tingting: Aside from lovely long lines and extension, despite being very short, Liu Tingting shows massive potential in the all-around. Her legs seem quite springy and powerful so she looks well capable of a good standard of difficulty in time, yet she's also very graceful. Fabulous execution on everything except twisting, where she unfortunately sickles a bit but even her double pike and tuck look amazing. It's so interesting how perfect execution on a skill can make it look quite different in a way to the norm. She had the highest beam execution score at Chinese Nationals Prelims this year and also the highest execution on bars last year at Nationals, where she scored 9.0 which is basically 9.7. She has a lovely swing on bars and the makings of a great routine there, and is similarly stunning on beam but I do think she shines on floor. Hard to pick really.
Bars Beam Floor
Name: Luo Huan
Turns Senior: 2016
YOG elegible: No
Best event: Beam
All-arounder: Beam/bars specialist but..maybe
Skills: Lin, Lin 1/2 and Ling pirouettes, BHS-BHS 2 feet-layout, Onodi-sheep
Notable D-scores: 6.2 UB, 6.3 BB
Why Luo Huan: For this. The best beam routine of the year, without question. Such a pity she was three years too young for Antwerp. Luo Huan is another princess of technique, execution and extension. Just look at that Onodi and double pike, and the layout which hangs in the air..I think there's a tiny skip there but it's still massive. She has the same precision on bars, with no less than three lovely pirouettes and a sky-high Jaeger. Ignore the silly fall. She is essentially a joy to watch and amongst a nation of bars and beam queens, still manages to stand out.
Name: Yuan Xiaoyang
Turns Senior: 2015
YOG elegible: Yes
Best event: Vault
All-arounder: Edit: Maybe. The 2.8 bars routine is not hers actually!
Skills: DTT, BHS-BHS 2 feet-Layout, switch ring leap.
Notable D-scores: 6.0 VT, BB
Why Yuan Xiaoyang: She's powerful, basically. Has a better build than quite a few of her fellow national team members, which is always helpful. Not quite as clean as the two above who are really quite textbook, but could be just as useful if not moreso since of course, vault is an issue with this team. Her inferior execution is explained by her late entry to the sport, she started off a diver no less, so hasn't had as much grounding in basics as the others. Her floor hasn't reached the same level as vault and nor has Wang Yan's actually, but I'm optimistic that both have the goods and the power to build difficult routines. Surprisingly, Yuan Xiaoyang is also good on beam, with a high difficulty solid routine. She may not be the most stylish or with standout execution but I have a feeling she might prove the old adage 'slow and steady wins the race'.
Beam Floor Unfortunately her DTT is not to be found, but it exists I swear..
Name: Lv Jiaqi
Turns Senior: 2016
YOG elegible: No
Best event: Beam
All-arounder: At the moment UB/BB but..I think she could well be
Skills: switch ring leap, BHS-BHS 2 feet-Layout-wolf jump-scissone, BHS-LOSO (go on, add another!), Lin
Notable D-scores: 6.0 UB, 6.3 BB
Why Lv Jiaqi: She's oldschool, I always feel like I'm watching a Chinese gymnast from the 90's glory days. There is an elegance and presence in the way she moves and performs that is beyond her years. Another who shines on beam and bars, but in a different way I feel. I thought last year she might be one of the fan favourites whose gymnastics is great to watch but who doesn't really get anywhere, but she has definitely shown this year that she means business. I'm hoping her floor and vault can progress too. And if your eyes watered at the killer dead hang below, the good news is she's in a good group to learn some shaps.
If you're looking for her on youtube, her name is Lv, or Lu with an umlaut (which stubbornly refuses to paste correctly..). Writing Lu will find the Lu (umlaut) videos though.
Bars Beam
Name: Wang Wei
Turns Senior: 2014
YOG elegible: No
Best event: Floor
All-arounder: Bars are not her thing..I'm going with no
Skills: DTY (?) DLO, tucked full-in, triple twist, round off-layout
Notable D-scores: 5.8 VT (?), 6.0 BB, 5.6 FX
Why Wang Wei: Two main reasons; she can tumble AND she's turning senior next year, when she is badly needed in the small pool of girls China have for Nanning. It's quite an impressive skill selection she has on floor, with some connections either from tumbling or dance, it would boost her difficulty higher still. Her vault, as seen above, is in question. There WAS a DTY. It has not appeared in a good while and has caused some issues with bad landings, so she has reverted to a FTY. She's still classed as having a DTY and it may well reappear (safely, hopefully!) so I will leave it as a mystery. Leaps are not Wang Wei's friend and they're in sharp contrast to the girls above, but I wouldn't write off her beam either.
Beam
Floor
Other juniors to nerd up on: Fan Yilin 1999, Qin Chang 1999, Mei Jie 1999, Xu Chujun 1999, Zhou Linlin, 2000. It might be difficult as youtube is not overwhelmed with videos of Chinese juniors. But, names to keep in mind. Fan Yilin is glorious on bars, Qin Chang's event is beam, Mei Jie beam and bars, Xu Chujun beam and floor and Zhou Linlin leans towards AA.
There is quite obviously a dearth of floor workers and vaulters, and a gap as the glut of new seniors will be 2015 and 2016 - next year is lacking bigtime. Of course, China spend longer on and care more about basics and flexibility, so skills are added later, compared to other countries. I don't think they will be able to pull off great results next year under the circumstances. But I do expect the gymnasts mentioned here to make their mark. It's not unusual for teams to have off years and while China has deeper problems such as filtering by body type still, they can be up at the top again.
Thursday, 16 May 2013
The State of China
So, with just less than 5 months to go and coming back from a fairly dissapointing Olympics last year, how are China fixed as regards Worlds? And in general, what are the future prospects towards Rio? The National Games Prelims were a great chance to have a look at where they stand.
- Deng Linlin, He Kexin, Huang Qiushuang and Sui Lu have all said they will retire after the National Games, which will take place in September. This is very very close to Worlds and the East Asian Games, for which they might be persuaded to hold out that little big longer, particularly He Kexin who has a very good chance of making the worlds team. The fading of the old guard is of course sad, but neccessary to pave the way for the focus to be on their new talents.
- China's greatest hope, Yao Jinnan, is regaining her form steadily. She has said herself that she is about 70-80% 'back'. Floor is probably where the most work needs to be done, as she has her DTY and her beam and bars are pretty difficult. Her beam has a 6.7 potential with all connections hit, and while she did have issues with the standing full, it is similar to Aliya Mustafina's beam issues in that she looks very capable of ironing out the problems. Her bars are stellar as always, very sharp and clean work. I don't see any potential for the DTY to become anything else, not least because she injured herself doing a DTY last year. By contrast, floor was watered down quite a lot. If she can get it back similar to how it was during 2011 then she is a major medal threat in the worlds AA, though probably not gold given the lack of amanar, sadly.
- Shang Chunsong is bursting with potential and is definitely staking her claim as China's best all-arounder after Yao Jinnan. Her bars are extremely dynamic, containing her own move- the piked Hindorff into immediate Pak salto and her tumbling is extremely strong, especially her amazing first pass of 1.5 twist into triple twist-punchfront! Her beam saw her become the deserving beam champion and she did it perfectly during event finals. She does have a DTY in training, though just like Asuka Teramoto I think she will need to grow a bit in order for it to be a totally successful venture and for it to score well. Both girls are quite slight and don't have the push off the table that similarly short but extremely powerful girls like Simone Biles do. She's also a little inconsistent and shaky, though she did banish that in event finals. Unfortunately her fantastic tumbling is accompanied by a travesty of a routine choreography-wise that I'm sure most fans want to see binned fairly quickly. Hopefully being the new beam and floor champion as well as coming second in the AA will bolster her confidence. She's strong and small and could have great longevity for that reason alone.
- Tan Jiaxin unfortunately did not have a good competition. However, she has still upped her game as she now has an excellent DTY in her arsenal as well as an insane bars routine. That makes her a good bet for worlds, especially if HKX definitely retires before then and given that the bars fall is not characteristic for her.
- Tan Sixin has clearly come on a lot even since the winter training video emerged. Lovely beam as always, but I don't see her as important enough to make major teams.
- Zeng Siqi inspires worry that she'll be relegated to being a specialist, instead of the fabulous all-arounder that she could be. Her endurance and stamina are still so low that although her beam is a thing of beauty and very difficult, her dismount is always a problem. She shows no signs of regaining the DTY she had before her injury in 2011, though that is relieving given how almost frail she is. Her bars dismount remains more likely to be splatted than landed and while her floor does have difficult tumbling in it, it all looks a bit much for her.
- Wu Liufang looks set to continue fading into the background, unfortunately. Still has beautiful gymnastics, still woefully inconsistent and still not enough of an asset to the Chinese team.
- Huang Huidan stepped up and hit a cracker of a bars set in event finals with an enormous 6.6 difficulty. The fact that she beat bars-champion-since-2007-HKX must have been a good boost too, though the latter did make an error. Sadly HHD's hit record is still far from inspiring and her chances are still running out, reigning bars champion or not.
- Liu Tingting, a 2000 baby, was solid as a rock and placed FIFTH in the AA. Her extension, toepoint and general amazing execution are staunchly in evidence in everything she does and thankfully her difficulty has come up since last year. Slow and steady wins the race, she has incredible potential as as well as having the execution bit down, she is also quite springy and powerful.
- Yuan Xiaoyang, a 1999 baby, astonishingly took the vault title. She benefited from injuries and falls from the favourites as her vaults are quite low in difficulty, but still she is very impressive on more than this event.
- Wang Yan, probably born in 1999 or 2000, has a 6.7 beam routine. It contains the acro line made famous by Shawn Johnson- RO-RO-LO, a plethora of extremely high and well landed punchfronts and back tucks and an absolutely perfect please-upgrade-me double pike dismount. It's no fluid beauty but it's an incredible routine. She also shows promise on floor and vault, looks like she could develop into a strong all-arounder.
In general, beam and bars continue to be the dominant strength with gymnasts like Yao Jinnan, Tan Jiaxin, Shang Chunsong, Huang Huidan, Zeng Siqi and juniors Luo Huan, Mei Jie, Fan Yilin, Liu Zhilin, Liu Tingting, Wang Yan and Lv Jiaqi adequately covering all bases.
The vault and floor situation is as always, more questionable. They do have a few DTY's; Yao Jinnan, Tan Jiaxin, Luo Peiru and junior Wang Wei. They also have vault specialists Li Yiting, Yang Pei and Jiang Tong. However, there's no sign of their top two all-arounders flinging amanars which in this day and age is bad news. Shang Chunsong at least looks capable of nailing the DTY she already has (in training) and of all the girls, Tan Jiaxin looks able to give an amanar a go. But this area will still be weak by comparison to others. As far as floor is concerned, Shang Chunsong, Yao Jinnan and Zeng Siqi are the best bets, with Wang Wei and Liu Tingting looking like very good future prospects. Again, they don't have a depth of talent here and will really have to hone the routines they do have. And start Alla Sosnitskaya/Ksenia Afanasyeva'ing turn combinations, stat! And as Rick from gymnasticscoaching just pointed out, the ideal situation is that the top all-arounders have strong vault and floor, not that they just have strong vault and floor girls to go with their crowds of bars/beam girls. I'm hoping that will come in time. After all, the great Cheng Fei herself is coaching.
The worlds team will contain (if healthy) Yao Jinnan, Shang Chunsong and Zeng Siqi. The fourth place could go either way, vault specialist or bars specialist. At this point I think Tan Jiaxin will take it. So this potential team will have
- Yao Jinnan AA, BB, UB
- Shang Chunsong AA, BB, UB, FX
- Zeng Siqi BB, FX
- Tan Jiaxin UB
I know there's too many bars and beam qualifiers, hard to know what could happen there though.
In short, China are in desperate need of mini Cheng Fei's as they're still lacking in the power event categories, with an overemphasis instead on their pet events. They do have springy powerful looking young girls like Wang Yan and Liu Tingting but still crying out for depth in the power department. The last time they won a team title, the code was in their favour as it glorified bars and pirouette-heavy routines. They also did not have to contend with an amanar fest as their biggest rivals fielded one amanar, a Rudi and a DTY versus their own offering of an amanar and 2 DTY's (they had planned a second amanar, Jiang Yuyuan but she lost the ability at the last minute) and the American advantage of 0.5 on vault was swiftly lost after bars. Now, the code is against them somewhat and their bars have taken a nosedive in start value. Thankfully they have adapted to this and they already have dynamic release-release and release-transition routines, but it's not enough. I don't see AA gold appearing in the next two years, or the team gold next year. But they are moving in the right direction and have already appointed a new head vault coach with this in mind. Hopefully their results will continue to improve in other areas besides beam and bars event finals.
Who do you see as China's greatest hopes? On their team? Can they get it together and start to challenge outside of beam and bars again?
Check back for Russian, Romanian and USA versions soon :)
Videos are here and won't embed for me. If I had to pick just to a few to recommend they would be...Wang Yan, Shang Chunsong and Liu Tingting on beam, and Huang Huidan and Yao Jinnan on bars. Youku has more, there's a good selection here. These are, in order left to right (until they become duplicates of the YT videos) Lv Jiaqi FX, Luo Peiru BB, Liu Tingting FX, Liu Tingting UB, Jiang Yuyuan FX, Liu Tingting BB, Fan Yilin FX, Zhu Siyan BB, Wang Yan FX, Chen Li BB. Out of this lot you should watch Wang Yan FX, everything Liu Tingting and Lv Jiaqi FX at least. I still need Tan Jiaxin's everything and Shang Chunsong's UB. If anyone has links please leave them in the comments.
- Deng Linlin, He Kexin, Huang Qiushuang and Sui Lu have all said they will retire after the National Games, which will take place in September. This is very very close to Worlds and the East Asian Games, for which they might be persuaded to hold out that little big longer, particularly He Kexin who has a very good chance of making the worlds team. The fading of the old guard is of course sad, but neccessary to pave the way for the focus to be on their new talents.
- China's greatest hope, Yao Jinnan, is regaining her form steadily. She has said herself that she is about 70-80% 'back'. Floor is probably where the most work needs to be done, as she has her DTY and her beam and bars are pretty difficult. Her beam has a 6.7 potential with all connections hit, and while she did have issues with the standing full, it is similar to Aliya Mustafina's beam issues in that she looks very capable of ironing out the problems. Her bars are stellar as always, very sharp and clean work. I don't see any potential for the DTY to become anything else, not least because she injured herself doing a DTY last year. By contrast, floor was watered down quite a lot. If she can get it back similar to how it was during 2011 then she is a major medal threat in the worlds AA, though probably not gold given the lack of amanar, sadly.
- Shang Chunsong is bursting with potential and is definitely staking her claim as China's best all-arounder after Yao Jinnan. Her bars are extremely dynamic, containing her own move- the piked Hindorff into immediate Pak salto and her tumbling is extremely strong, especially her amazing first pass of 1.5 twist into triple twist-punchfront! Her beam saw her become the deserving beam champion and she did it perfectly during event finals. She does have a DTY in training, though just like Asuka Teramoto I think she will need to grow a bit in order for it to be a totally successful venture and for it to score well. Both girls are quite slight and don't have the push off the table that similarly short but extremely powerful girls like Simone Biles do. She's also a little inconsistent and shaky, though she did banish that in event finals. Unfortunately her fantastic tumbling is accompanied by a travesty of a routine choreography-wise that I'm sure most fans want to see binned fairly quickly. Hopefully being the new beam and floor champion as well as coming second in the AA will bolster her confidence. She's strong and small and could have great longevity for that reason alone.
- Tan Jiaxin unfortunately did not have a good competition. However, she has still upped her game as she now has an excellent DTY in her arsenal as well as an insane bars routine. That makes her a good bet for worlds, especially if HKX definitely retires before then and given that the bars fall is not characteristic for her.
- Tan Sixin has clearly come on a lot even since the winter training video emerged. Lovely beam as always, but I don't see her as important enough to make major teams.
- Zeng Siqi inspires worry that she'll be relegated to being a specialist, instead of the fabulous all-arounder that she could be. Her endurance and stamina are still so low that although her beam is a thing of beauty and very difficult, her dismount is always a problem. She shows no signs of regaining the DTY she had before her injury in 2011, though that is relieving given how almost frail she is. Her bars dismount remains more likely to be splatted than landed and while her floor does have difficult tumbling in it, it all looks a bit much for her.
- Wu Liufang looks set to continue fading into the background, unfortunately. Still has beautiful gymnastics, still woefully inconsistent and still not enough of an asset to the Chinese team.
- Huang Huidan stepped up and hit a cracker of a bars set in event finals with an enormous 6.6 difficulty. The fact that she beat bars-champion-since-2007-HKX must have been a good boost too, though the latter did make an error. Sadly HHD's hit record is still far from inspiring and her chances are still running out, reigning bars champion or not.
- Liu Tingting, a 2000 baby, was solid as a rock and placed FIFTH in the AA. Her extension, toepoint and general amazing execution are staunchly in evidence in everything she does and thankfully her difficulty has come up since last year. Slow and steady wins the race, she has incredible potential as as well as having the execution bit down, she is also quite springy and powerful.
- Yuan Xiaoyang, a 1999 baby, astonishingly took the vault title. She benefited from injuries and falls from the favourites as her vaults are quite low in difficulty, but still she is very impressive on more than this event.
- Wang Yan, probably born in 1999 or 2000, has a 6.7 beam routine. It contains the acro line made famous by Shawn Johnson- RO-RO-LO, a plethora of extremely high and well landed punchfronts and back tucks and an absolutely perfect please-upgrade-me double pike dismount. It's no fluid beauty but it's an incredible routine. She also shows promise on floor and vault, looks like she could develop into a strong all-arounder.
In general, beam and bars continue to be the dominant strength with gymnasts like Yao Jinnan, Tan Jiaxin, Shang Chunsong, Huang Huidan, Zeng Siqi and juniors Luo Huan, Mei Jie, Fan Yilin, Liu Zhilin, Liu Tingting, Wang Yan and Lv Jiaqi adequately covering all bases.
The vault and floor situation is as always, more questionable. They do have a few DTY's; Yao Jinnan, Tan Jiaxin, Luo Peiru and junior Wang Wei. They also have vault specialists Li Yiting, Yang Pei and Jiang Tong. However, there's no sign of their top two all-arounders flinging amanars which in this day and age is bad news. Shang Chunsong at least looks capable of nailing the DTY she already has (in training) and of all the girls, Tan Jiaxin looks able to give an amanar a go. But this area will still be weak by comparison to others. As far as floor is concerned, Shang Chunsong, Yao Jinnan and Zeng Siqi are the best bets, with Wang Wei and Liu Tingting looking like very good future prospects. Again, they don't have a depth of talent here and will really have to hone the routines they do have. And start Alla Sosnitskaya/Ksenia Afanasyeva'ing turn combinations, stat! And as Rick from gymnasticscoaching just pointed out, the ideal situation is that the top all-arounders have strong vault and floor, not that they just have strong vault and floor girls to go with their crowds of bars/beam girls. I'm hoping that will come in time. After all, the great Cheng Fei herself is coaching.
The worlds team will contain (if healthy) Yao Jinnan, Shang Chunsong and Zeng Siqi. The fourth place could go either way, vault specialist or bars specialist. At this point I think Tan Jiaxin will take it. So this potential team will have
- Yao Jinnan AA, BB, UB
- Shang Chunsong AA, BB, UB, FX
- Zeng Siqi BB, FX
- Tan Jiaxin UB
I know there's too many bars and beam qualifiers, hard to know what could happen there though.
In short, China are in desperate need of mini Cheng Fei's as they're still lacking in the power event categories, with an overemphasis instead on their pet events. They do have springy powerful looking young girls like Wang Yan and Liu Tingting but still crying out for depth in the power department. The last time they won a team title, the code was in their favour as it glorified bars and pirouette-heavy routines. They also did not have to contend with an amanar fest as their biggest rivals fielded one amanar, a Rudi and a DTY versus their own offering of an amanar and 2 DTY's (they had planned a second amanar, Jiang Yuyuan but she lost the ability at the last minute) and the American advantage of 0.5 on vault was swiftly lost after bars. Now, the code is against them somewhat and their bars have taken a nosedive in start value. Thankfully they have adapted to this and they already have dynamic release-release and release-transition routines, but it's not enough. I don't see AA gold appearing in the next two years, or the team gold next year. But they are moving in the right direction and have already appointed a new head vault coach with this in mind. Hopefully their results will continue to improve in other areas besides beam and bars event finals.
Who do you see as China's greatest hopes? On their team? Can they get it together and start to challenge outside of beam and bars again?
Check back for Russian, Romanian and USA versions soon :)
Videos are here and won't embed for me. If I had to pick just to a few to recommend they would be...Wang Yan, Shang Chunsong and Liu Tingting on beam, and Huang Huidan and Yao Jinnan on bars. Youku has more, there's a good selection here. These are, in order left to right (until they become duplicates of the YT videos) Lv Jiaqi FX, Luo Peiru BB, Liu Tingting FX, Liu Tingting UB, Jiang Yuyuan FX, Liu Tingting BB, Fan Yilin FX, Zhu Siyan BB, Wang Yan FX, Chen Li BB. Out of this lot you should watch Wang Yan FX, everything Liu Tingting and Lv Jiaqi FX at least. I still need Tan Jiaxin's everything and Shang Chunsong's UB. If anyone has links please leave them in the comments.
Thursday, 9 May 2013
Yao Jinnan fights back
Presenting the top qualifier to the Chinese National Games Quals AA! Considering she had one or two little errors on bars, a watered down floor and missed connections on beam as well as the traditional extremely harsh execution scoring present in internal Chinese competitions- scoring a 57+ is amazing. Her injury last year kept her from performing anywhere near her best in London and it was said this year that she was having trouble with her hip. So it's great to see (or read, as the case may be so far) a strong performance from her. Tied for second were Shang Chunsong and Huang Qiushuang. Zeng Siqi biffed her bars dismount, again, but happily was the first qualifier for beam, just ahead of Sui Lu. He Kexin hit bars and vault, but it was a sad day all around- so.many.falls. Saddest of all was Tan Jiaxin the UB superstar, who fell on a Jaeger and then had some sort of disaster on floor, with an even 5.0 for her d and e scores. Wu Liufang crashed her layout on beam. Good news from my favourite bright young things, Lv Jiaqi and Liu Tingting have both upgraded and scored very well with execution. Liu Tingting, a 2016 senior, placed fifth in the AA qualifiers, and Lv Jiaqi placed tenth. The fight for the second AA-er at worlds will be interesting. Yao Jinnan is the obvious choice for first, if healthy. Shang Chunsong hopefully for the second, but she's still a flake. And THAT floor choreography is a disgrace. Huang Qiushuang may yet make another major team! Especially since one of her mistakes was so ridiculous- she incurred an enormous 0.5 deduction on vault for running more than 25 metres. You can never predict what silly mistake she'll do next but I doubt she'll repeat that one. Shanghai (including Sui Lu and Tan Sixin) beat Guangdong (including Wu Liufang and Huang Qiushuang) into second and Hunan (including Zeng Siqi, Tan Jiaxin and Shang Chunsong) into third, helped along by an utter disaster of a bars rotation by Hunan.
Never underestimate what Huang Qiushuang has up her sleeve! Today in the AA final she repeated the exact same mistake, starting her vault run from too far back, again carrying a massive 0.5 deduction. Smooth coaching there. She also brought her bars dismount to her knees, which is apparently a new mistake for her, and placed outside of the medals. Yao Jinnan fell on her standing full on beam, but still won gold with a 56.701, which wasn't exactly surprising given the enormous amount of falls and major errors, again. Shang Chunsong placed second and Zeng Siqi was third. Shang nailed her very difficult 6.7 bars routine, but had some very expensive wobbles on beam and an OOB on floor. Zeng Siqi generally had less difficulty, she is rumoured to have a DTY but did not do it. I really don't think she has it in her anymore, but at any rate I don't want to see one from her until she looks stronger with better endurance. I'm really sad that Huang Huidan looks to be falling off the radar, just like Wu Liufang. Huang had a nightmare on bars, her pet piece, so too did Deng Linlin. Liu Tingting placed sixth, an amazing result for a girl so young. She is the most promising junior all-arounder that China have. She consistently gets execution scores in the 8.3 range, which in China is like a 9.3.
Gabby Jupp has had her ACL surgery. Wishing for a very speedy recovery. In more ACL news, Yvette Moshage of the Netherlands has torn her ACL for the third time, after a heroic battle to comeback the first two times. Really devastating. This is the third ACL tear so far this year, the other besides these two being Mariya Livchikova.
Kohei Uchimura's wife has given birth to a baby girl. Her name is not released. His parents were gymnasts and his sister is too, so hopefully his daughter will at least try it out with genes like that!
Never underestimate what Huang Qiushuang has up her sleeve! Today in the AA final she repeated the exact same mistake, starting her vault run from too far back, again carrying a massive 0.5 deduction. Smooth coaching there. She also brought her bars dismount to her knees, which is apparently a new mistake for her, and placed outside of the medals. Yao Jinnan fell on her standing full on beam, but still won gold with a 56.701, which wasn't exactly surprising given the enormous amount of falls and major errors, again. Shang Chunsong placed second and Zeng Siqi was third. Shang nailed her very difficult 6.7 bars routine, but had some very expensive wobbles on beam and an OOB on floor. Zeng Siqi generally had less difficulty, she is rumoured to have a DTY but did not do it. I really don't think she has it in her anymore, but at any rate I don't want to see one from her until she looks stronger with better endurance. I'm really sad that Huang Huidan looks to be falling off the radar, just like Wu Liufang. Huang had a nightmare on bars, her pet piece, so too did Deng Linlin. Liu Tingting placed sixth, an amazing result for a girl so young. She is the most promising junior all-arounder that China have. She consistently gets execution scores in the 8.3 range, which in China is like a 9.3.
Gabby Jupp has had her ACL surgery. Wishing for a very speedy recovery. In more ACL news, Yvette Moshage of the Netherlands has torn her ACL for the third time, after a heroic battle to comeback the first two times. Really devastating. This is the third ACL tear so far this year, the other besides these two being Mariya Livchikova.
Kohei Uchimura's wife has given birth to a baby girl. Her name is not released. His parents were gymnasts and his sister is too, so hopefully his daughter will at least try it out with genes like that!
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