The US in non-pink shocker

I'm still sort of absorbing event finals. It's difficult to know what to say about the juniors since their major competition might as well not exist at all. Infuriating to say the least.

First of all, although we had seen the odd few bits of footage of Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas as they sought to come back, nothing really shows where someone's at than a competition. Hence the rabid excitement for their post-London 'debut' at Jesolo, and they 100% delivered. It's so great to see them back in the game.

Aly's floor was her highlight, with passes of 1-5-double arabian-layout (this was tucked in training! Kept in bounds in team final/AA), Dos Santos (this is the stick I was talking about yesterday), double layout and double pike. No fugly triple full thankfully. The first leap in her leap series is absolutely abominable-switch half? with the most reluctant back leg I have ever seen. Really needs to go. She definitely seemed that bit cleaner in competition than she did in training, with noticeably more effort to keep the double layout tidy. 15.2 is a HUGE score and one that's an enormous threat to someone like Mykayla Skinner. Her DTY was strong, but didn't look especially Amanar-able. Best to clean it up than lose several tenths by adding the extra half twist, particularly since the gap between the two vaults is less than last time around in London. Bars were somewhat of a surprise, I was really dreading it...and they were fine. Not amazing, but really one of the strongest routines she has done. And the shaposh-Tkachev combination is really cool. As for beam, she looks right back to business there with lots of connections and the Patterson back in action. Alas, there was an attempt at a split full that was beyond poor. Overall, highly impressive competition from Aly. The groundwork is definitely laid, just some improvements here and there. She's not going to challenge Simone, who is stronger than Aly's main competitors Gabby and Jordyn ever were, but she's right up there with the rest and remains of immense value on a team.

There was definitely less certainty over Gabby's readiness, given the fact that she has been off for longer and has done a bit of gym hopping in the meantime. But she has definitely proven that this is for real and in no way resembles previous shoddy comebacks we have been witness to. Bars are certainly giving her trouble, and this was evident in training too. She struggled through the routine, broke connections and seemed relieved to dismount. However, what she does do in the interior of the routine is very difficult and coupled with her now non-crooked piked Tkachev (Hallelujah!) is responsible for maintaining a high SV. I have confidence she will get back to her old self here in time. Beam was another story, she looked fantastic there. The ease in the standing full is just lovely to watch. I prefer her line now, she's still lean but more filled out. Although her tumbling is there on floor and looked good, the routine seemed slightly scrappy and as if it needs a good bit of work to come together. VERY nice DTY though, but I didn't get the best angle to see her block. Another highly impressive comeback and it was thrilling to see her and Aly neck-and-neck with just 0.2 separating them in the final AA standings.

Simone Biles had another typical competition. 15.95 on floor AND vault, 15.15 beam and 15.05 bars. 62.1 total YAWN this is so easy for her. First qualifier to every single EF. She leaves everyone in the dust and she STILL has more to give. Of note, she mentioned in an interview after the TF/AA that her next step is floor and vault upgrades. This is where I think the double layout last pass is going to come in...has anyone else noticed that the way she does her current full-in last pass has altered? She now does it straight up and down like McKayla Maroney infamously did her double tuck, and it makes me think it's preparing for an upgrade. As for vault, she launched her amanar incredibly high off podium-we nearly always see it on-which really sells the TTY upgrade. Likewise her Lopez although it doesn't get the same sort of pop off the table is stupidly easy for her and I expect to see a Mustafina in its place soon, working towards a Cheng for Rio possibly. I'm curious will we see that barani on beam at all, and also what she'll do with her bars..the Mustafina dismount and trying hard to get that Khorkina in or another Shap transition so that she's not counting a B there is my guess.

Every time she competes, we see again how she's not only THE greatest gymnast of our age, but will go down as the greatest ever. Which of course, depends how much favourtism you put into 'greatest'. She is executing the greatest difficultly ever seen in an AA programme, and does it extremely cleanly. That's basically it.

Bailie Key was a pleasant surprise, I expected her routines to look more sluggish than they were, based a bit on what she looked like in training. Her vault was much improved although still not 'her' in terms of dynamics, and her floor was really lovely. Considering it was played out of sync, we'll have to wait to get the full effect of it. Her bars show such a magnificent line, really stunning work. Again, handstands were short but I'm fairly sure they'll be better in time. As for beam, the routine is not playing to her strengths. The arabian was okay but still isn't executed high enough, the layout was another example of her head escaping a concussion at best and was so low she struggled to land it, and the double pike is not suiting her...very low landing. Again, I want to see her with Victoria Nyugen's routine. Bailie took second partly because other major contenders had issues or also aren't fully back yet, but would have been right up there regardless. A strong showing, she can and will be significantly better by summer I'm hoping.

I like being proved wrong and Kyla Ross certainly showed that she means business in elite and still has a lot to offer. I really love her new bars dismount and am delighted to see her bring back connections there. Lovely vault as always and although her floor was almost comically messed up and so rudely interrupted by non-stop rubbish by the commentators, it's clear that she's working very well with her new music and the choreography is her best yet- so sassy! Beam was a little tentative for her and considering it hasn't changed in a long, long time and doesn't contain any significant risk, I have little patience for wobbles from her. I know, I'm mean. As for floor, what a weird fall. Glad to see she herself is laughing about it on twitter now, but at the time it was very scary. I thought she might have hit her head and that thought only grew stronger when she biffed the landing of her second pass and bounced out and then turned a leap into essentially a beat jump-I was afraid she was concussed and should stop until I saw the replay of her first pass showing she in no way hit her head, phew! It's beyond bizarre to see Kyla fall and it was very damaging since she also had OOB deductions and no leap series. Despite this, she still had a very strong showing and I hope her health allows her to continue, and also persuades her to do something with beam.

Maggie Nichols is back with a bang! I was really curious to see her bars and beam and she really didn't hold back with either. Although we've seen strong work in progress on bars, she really seems now like a different person on that apparatus, I know I wasn't the only one who was puzzled and thought at first she was Kyla with a slightly different line and composition! I knew it wasn't...but couldn't think properly. Killer combinations, really nice line-could be a little straighter though, and really zippy work. On beam I love her barani and although I am a sucker for BHS-LOSO-LOSO, she lands hers really low-they're a world away from Victoria Nyugen's for instance. Another awful split full which needs to be binned. Strong vault too, and floor- and she had the wherewithal to invent a leap series after her first one was rudely interrupted by slipping on the floor. It's good to see her back and she's definitely shaping up again to be a solid dependable use-anywhere team member. Such a pity she was injured just before Nanning. I'm really pleased she's come on so much on bars, quite unexpected too given how she looked there a few years back.

Alyssa Baumann has a really nice beam and I like her passes on floor, great execution. Overall, I don't feel she stands out enough on an event or as an all-arounder. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to dedicate myself fully to the stream and missed some bits-and missed several names of other competitors. The US girls competing outside of the team were really hard to follow. 

As for the juniors, as mentioned, I only got to see the odd tiny bit outside of event finals today and I didn't have time for the whole stream today. I opened the link and left it so it wouldn't disappear when the stream ends but Firefox wasn't very co-operative..I was going through it and had got most of the highlights but before I could see some stuff at the end and go back to look at other routines earlier in the stream, the browser crashed. Pfff. I'll be catching up on whatever goes up on youtube, as well as whatever goes up from the previous days that I missed or we all missed.

Norah's beam was stunning. Fantastic routine and her flighty layout is fabulous still. I'd like to have seen more of her since I was pleasantly surprised that she held her own in the AA standings. Laurie's floor was interesting, I'll really need to see it a few more times without annoying chatter and proper music volume to really decide on it. I just loved her last routine so much I'm sad not to see it, and this one has less choreo... I missed her stalder-fest bars sadly. I'm thrilled she's come back so strong and won the AA. Victoria balked her second LOSO on beam (she got it yesterday) which was unusual, but she did get the aerial-Onodi-sheep (which was broken yesterday) for a big score still. She's just so tiny! I'm really looking forward to her in general. Check out yesterday's routine in gif form here. I remain on the fence on Ragan Smith. I'm not convinced, but would be unsurprised for her to accelerate and suddenly be amazing. Her DTY is shocking in a bad way and should be scrapped until she grows. Lovely FTY though. Interesting that the judges made their point with the scoring yesterday by scoring most of them the same since the DTY's were poor by comparison.

Highlights

Arianna Rocca of Italy's pike front half vault. Stunning, stunning, absolutely gorgeous. It was shown right before Simone went on floor and she appeared in the vault final too. So glorious.

Comeback queens! Great to see Aly and Gabby in action and also to see beautiful work from French veteran Anne Kuhm.

Simone dominating and basically giving a masterclass to everyone else all the time is a joy to watch.

Kyla flying off the floor is seriously hilarious WITH the knowledge she did no damage to herself.

Killer difficulty from those out of competition for nearly 3 years

Gorgeous floor choreography from Canada

Plenty of admittedly one-country-only competition in the senior AA with one in front, but several behind so close to one another

Lowlights

Meltdown on bars from Enus Mariani, the only event she did. She's not had an easy time and it's heartbreaking because she is phenomenal

Ellie Black didn't have a good competition with lots of falls and mistakes..possibly she's competing too much but either way, she could do with a rest.

The commentators. Just no. I am incredibly grateful for a free stream and I did know ahead of time they are fond of talking..but previous years I tended to watch routines on youtube and didn't have to rely on stream only since previous years weren't choked by a particular company having exclusive rights. Shut up. Shut up PLEASE even for floor. Given the fact that they were never not talking, I couldn't help but think that they were in an awful situation where any silence would mean they'd be taken out the back and shot. Also, cutting to interviews during the competition was a little weird and would have been better during rotations/warm ups or at the end only. Still, hurray for the stream we were allowed to have!

Favourite leotards

I really liked Ellie Black's EF one, and I quite liked France's white one for TF/AA. Very elegant. My favourite though was Elisa Meneghini's EF leo. Black with lime green/diamond necklace detail and more of the same on the sleeves. It sounds a bit mad but it was just amazing-could have done without the nude triangle. I'm a bit 50/50 on the navy and black Italian leotards, I liked them in theory and the Celtic-esque detail but they were overly shiny and a bit too busy overall. Likewise the US blue/purple leotard...it felt a bit disjointed or something but again, lovely in theory.

FGI stream-via just-gymnastics tumblr

This doesn't do it justice whatsoever, it was so much cooler in action. Maybe when there's a better photo rather than a screenshot.



Who was your favourite comeback queen? Will Simone score a 63 in the future and have it be legit? How surprised were you that the seniors came out in red, white and blue after the juniors had worn pink? Not that we have much evidence other than photos of them-long may their meet live on in photos and scoreboard form. Isn't this such a nice friendly competition with fabulous trophies that could be made that bit better by enticing back more federations, gagging the commentators and not having exclusive rights behind a paywall?

 

Things

First, since it's freshest...

Gymnastike.

Like most people, I'm not impressed by the days-late apology. It definitely reads like a necessary and false apology generated by the backlash, rather than true remorse or even understanding of what they have done. This is compounded by the fact that the apology is directed by their action in covering the story at all, with zero mention of how they linked and exposed their very young target market to porn. No more, no less. 4chan has absolutely no place at all on a gymnastics news site and the utter failure to even acknowledge that is despicable.

It's worth noting that Gymnastike has several dedicated, well-meaning and knowledgeable writers and contributors. They are not to blame for this. (Although some gymnastics writers on the site are to blame for the lazy, copy-pasted click-me articles). Unfortunately they suffer for representing the site as a whole.

I'd hope that they have apologised directly to McKayla Maroney. We of course don't need to see it and she's under no obligation to disclose anything at all for 'closure' for her fans or anything. But I'd like to think they did personally apologise! 

Has the apology changed your view at all? Do you think USAG and/or FIG should still sanction them?

Junior Nationals

Which did in fact take place weeks ago, yup. I didn't catch all of it but enough. A very different competition without Bailie Key stomping over everyone! And with infinitely less sass with Laurie Hernandez out also.

Nia Dennis was strong, but nothing like her full potential. Odd mistakes on THE most secure skill ever...her fully upright arabian. Floor errors, etc, much less dynamic DTY than last year, bars downgrades. It's not fully surprising given that she's not long back from injury, but if she's not more consistent and looking more at her ease in her routines next spring for her senior debut I will be a little concerned. She could be amazing. Training with Gabby Douglas too is very good for her I feel, it's a strong motivator and both girls have similar strengths.

I don't need to see an amanar next year or anything. I'd settle for the super strong DTY back in action, more spring and ease in her floor and an upgrade or two on bars.

I remain unconvinced about Norah Flatley in the AA. She too was dogged by silly mistakes...the two on beam was utterly shocking. But it's not that...it's how her other events compared to beam are progressing, and they haven't in my opinion. I'm also puzzled as to where her bars are going...she's not making the most of the code there really.

In fact, both Alexis Vasquez and tiny Victoria Nyugen are more impressive on beam to me. Super clean, still with that killer variation and flexibility. Just that bit cleaner than Norah. Not that I'm hating on Norah or anything. I'm just not getting the love. Yet.

Likewise Jazmyn Foberg. It is phenomenal that somebody who failed to qualify for Nationals her first year as an elite should win it the next. And even when we take into account the absences and injury list, this is still an enormous achievement and one which she fully deserved. 8 for 8, solid. But...there's usually a but...she's not standing out particularly on any one event just yet. She sure could in the future, but not right now. I'm interested to see how she progresses. Although, I fervently hope her difficulty stagnates. The huge leaps forward on floor and bars in particular are a little concerning, possibly too fast. Bars in particular, her releases are completely and utterly flat and on both events she's not at her ease.

Morgan Hurd is more than just a great dancer with adorable glasses. She is SO CLEAN! Look at her lines on bars. I love little technique queens and have my eye firmly on her. She didn't hit 8 for 8 but so what, she's very young.

Similarly, Deanne Soza is amazing to watch. Especially on bars but she has massive potential on every event. Her mistakes were crushing for me as a new big fan but again, lots of time to improve.

Jordan Chiles had a truly mixed season. From winning Classics, to disaster, to climbing back up the ranks admirably on night 2. I'd like to see her keep her current difficulty and just focus on the consistency. No need for more upgrades yet. Although..that front triple full looks amazing. I couldn't say no to that..

YOG

Clashed abominably with work, so much so that I only got to watch event finals. All in all, it wasn't really overly impressive. While some girls did stand out, there was nobody that really proved they have what it takes to make major inroads into worlds AA next year. But, perversely, I'm also a little glad about that. I do not want anybody peaking for a competition as a junior.

You may have noticed I focused on one gymnast in the run-up to this competition as my 'one to watch' and who I was most excited about. A few weeks prior, I wrote this article. Wang Yan definitely performed as expected. In fact, she surpassed expectations in some regards..with some upgrades on bars and beam (that barani though!) and she nailed event finals. Well deserved medals there. She also lived up to the headcase side unfortunately, throwing herself out of floor finals in quals and messing up in the AA too. She definitely proved herself as a 'someone'. Very valuable for next year for her team, and hopefully incredible experience for her. She's capable of more and I'm really hoping we get to see that.

Flavia Saraiva is quite frankly, a delight. She moves very well and is so wonderfully clean. I'm happy she got this chance to compete as individually she will always be outshone by Rebeca Andrade although of course, Brazil have more than enough room for two stars. They can complement each other quite well. As expected, Flavia did not have the difficulty to get right up and compete for the top spot, nevertheless, she's showing great potential. Bars, long a weak piece for her country, have shown some progress. Hopefully some nice steady addition of difficulty towards Rio will propel her up the rankings.

Laura Jurca was well, crushing. No medals is so disappointing. I have been out of the loop, but perhaps she is recovering from injury? Let's hope she can bounce back from this competition and add some difficulty while still maintaining consistency.

Speaking of consistency, Seda Tutkhalyan managed to prevail despite spectacularly lacking in that department in general. She is above all, interesting. Brimming with potential. I'm delighted with her beam routine in particular and she has certainly shown fantastic progress on bars. She definitely has it in her to be even stronger all-around and I'm looking forward to seeing her senior debut..hopefully with vaults that land where they are supposed to!

Ellie Downie did extremely well, although she was another showing inconsistency. Such power! Although I remain disappointed she isn't emulating her big sister on bars, her floor and vault are pretty awesome. HUGE DTY, I definitely think we'll see an amanar next year, which would be a first for GB. GB really have a strong crew next year with Tyesha Mattis and Amy Tinkler firmly in the mix too.

Sae Miyakawa broke my heart with her floor routine. And then made it soar on vault. She deserved to beat Ellie Downie on form and not because the latter had her second vault downgraded. We need stills of Sae's form mid-flight blown up and pasted in gyms across the world. Stunning work.

Who was your favourite? Most likely to make it big as a senior? Who will be the Komova?

Classics: Thoughts on Juniors

What an interesting meet Classics always is. First, because there are sooooo many gymnasts, more every year in the junior ranks. Brand new faces barely out of Level 10 willing to impress, veterans showing new routines for the season, upgrades a-hoy, girls going all out to impress at the start of the season, while others are holding back a bit for a steadier pace, ready to unleash at nationals. The sheer variety of styles and strengths on display always floors me. For those who don't like US gymnastics, they should really look deeper. You can't categorise this small army.

Firstly, congratulations to Jordan Chiles on winning the junior AA! I wasn't expecting that at all, although I'm not sure why. The loss of Bailie Key and Laurie Hernandez is a big one and Nia has had quite a few struggles with injury in the last while. Norah Flatley gets hyped a lot, but she is quite clearly not an all-arounder yet. I suppose because Jordan is so young, too young for Rio. Her floor was one of the highlights, the full package...great tumbling, presence, spark. Vault...yeah I'd like to see some work on that block, and her form is a little scrappy on beam though her flow and style on that event have come on bigtime. Bars also are better, her swing and handstands, but she was too close to the bar on each release and was lucky to get that score. A thrilling day for her and a well deserved outcome, I'd just like some tidying up on her execution.

Jordan Chiles. Copyright - John Cheng

We need to talk about Deanne Soza, immediately. I noticed her potential last year but WOW she took my breath away. Talk about talent! I'm a little tired of getting excited about a US junior and then seeing that her bars are bad or average, but no whiff of that here. They made my night (before a certain $ came along), no exaggeration. BEAUTIFUL form, swing..and skills! Huge release move, an inbar stalder shoot to high which is rare as Christmas, a gorgeous Ezhova and a full-in DLO. Fantastic. Beam and floor look strong too...she made me a little nervous on the former, but saved so well. Gorgeous switch leap-Onodi combination. She's another too young for Rio who needs to slow or halt the upgrades and just polish everything. Seriously impressive work from this little one.

Morgan Hurd is too cute for words. Noticed her gorgeous floor at the Nastia cup earlier this year and I was excited when she qualified elite and looking forward to some lovely clean work. Not only was she clean...but so consistent and confident! Wonderful to see, she was holding herself on and off the apparatus like a veteran. Thrilling to see her do so well in the AA. And...this isn't relevant, but she kind of proves a major point about Chinese gymnasts looking younger than their years. Unlike some of the Chinese girls, Morgan (adopted as a baby) has grown up in a privileged environment with plenty to eat. Yet she looks about 6-7..

I haven't really been paying a whole lot of attention to Maile O'Keeffe and Megan Skaggs but they both seem to have shot forward in terms of improvement. Will be keeping an eye on them, especially Maile on beam.

Nia Dennis has been battling injury, so it wasn't overly surprising that she wasn't at her best. Even so, she showed what she is capable of when healthy. She has killer potential and I really hope she's able to demonstrate that next year when she's senior and hopefully fully bounced back.

Norah Flatley's beam was gorgeous as anticipated. I'm curious about the long term plan for her though. Perhaps we will see more from her on bars at Nationals, but her routine at Classics was fairly dull and empty I thought. Nice floor work, but she's not standing out there and her FTY doesn't look like it will be anything else in the next while. She remains a beam specialist, albeit a gorgeous and most valuable one, in my eyes. She's with Chow, and Chow is great, but he's not great at vault and Norah doesn't have the power of Gabby or Shawn for instance.

I was expecting quite a bit from the Parkettes crew, Christina Desiderio, Molly Frack, Margzetta Frazier and Megan Freed, especially the first two but it wasn't their day. Molly didn't do AA. Christina in particular is so much fun to watch on floor, hopefully she can improve and really get up to where the top few are.

Speaking of falls, there were so,so many on beam. Not that it'd be unexpected when there's so many juniors, plenty competing for the first time on podium, at the first major elite competition of the year. It's moreso that it was sad to watch, given that quite a few needed this meet to qualify to nationals. On the other hand..I saw no falls or big errors on bars?

Victoria Nyugen's beam was so, so beautiful. Yes, she went into a handstand in the middle of her series but it didn't work to save her balance and off she came. Nonetheless, it was amazing..and admirable that she didn't let the fall faze her. Great floor from her I thought, looking forward to seeing her develop. Unfortunately, another bad meet from Alexis Vasquez who was pulled from two events. She's struggling with a hip injury. Here's hoping she can come back strong next year as a senior.

Victoria Nyugen. Copyright - John Cheng

Jazmyn Foberg was the only MG elite girl healthy enough to be present. She was quite solid but not outstanding, which is fine in one her age. However, while she may not be as pushed as Laurie is or as Ari is on vault, her bars were quite new and she struggled with them halfway through. A fluke, or yet another exhibition of too much too soon..hard to know.

Rachel Baumann was lovely to watch on beam and floor, but I kind of expected more. It was refreshing to see her perfect technique in her passes, but I'd like to see more than the typical WOGA standard emanate from her routines. She could be great.

Shilese Jones is another who stood out on floor...with a 1.5 twisting double back! Great pass, she's powerful and interesting to watch.

For all the criticism American artistry or lack of gets, there was quite a lot on display here. Olivia Dunne really stood out, gorgeous, gorgeous presentation. From an 11 year-old at that. Likewise, Emily Gaskins who is just stunning. Pity about her routine, but it was beautiful nonetheless.

The Good

Floor These young ones are continuing the legacy of strong floor work. Lots of big tumbles- double layouts, 1.5 double back, double arabians, 1.5 to triple etc. Some lovely dancers too and many who have excellent presentation

Beam combinations Building from the ground up, lots of juniors are working the code very well. BHS-LOSO-LOSO, switch-Onodi, aerial cartwheel-LOSO, aerial-aerial-side aerial etc. Lovely scales from a few too.

Variety Is the best part of Classics. SO many girls from so many gyms, different ages, sizes, styles, strengths...it's great.

Leotard game was oh so strong

The Bad 

Injuries, dropouts and girls competing not yet recovered Too many to mention.

Bars Despite many cool connections and skills shown, overall I was not impressed. There was a lot of average work on display and poor skills foundation and form. Sigh.

Leaps So many were bad

Best

Floor Jordan Chiles
Vault Jordan Chiles
Bars Nia Dennis
Beam Norah Flatley

Favourite

Floor Morgan Hurd
Bars Deanne Soza
Beam Tough. Nia Dennis
Vault Norah Flatley..so clean

Favourite Leos

Nia Dennis. Copyright - John Cheng

Buckeye. Always get it right...this is beautiful, colours chosen and their use, and the design. Stunning.

Emily Gaskins. Copyright - John Cheng

CGA have got it going on here. I'd prefer if the sleeves were plain white though. 

Bailey Ferrer. Copyright - John Cheng

We see this shade and fabric quite a bit, but the tiny star-like pattern of the chrystals make this stunning. 

Honourable mentions: Shilese Jones, Olivia Dunne, Morgan Hurd, WOGA

Dishonourable mentions: Lexy Ramler, Delanie Harkness

Lots less pink than usual! Some nice attempts at red and lovely blues and pinks.

Scoring

Better than it has been, and it's not usually too hyped for juniors anyway. The one score that stood out (I'm sure there'd be more if I studied this) was Jordan Chiles' bars. Substantially overscored. Deanne Soza's bars were a little underscored compared to some other routines also. 


Who was your favourite junior? Was the format of splitting it fair or unfair? Can a rotation really be 50 minutes long??

'Quick hits' from Jesolo podium training videos

I am confused as to whether Day 2 is open access or not, it was then it wasn't. Day 1 is definitely not. The below is a combination of both.

Kyla Ross' routines are the same. Very clean on bars and beam, although one or two wobbles on the latter and her front tuck-wolf jump was lacking due to energy it seemed. Stuck a lovely DTY. All in all, she looks good but not her best I think. Ankles had some hefty bandaging/support on beam. Lack of upgrades are the constant theme with her but since she is recovering from a back injury, it's not very surprising and definitely understandable.

Edit- Floor is up. Double arabian-stag, double pike, 1.5-front full, double tuck. She's not following the pass direction rules for which the cut-off is approaching fast. I forget if others are :p Very clean and controlled routine.

Mykayla Skinner's amanar is back! And although it's a significant squat on landing - 90 degree knee bend, it looks quite secure and 'on'. Nice form too. The Cheng was great in the air and landing...her block usually needs a screenshot to see if she used both hands and I can't do that on my phone. It looks like she used both hands (she did not at the Level 10 a while back) but barely. Her tucked double double was shown (her d-score is reportedly 6.8 now although dependent on getting full credit from dance elements) and it was nice, seemed very easy for her. Bars have such an ease in the swing but too many form errors bringing them down, it's a shame.

Beam was...wait for it..watchable! The wolf turn from hell is gone and she has calmed down on the ambitious connections to increase consistency. The BHS-arabian was impressive, lots of height on the arabian and a great upright landing Nia Dennis would approve of. Sadly the BHS is reminiscent of Dominique Dawes on beam. Other acro skills like punchfronts and the side aerial were very nice. Her basic leaps seemed to be hit or enough to be declared 180. The switch half HAS improved thankfully. There's an L-turn-single turn combination, her leg dips up and down a bit on the L but it's fine. She did not do the upgraded dismount she's training - Patterson I think? I don't believe she did the Fabrichnova either. I'm curious to see how she will do, she has definitely put the effort in for more than just d-scores.

Edit - Her full floor just went up. Same tumbles - Moors, Silivas, double arabian - stag, 1.5 to 2.5. The middle passes have switched around. Energy to spare on the first 3, bounced a bit out of the Silivas. Her first pass is really quite laid out for nearly all of it, nice. I'm not sure we will ever see it fully perfectly laid out though. On her last pass she was short a bit. The switch half was..good! Double L turn was okay also.

Peyton Ernst did a dance-through on floor. I watched it without music so not very helpful. Some nice poses showing off her back flexibility and her end pose is great - combines Viktoria Komova's 2011 one and Anna Pavlova's in 2008! Rachel Gowey also did a dance-through. Very elegant arm movements and her lines look lovely, but it didn't seem very expressive or outstanding. Will have to judge both in competition when they're in performance mode. Peyton's beam was solid.

Edit- Full floor went up. Solid tumbling including lovely double layout and double arabian, a little low on the former.

Rachel Gowey did a triple full and made it look like a single twist, so effortless. Hopefully she can nudge the 3.5 back into her routine. Gorgeous form on it. Her bars are not quite there yet, issues with handstands and little form things - her Pak for instance was over arched with oddly flexed feet. Fabulous straight double layout, same as Norah Flatley's. No shap full. Beautiful beam! Floaty BHS-LOSO-LOSO with perfect form and her leaps have improved since last year. Really promising.

Edit- full floor is up. She's doing tuck full in, front double full-front tuck, triple full, double tuck. She landed the first two very low, big stumble on the first and almost sitting the second. Dissappointing but hopefully she'll improve for the competition. She looks great movement, I'm not sold on expression or performance/choreography yet but it's just training.

Bailie Key looks like..Bailie Key. Great DTY. Her bars have been reworked a bit - she has the Church in (or Ricna? Sorry I don't know which) but the Jaeger is still there - petition to dump it and replace with Gienger please! Beautiful Pak, perfect shape and form. Stunning lines. Stalder half might be new also.

Edit - Beam is up. Fabulous, just stunning work. The arabian is in, deep landing but very secure. Aerial-wolf-straddle is very nice.

Nia Dennis showed off a huge DTY. Hit the ceiling on her Tkachev, no piked Tkachev and she did a double pike. Not sure if warm-up or downgrades out of season as she fully bounces back from injury. Nice shape in her Pak too but a little far forward on catching.

Jordan Chiles looks good. Yet another good DTY and her bars are taking shape nicely. She is not hitting handstands but at her age, I wouldn't be concerned. She has step-downs like Kyla! Nice ease in her swing.

Edit- Great floor. Double Arabian and front double-layout front to start. Too much energy on the punchfront and stepped OOB but really a lovely routine. She has a lot of presence I think. Beam is up too, a little bit wobbly but has the makings of a great routine.

Alyssa Baumann was wobbly on beam and broke a few connections. Lovely Onodi but her arabian was landed very low. Emily Gaskins was quite hesitant on beam, a little nervy looking. Gorgeous line on bars but little form issues.

Madison Kocian's bars look cleaner I thought. Bent elbows are her enemy still but the routine looked sharper in general.

Norah Flatley had two beam routines uploaded. Stunning. Just, the full package on that apparatus. She did break the really long connection both times but meh, it's so hard to connect it all. Her bars looked good but not great, still getting there. She's so tiny, I think she needs to grow to really fulfil her potential. FTY did not look like an upgrade will be forthcoming any time soon, fairly piked down.

Edit- floor is up. Nice dance, suits her. Some issues with landings, stumbled out of her triple full sideways and she landed the double pike bent in half, bouncing backwards and putting her hands down. Both she and Rachel are doing a turn combination which has me baffled - double L to single L, in opposite directions. Can they be the same type of turn for CV? Hmm. Norah is definitely lacking power anyway.

Maggie Nichols looks solid. Opens her beam with a Barani, nice! Wobbled on it but I'll overlook that, love this skill. Looks to be working a front aerial-split jump-scissone-side somi series, hmm, interesting. Head too close to the beam on her LOSO in BHS-LOSO series. I would put her a little ahead of Peyton without seeing floor, although Peyton's beam was more solid.

Best of 2013

I hope everyone's having a good Christmas/New Years/holiday season.

Here's my 2013 'winners'. They're deliberately in a sort of scattered order since that's how they occurred to me, and to keep you on your toes.

Best senior:
Simone Biles

Best junior:
Bailie Key

Favourite senior:
Simone Biles

Favourite junior:
Laurie Hernandez

Best beam:
Luo Huan, 2013 National Games, TF. No question.

Best vault:
Simone Biles, Vault 2, Antwerp quals The block and form...

Best bars:
Yao Jinnan, Antwerp AA. Honourable mention to Ruby Harrold, Antwerp AA.

Best floor:
I need a better view of Victoria Moors' new floor to hand her this. There's one routine I enjoyed more than Ksenia Afanasyeva at Euros EF and that is Simone Biles at Antwerp AA.

Best bars dismount:
Koko Dobashi  This is Jamie Dantzcher's dismount, one of my favourites. Eythora Thorsdottir also did a beautiful double twisting flyaway.

Best bars mount:
Just kidding, nothing to see here. If you have seen something other than a glide kip or jump to high this year, please comment!

Best beam mount:
Natsumi Sasada being a total badass. Honourable mentions to the prettiness of Shang Chunsong's and to Danusia Francis for bringing back the Silivas.

Best beam dismount:
Simone Biles, Nationals Day 1. What is this, a Simone love-in? That was amazing though, the form, technique, height on stuck landing. I also love how the pointed toes and technique of Luo Huan's double pike, above under best beam, make it look stunning.

Best dancer:
Laurie Hernandez. Just fantastic. I'd like if she refined her movement just a little without losing any intensity or originality, but even if she never does, I'll always be glued to the screen watching her dance.

Best music:
See above. Engaging, magnetic sort of music, and original. Suits this firecracker perfectly. 

Best form:

Source- Getty images/AFP

Noemi Makra. Just beautiful, stunning work. A joy to watch. And let us not forget, the piked full-in in its pure form. Honourable mention goes to Luo Huan, again.

Best leaps:
Andreea Munteanu. So refreshing. Fellow Andreea, Iridon, isn't too shabby in the leaps department either, i.e. also glorious.

Best new skill:
i.e. named this year. The sideways side aerial, named for Silvia Colussi-Pelaez but performed by Danusia Francis at NCAA Nationals. The fact that she unleashed it after hiding it for months, and the moment she chose to do it. Amazing.

Best old skill reinvented:
The Zuchold, done by Ruby Harrold. Yao Jinnan and her Mo are stiff competition, but it was just not clearing the bar enough or hitting enough so... Both of these are linked above under best bars.

Most improved:
Simone Biles fo' sho' BUT a much more dramatic and subsequently heartwarming improvement was Mykayla Skinner between Day 1 and Day 2 of Nationals. Amazing turnaround.

Most elegant gymnast:
Eythora Thorsdottir, who I link to all the time. Getting lazy now.. 

Best newcomer:
Well Simone Biles, again. Sorry, but she's just the obvious pick for half of this. Honourable mention to Roxana Popa who has had ups and downs this year, but is definitely blazing a new trail both in Spanish gymnastics and on the European circuit.

Best comeback:
McKayla Maroney. What with her list of injuries, surgeries and growing a few inches on top of that, few expected her to be so solid and make such a strong case for herself to go to worlds. She has indeed deteriorated on vault, but still got that crazy yurchenko block, has ADDED difficulty to her floor, and placed 6th in the world at Antwerp prelims in the AA. Not to mention retaining her world vault champion title. Not bad for someone doing yurchenko timers into a pit in March.

Most solid senior:
Kyla "no falls" Ross.

Most solid junior:
Bailie "the machine" Key.

Best leotard:

UCLA - Copyright: AP Photo/Alex Gallardo

Maroney - Source: coolspotters.com

 

HKX. Copyright: A’Min, Guo Chen/Xinhua News Agency

Huang Huidan (on right). Copyright- rkwy1212

There are a few others I can't find. Can't pick 'one'. He Kexin's is more than likely a case of the gymnast in the leotard. I really don't like nude mesh but it was beautiful on her and made her look like an angel. Fitting, for the queen of the bars. I'm a huge fan of blue- GAGE leos this year, Danusia Francis at Universiade, more of UCLA's..the list goes on.

Cutest Moment:
Songsong isn't having a half-hearted handshake! 

Best hairstyle:

Warrior queen Chantysha. Source- rtlnieuws.nl

Chantysha Netteb is fierce!

Best floor skill combination: 
Shang Chunsong's opening pass of 1.5 into triple full-punchfront. Fantastic. 

Best beam skill combination:
Norah Flatley. It's insane, in a good way.

Best bars skill combination:
Ruby Harrold. That is, the Van Leeuwen to immediate Zuchold. I had to disregard the Maloney-Bhardwaj, which was hard.

Cutest gymnast:

Source- Wu Jun

Wang Yan, AKA Yanyan, Potato, little bean. Powerful but adorable.

Best WOW moment:
Victoria Moors sticking the DDLO in Antwerp AA. I witnessed this live...the tension! You could have heard a pin drop in her run and then the explosion, just unbelievable.

Best OMG moment:
Mykayla Skinner landing really good Cheng's off ONE HAND. Shouldn't be possible.

Highlight of the year:

Source- Ling Jie's weibo

Shang Chunsong wins five medals at National Games in Liaoning. 4 individual medals- 3 gold (AA, bars, floor), bronze on beam....and bronze in team finals. It could well be a record. For her feat she received the approximate equivalent of $500,000. Shang Chunsong's family are extremely poor, so this money means a lot. No cars for her, it is being used to provide for her parents and her brother. She has also secured a top university place for herself, whenever she chooses. The ultimate victory, in the context of which, who cares how worlds went for her?

Best competition:
Um, worlds, since I was there :D There were loads of expected faces missing, no denying that, but some competitions were still deep and there was great gymnastics a-plenty.

Best medal:

Source - Yves Logghe/AP, Christian Thomassen, Zhou Lei/Xinhua

Huang Huidan is victorious in the bars final. Cleans up her form, doesn't let herself be affected by the favourite falling right before her- her teammate and friend at that. Great moment, and such a nice surprise for a gymnast who seemed like a total headcase at the start of the year. 

Who are your winners? I'd love to see other opinions. If you feel like answering each category, go for it!

Secret Classic

Well that was a very interesting day/night of competition! I have just about caught up to speed on youtube, given the issues with the stream. It's unfortunate that podium training streams were clearer, but I'm very grateful it was streamed worldwide at all, particularly juniors which has not been done before, and perfect quality videos were going up so fast anyway. Loooong post ahead.

First of all, McKayla Maroney has just done herself a lot of favours. Granted she performed her two strongest events only- but how strong they were! Her block on both vaults is still superb, and I don't doubt coaches all over the world are and will be analysing it, if they haven't been for the last four years. The amanar was as lofty as ever and the half-on-layout full-off (Okay saying Mustafina is a lot quicker but I should make an attempt to give it its proper name every so often, since it's not named for Mousse-tafina as stated in the commentary last night) was a lot better than last year. Her technique has improved on it, I don't mean judging by the London EF one as such, but rather Trials, Classics, Nationals- she landed it ever so slightly short each time, but no fear of that this time. She did tuck on it before landing slightly too early but still, really excellent vaulting, and from a gymnast who has had three surgeries since last we saw her. I am not alone in mourning the loss of her 3.5 twist on floor, but maybe she can have the endurance in the future to replace the 2.5-layout with it. In this code she does not need a combination pass so that wouldn't be an issue. Thrilled that she stuck her very neat double arabian, great upright landings on her other passes too. The double layout out of bounds isn't too concerning, it's a brand new pass and with more time in the gym she should be well able to shorten her run slightly. The d-score awarded was 5.8, though her leaps were a bit questionable so she was probably penalised there. Still the highest execution awarded on floor and hopefully she can break 6.0 difficulty with this routine. She has a new shap-half on bars, though we didn't see that in competition. Looking forward to seeing her compete all-around at Nationals, though I don't think we'll see her factoring in to the all-around this year at least. Fierce 2013 debut, and proof once again that she means business.

I am torn about Kyla Ross. She scored very well, had great execution as always, and has upgraded her floor. Unfortunately, she downgraded her beam, fell on her last pass on floor, and her bars were unchanged. As was her vault. It looks like endurance could still be an issue on floor, not sure if it was that or just a fluke but she has stated before that she has endurance problems with a full 4-pass routine so..it's what I'm assuming. Her beam routine was also uncharacteristically hesitant. She stepped up and won the all-around, yet she did not really use this competition to its full advantage trying out things, and her all-around competition was not exactly stellar, with no Elizabeth Price and both Simone Biles and Lexie Priessman not competing all 4 events. I believe she can in fact score as well or almost as well as she did here in Antwerp. But gymnasts who have equal execution like Viktoria Komova if she comes back strong or others, even teammates, with much higher difficulty, have an advantage and her coaches really need to close that gap. If floor is an issue, beam and bars should at least be worked on. 5.7 beam is really quite disappointing. I'm not just saying that because she's not one of my favourites- I find her quite stiff and her gymnastics unexciting- but I love her lines, admire her execution and utter mastery of her routines and I don't want to see her get swallowed up by others. Bailie Key, who is three years her junior, came very close to beating Kyla's AA total. This is a Bailie who was suffering from a stomach bug, did not show upgrades she already has, and went over time on beam. That really should not be happening. Kyla showed stunning work, but I don't think it's enough to keep her head above water as an all-arounder when the juniors turn senior so I'm hoping for more at Nationals.

Bailie. Source- John Cheng/USA Gymnastics

Speaking of Bailie, she was supposed to just do two events due to the stomach bug, and then stepped back into the all-around fray at the last minute. Very admirable, and great routines from her, considering. I wouldn't judge them as the best she can do in the circumstances and quite a few strong juniors helped her along with falls, but I think Bailie made it clear that she would still pretty much be on top had everybody else hit and she herself been fully healthy. A great boost for her heading into Nationals. I really love her style, she's very clean and really sparkles on floor...despite the best efforts of her interesting choice of music. She has more than ever cemented herself as the junior to watch.

And back to seniors, I really enjoyed Kennedy Baker on floor for her incredible tumbling. Perfect 1.5-double arabian- stag and her second pass is more laid out and Dos Santos 2 looking than it was last year. The Downie-Pak combination on bars is just awesome. Unfortunately, she didn't seem to have much life in her, especially noticeable on floor where she was just going through the motions. I get the impression that she's more on the periphery now and that she'll make the switch to college gymnastics when she can. Fellow Texas Dreams gymnast Peyton Ernst on the other hand, is working her way up and up. She's extremely steady and impressed on all four events, especially with her lovely leaps. I thought her DTY was underscored in comparison to Kyla's, both had issues but 0.5 was too high a disparity, from the angle we saw. Peyton seems like a workhorse type, a great gymnast to have in a team final. I'm not so sure about whether she can shine individually just yet, she doesn't stand out enough I think though maybe she can change that with a few smart upgrades. A little more polish and toepoint and she could really be exceptional.

Simone Biles quite clearly had an off day, with a fall on bars, a wobbly uncertain beam, a fall on her last pass and no vault at all, after she crashed an amanar in warmups. I'm not sure what to think. On the one hand, it's Classics and it's always known as a splatfest, we have seen extremely consistent Nationals and/or worlds performances from girls who did badly at Classics before. Simone also had upgrades on floor to contend with which have not been competed yet. On the other hand, she really had trouble with every single event and she did fall at both American Cup and Chemnitz, though two falls out of something like 18 routines doesn't sound like much for the competitions she was at earlier this year. So she can be consistent or not? Was it just nerves or can it be explained by sickness? She did say last week she was at home sick and said recently she's a little under the weather. She cannot be counted out of the all-around just from this competition, but she will need to hit her routines out of the park at Nationals in order to avoid rivalling McKayla Maroney for a specialist spot. That said, her floor routine was incredible until the fall- excellent double double, sky-high double layout-half out which were both almost stuck and a clean 2.5-punchfront which helped absorb the landing she usually had issues with. I wonder what she can do, double-double-stag, full-in double layout, 1.5-tucked full, piked double arabian...that is the plan eventually, and of anyone she is capable. She also has a Cheng in the works. Simone hopefully can learn a lot from her day and come back fighting at Nationals, she's definitely not out of the running for the all-around spot and people who say she is are counting their chickens.

Brenna. Source- John Cheng/USA Gymnastics

Brenna Dowell impresses me more everytime I see her. She used this competition very wisely, throwing some brand new skills like a toe-on Tkachev half (!!!) and trying out some previous upgrades, like a full-in double layout and an amanar. Her bars have seriously cleaned up, with three very dynamic releases, with the middle one only ever done by the queen herself, Beth Tweddle. Brenna's attempted connection, from the Tweddle to a straddle back, is I think an interim measure as she doesn't get CV from that transition, it being too easy. I'd imagine an Ezhova is in her near future, but the straddle back is good practice. Sure she missed the connection in competition, but she nailed it in podium training. Likewise, her beam connections aren't there yet either, but look well on the way. She has a nice skill selection there too but seeing how much she has improved on bars...I'm really hoping she can tighten her form on beam some more. The full-in double layout was a bit clunky but still secure, and the front double pike-leap was perfect. Slightly short on the tucked double front, but in general she achieved a lot and has a good bit of guidance now on things to work on. Smart use of this competition. Her third place, given the new skills, was well deserved and she can certainly better her score. One to watch.

Would-be third place is Abigail Milliet who sadly counted a fall in her exquisite beam routine, but still scored 14.2 for it as she has a whopping 6.4 difficulty. Her bars were really lovely, her DTY was secure and floaty, and her floor was gorgeous. She's very elegant and stylish and with a few upgrades in her bar routine could definitely be very helpful to team USA. Really enjoyed watching her. Madison Desch also had a very nice beam, slightly wavery but that's not a big surprise given her injury and recovery. She did just this one event and petitioned through to Nationals on the back of it and happily succeeded. She has a layout full up her sleeve for the future, and a nice floor.

Laurie. Source- John Cheng/USA Gymnastics

In the junior ranks, hot favourites Laurie Hernandez, Nia Dennis and Polina Shchennikova all had falls, and all on beam with Nia falling on bars also. Laurie went on to dazzle on floor, Nia's arabian still stole the show on beam and her floor and vault too was excellent..but I'm not sure about Polina! Her bars difficulty is very high, but it was, as I thought in the camp videos- a bit sloppy with less than stellar execution and she got slammed for it, almost outscored by Norah Flatley whose difficulty was nine tenths lower. I'm not sure if she can shine as a beam/bars specialist, but it would be nice especially on beam where she has gorgeous work, like her Mostepanova split pirouette in handstand. Laurie Hernandez' bars were bit baffling. She stalders her way through the routine which while impressive, appeared to leave her open to be flayed by the judges in execution, who were quite harsh with her routine in comparison to others. It could do with a bit more variation but she still has three more years before it really matters so I'm not that concerned about her. WHAT a dancer, her floor is just magnetic. A fantastic highlight of the 200+ routines. Nia did not really seem herself, though still showed great work. The arabian, as mentioned, is just jaw-dropping, absolutely perfectly upright. Her floor has 6.2 difficulty which is great to see. Would love to see her point her feet more, especially on bars. A worthy rival of Bailie all the same, despite errors here.

Norah. Source- John Cheng/USA Gymnastics

We need to talk about Norah Flatley. 15.2 on beam out of 6.4 difficulty. She broke that ridiculous connection and still got by far the highest beam score of the day, juniors or seniors. She also went overtime, so really 15.3 and higher when she hits the front aerial-front aerial-side aerial-split jump-back pike. She had the highest execution on beam and on bars of any junior, and bested only by Kyla Ross on both events among seniors. Norah led after two rotations and placed an astonishing fourth overall. This is her first elite competition, and the girls who beat her have been elite for years. What a great competition for her!

Watching Mykayla Skinner made me annoyed. Here is a girl with quite obviously unbelievable talent and an incredible skill set- including a Fabrichnova, double double laidout, bhs-arabian and bhs-tucked full combinations on beam, double double tucked, Cheng and an amanar (not competed). But she's going absolutely nowhere with such poor basics and execution, and with coaches who seem to not care at all about that, her block on vault, and the wisdom of her passes on floor. Her leaps are deplorable, bars and beam extremely messy..the list goes on. What is the point of having her throw a laidout and tucked double double and double arabian when she doesn't have the energy for her last pass? She also fell on a pass in her last competition too, and this time was very short on the double double, done as a third pass. 6.3 difficulty is not much of a reward for a crazy routine like that, they need to rearrange it. This is the first time we've had a good view of her Cheng in action and it was very impressive, especially as she blocks off of one hand. I'm no technical expert but it looks to me as if the vault table is in her way, rather than a medium to propel her. Some moments of greatness, I loved her beam connections despite the wobbles and the laid-out double double was amazing, and definitely laidout. On vault she has enormous potential also. But I don't see it happening for her in elite, and I blame her coaches. Squandering talent, pushing her forward on the back of difficulty is no good when her foundation is so lacking.

The tag team of Lexie Priessman and Amelia Hundley have definitely improved since their showing in Europe earlier this year. Both particularly impressed on floor. I'm happy they're not going full-on with difficulty yet though, and pleased Amelia's beam and bars continue to look better each time.

The junior competition produced several shining gems that I hadn't gotten acquainted with yet, though several names were familiar. Gabby Perea and Hope Masiado stood out on floor for having gorgeous lines, Ragan Smith was stunning on bars, Alonza Klopfer shows nice potential on floor but the best were Christina Desiderio, Molly Frack and Emily Gaskins. They're not from gyms you'd expect- the latter from CGA and the former two from Parkettes but wow were they good. Molly was superb on beam and floor, nice skills and a great performer. She also showed potential on bars. Emily and Christina both did Alexandra Eremia's split planche on beam, it's stunning. Emily has a lovely lightness and elegance to her, she really sparkled on floor and beam and Christina seems to have it all, the skills, potential difficulty, and form. I almost forgot Deanne Soza who seemed very promising, especially on beam where she has quite a lot of skills under her belt- pity about the fall.

Highlights

- Laurie Hernandez' floor. Love the music, tumbling, dance. She utterly owns the floor when her music begins.
- McKayla Maroney's tumbling and vaults. Refreshingly great.
- Norah Flatley's elite debut.
- Abigail Milliet's beam, beautiful.
- Brenna Dowell's toe-on Tkachev-half, and front double pike..and amanar.
- Pure gymnastics. The stream wasn't great but there was no lingering shots of gymnasts taking off grips and drinking water.
- Nia Dennis' arabian.
- Ariana Agrapides overrotated DTY. Awesome, she's not even elegible for Rio.
- Mykayla Skinner's double double laidout.
- Simone Biles' double layout-half out and double double.
- Kyla Ross' lovely high double arabian-stag.
- Kennedy Baker's first two passes and Downie-Pak.
- Polina Shchennikova's mount sequence.
- Molly Frack and Christina Deseridio on beam and floor.
- Lexie Priessman on floor. Great passes and nice choreography.
- Amelia Hundley on floor, great work.
- Bailie Key's assured quality in her work, even when sick.
- Sydney Johnson-Scharpf's dance on floor.
- The height on Nia Dennis' releases, even though she came to grief on one.
- Alexandra Marks' long, lovely lines.
- Emily Schild's, Nia Dennis', Kyla Ross' and Peyton Ernst's killer DTY's.
- In general, the abundance of lovely work among the juniors especially.
- The absence of outrageous scores.

Not-so-highlights

- The absence of Elizabeth Price, Rachel Gowey, Jordan Chiles, Bailey Ferrer, Bridget Dean and more.
- Really bad tour-jete's. EVERYWHERE.
- Not entirely consistent scores on bars and vault, some harsh scores relative to others.
- Mykayla Skinner's bars and beam.
- Bent knees majorly infesting beam.
- Falls everywhere- Nia's, Laurie's, Simone's and Abigail's were particularly sad.
- Meltdowns amongst juniors, sad to see and hard to watch.
- WOGA, minus Katelyn Ohashi, seem to be a bit lost. Nothing really stood out about their gymnasts.

Favourite routines

Beam (junior) Norah Flatley (senior) Abigail Milliet
Vault (junior) Nia Dennis (senior) McKayla Maroney
Floor (junior) Laurie Hernandez (senior) McKayla Maroney
Bars (junior) Bailie Key (senior) Abigail Milliet

Favourite leotards

GAGE! It was lovely, gorgeous purple/violet against the white contrasting arms, a bit of sparkle. Simple but not plain. I also liked CGA, the assymetric white on black one, which reminded me a bit of the 1992 Unified Team's Olympic leo. A great departure from horrendous leos from both gyms. Girls Co-Op had a nice baby blue one with a white firework looking thing near the bottom. Kyla Ross' and Simone Biles both had nice leos, but not amazing. I much preferred Alexandra Marks' version of Kyla's leo. WOGA's leo was too sparkly. Delighted hot pink was not as much in evidence as I expected it to be. Still some offenders, like Ragan Smith and Chow's girls though. McKayla Maroney's leo had too much going on- lose the stripes going around to her back and it would have stood out in its own right much more. Black is a great colour on her though. The Texas Dreams leo was definitely different! Kennedy Baker looked amazing in it, but it washed out some of the others and was too small on some. I'm 50/50 on it, the pattern wasn't that great but I loved the gold. The MG elite leo, the lime green one, really suited Laurie Hernandez but too much mesh and the collar was awful.

Conclusion

Classics is a splatfest. But really, I don't think we're any further advanced with picking the two all-arounders in Antwerp. McKayla Maroney and Kyla Ross have further cemented themselves as locks I think, Mykayla Skinner has done damage...I don't believe Simone Biles has, yet. Lots of upgrades shown, lots to hone for Nationals is the real message.

What were your favourite routines, leotards? Thoughts? I've embedded some videos in highlights for convenience.

Quick round-up

Five days until Classics! Very exciting. Sadly, Elizabeth Price has pulled out as she tweaked a hip during a tumbling pass recently. She was due to compete vault and bars which would have been very exciting to see. Hopefully she'll be back in time for Nationals. Although Classics is usually a splatfest, it will still set the stage for the worlds team. I'll be ignoring falls for the most part as they quite often don't mean anything. Gymnasts like Mykayla Skinner though can't afford falls if they are to really prove themselves in the running, especially as she has a reputation for inconsistency anyway.

My main wishes are;

- McKayla Maroney to hit everything, especially vault and floor though it'd be very interesting if she does the AA and nails beam and bars. As has been discussed to death, she does have a great line on bars with a fantastic gienger and dismount. She has a great flow on beam and always nails connections, though her bent knees kind of suck here. I'd like to see a twisting dismount too.

- Mykayla Skinner to nail floor and vault too. That would really shake things up in the running for the specialist spot.

- Fantastic beam and performance by Abigail Milliet, she has a lot of style.

- Improved form and solid routines from Brenna Dowell. I don't care that she's quite obviously not a dancer, she has improved a LOT in the last year and I'm rooting for her.

- A really exciting showdown between Bailie Key and Nia Dennis. These two are quite evenly matched.

- Much stronger performances from Lexie Priessman and Amelia Hundley than what we saw in Europe.

- Norah Flatley to score the highest on beam amongst the juniors and Jordan Chiles to place top 5 AA.

- 4/4 from Simone Biles and a sense of greater control on her floor landings.

- Someone to have a release-fest on bars, like Tan Jiaxin or Shang Chunsong. Polina Shchennikova is shaping up to have the best bars combination but hers is different to my dream..

- Laurie Hernandez' floor. It's just fantastic.

- The junior competition, just in general. There are a HUGE amount of juniors with quite a lot that I've never seen any routines of.

- Any leotards that are not hot pink. I'm a fan of magenta or sangria or whatever GK call it (London AA leo etc.) but the pepto-bismol shade is just horrible and the really super bright pink doesn't suit very many people.

What are you looking forward to? Other than a good competition!

USAG have just confirmed that podium training will be streamed. On Friday, juniors at 9:30 Eastern Time (so 14:30 GMT, 15:30 GMT+1) and seniors at 12pm Eastern Time (5pm GMT, 6pm GMT+1). On Saturday, competition day, juniors will kick off at 1pm central time ( so 7pm GMT, 8PM GMT+1) and seniors at 6pm, again central time (11pm GMT, 12AM GMT+1). USAG are promoting the two days in eastern and central time respectively so I kept it that way to avoid confusion, just keep an eye on the actual timezone they list. Streaming will be on www.secretclassic.com

Roxana Popa of Spain has just won Spanish Nationals. Not a great feat you might think, but her score was huge- 58.083. Her difficulty is 5.8 on everything except bars, which are 6.1. She's a new senior and she doesn't really have a weak event. I'm really looking forward to seeing her in Antwerp. Her bars in particular scream upgrade- the Tkachev-Pak for instance. Great swing from her, check it out.

I created an ask.fm account for the laugh. It's here. 

Confirmed: Yao Jinnan is a complete badass

After my disappointment the other week with Aussie Maddie Leydin not in fact having a counter-kim on bars as was reported earlier this year, I'm delighted that it's been confirmed with actual evidence that Yao Jinnan DOES have a Mo Salto. The gif is two thirds of the way down this page. Sure she has assistance, but it looks like a solid skill. I love when people go the unorthodox route for upgrades, and I'm so happy we are more than likely to see this release in a routine again. It was rumoured a few months ago and dismissed, but here it is! :D Even if she never competes it, the fact that she actually trained it is incredible. She may be able to release out of it into a Jaeger as Rick from gymnasticscoaching said, but if she doesn't have the flight to do that (wow how awesome if she could?) then she won't incur a deduction for an empty swing after, which she would have done last quad. Same goes for the counter-kim, if someone does unleash one.

Elite season is looming in the US with Classics about 6 weeks away. USAG have now released training camp snippets of Kyla Ross, Maggie Nichols, Maddie Desch, Polina Shchennikova, McKayla Maroney, Brenna Dowell, Kennedy Baker, Lexie Priessman, Bailie Key and Ebee Price. Still to come are Simone Biles, Amelia Hundley, Nia Dennis, Mykayla Skinner, Abigail Milliet, Nica Hults and new kids on the block Emily Gaskins, Grace Quinn, Ashton Locklear, Emily Schild, Norah Flatley, Alexis Vasquez and Rachel Gowey. The latter three have just qualified elite at Parkettes and all showed fabulous work on beam in particular, though sadly Alexis has injured her foot and watered down significantly as a result. The star of the show was Laurie Hernandez who posted a huge 57.8 total, though she was there moreso for experience, what with already being an elite. Her new floor is glorious, I absolutely love it. Sadly, Bailey Ferrer and Vanasia Bradley who both have huge skills in training had disastrous competitions, though Bailey scraped past the qualifying post.

The one who all eyes will be on is Simone Biles. We already know her routines, and her difficulty currently stands at 6.1 UB, 6.3 BB, 6.2 FX and 6.3 VT. Here's the fun part, her planned upgrades of a full-in DLO and piked double arabian bump up her floor to an enormous 6.8 and her planned arabian on beam bring that set up to a 6.7. Very interesting! Her bars count a C and her dismount is very easy for her, if she can (maybe next year even) do an E transition and a Fabrichnova that would bring them to 6.5. To put that into perspective, her difficulty even without the hypothetical bars is equal to Gabby Douglas at the Olympics, though like Gabby on bars, Simone would be unlikely to claim her full difficulty on floor, as she has two questionable leaps. This would bring her down to a still fearsome 6.6

Andreea Iridon won the AA for her age group at Romanian Junior Nationals. Andreea Munteanu did not compete; she has more than proven herself this year. Olivia Cimpian, a 2001 born, won it for her category. The surprise in the younger ranks is Andreea Ciurusniuc who has come on tremendously in the last year, though she did beat Andra Stoica at Trnava so that was definitely a sign! There were notable absences and a bonus system in place so there's not much of a cohesive picture yet. Results are here, to be taken with a pinch of salt.

The winners of the Dutch Nationals AA were Vera Van Pol who snuck up out of nowhere when Celine Van Gerner and Wyomi Masela made mistakes, and Eythora Thorsdottir who continues to break hearts everywhere when she fell off beam again, and also floor. Happily she did have interesting upgrades, a 2.5 dismount on beam and a double twisting flyaway on bars. Now this is my favourite type of bars dismount and wow are they rare, but so beautiful. It's only worth a C and she needs D or higher to satisfy CR...but the 2.5 version is worth a D and the triple an E. I didn't think I could root for her more but the dismount has definitely made her more awesome. She had a double pike and she must be upgrading this flyaway further or there would be no point. You can see senior results here.

Following Jacoby Miles progress, the Level 9 gymnast who was paralysed late last year and she is continuing to progress which is great to here. I love the fact she's helping out in her gym. The blog about her, maintained by her mother, is here.

Videos after the jump! Parkettes videos were filmed by Between the Olympics blog.

More news- Do not adjust your VCR

UPDATE- Added Lizzy LeDuc's routines from a few weeks back, and Bridget Sloan's brand new floor for Florida, debuted last week.

China, who took the team title at AYOF despite four falls, did not dominate in the AA and EF, sadly. However, they did accrue some more medals- Mei Jie took third in the AA, first on bars and third on beam, Luo Huan took second on bars, Liu Zhilin second on floor and third on vault and Chen Siyi second on beam. All in all, they went home far from empty handed, and at an inauspicious time of the year for them, still in the middle of Winter Training. There is great dissapointment that they did not sweep the board, but I don't think they should be written off...they are not used to competition, particularly international, and will not have been training high level skills for long. A good point was made on IG, that Deng Linlin was extremely inconsistent as a junior. Conversely of course, Tan Sixin and plenty of others never translated their potential as a junior to a senior. I am very impressed with Britain! Hope to see all of these girls in the future.

There's a US National Team Camp taking place. Some more appointments to the Junior National Team would be nice. Sarah Finnegan is not at camp, no idea as to why not. Hopefully not an injury. If she is not present at the next camp at the end of February, it is unlikely that she will be in contention for the competitions in Italy and Germany coming up in March. This one will no doubt be focusing on upgrades for those meets, and the summer season- Classics and Nationals, as well as SCAM of course.

Norah Flatley, Alexis Vasquez and Jordan Chiles will all be trying for elite this year. Norah and Alexis are Chow's most promising Level 10's, with some gorgeous beam work and artistry. Jordan is the girl I posted about a while ago, who has an arsenal of awesome skills in training- a DTY, a front triple-layout front etc. but sadly is not elegible for Rio. They would all make fabulous additions to the Junior National Team. I am most excited for Bailie Key, who now has a Downie and Church (!!!) on bars, and a standing arabian on beam. No doubt she has plans for floor and hopefully vault too. She will make excellent competition for Amelia Hundley.

Here is Michaela Chernoch's of Southern Utah's vault from a while ago, versus UCLA. It's the last one, at about 20 seconds. It's a one and a half on, full off. There's a lot of debate over whether it is a vault or not. It's extremely expressive in that a) she lands it and b) she lands it dead centre, and not off the mat...that's a very difficult vault to control the direction on. It also of course, looks awesome. But I'd have to agree it's not a vault, the vault is in her way, not a tool for her to rebound off. She gets pretty much no repulsion off the table and barely touches it. So, not a vault as it does not conform to the three stages of one. But wow!

Beth Tweddle performed for the second time on Dancing on Ice at the weekend. On her first outing, she was commended for her skill and bravery, but condemned for her roboticness. I would agree that she is much more watchable this time around, and has clearly made a lot of effort as regards her presentation. Well done Beth! Particularly impressive in that she was not felling well and had been hospitalised during the week.

Here are Lizzy LeDuc's routines from a meet a few weeks ago. The super-stylish junior who garnered quite a fanbase, moved gyms from WOGA after breaking both her elbows and dropped to Level 10. She failed to qualify elite last year, and has moved gyms again. This is an interview she gave after that move. It won't work for me, not sure if it's under gymnastike's gold' premium section or what. She seems happy with the goal of a college scholarship in mind, and indeed her routines look very NCAA. LOVE that floor. Still, I'd say ruling out her return to elite is premature.

Bridget Sloan did not dissapoint with her new floor routine. It makes the most of her choreography potential, and there's plenty of room for her to increase the difficulty in her tumbling, which is fairly average at the moment. I especially like the opening part.

This is my routine of the day, Hope Spivey at the 1994 NCAA EF on floor. Not only because she was 26 and still awesome, but for the difficulty, form and flair she shows here. Did I mention...reverse choreography??? Wow. Do not adjust your VCR!XD

I made a tumblr. I'm not sure exactly why, as I've no real interest in the tumblr world of OMG REBLOG LOL and I only ever look at a grand total of 3 tumblrs. Boredom I suppose. Predictably, you can find it at http://beautifulgymnastics.tumblr.com It looks extremely bare right now. I will use it for more informal snippets/pictures/videos. You can ask me questions or suggest something for a post on this blog. I won't be neglecting blogger in its place. EDIT- I got very sick of it and deleted it. I just don't like tumblr.