Some news and musings. SCAM lineup announced!

NON-USA: There will be a livestream of SCAM! On www.dtb-online.de It's German so will presumably have German commentary, but who cares. It begins at 5:30 German time, 4:30 GMT and for anyone who can't watch it on TV in the US- 11:30 EST and 8:30 PST.

Gymnix rosters have been released. The Romanian team which differed between sources before is definitely Andreea Munteanu, Andreea Iridon, Laura Jurca and Paula Tudorache. The first three all feature in my New Kids on the Block Romania post. Very dissapointed not to see Madalina Blendea who doesn't seem to have competed in nearly a year, but word is she is not competition ready yet after an illness. Russia are sending lesser known girls to get experience. Apparently Seda Tutkhalyan has a DTY and round-off-layout on beam so that seems promising. Heaven Latimer, Aleeza Yu, Shallon Olsen and Rose Kayen-Woo from Canada will be there, as well as teams from Japan, Belgium and France. Should be very good. I'm expecting Romania to win. The final roster is here. (download)

In US news, the second girl for SCAM should have been announced by now! Patiently waiting. I fully expect Lexie Priessman but you just never know. Simone Biles would be another strong bet, or maybe Kennedy Baker. It looks like a very bad idea to push Katelyn Ohashi to compete all-around at the moment, so her name would be a huge surprise. The competitive field for this is quite weak so while you will hear a lot about the depth of competition from the commentators...in reality there will be two extremely strong US girls against a B team. In fact, there will be nobody else from the top 4 at all. I'm most interested in Kyla Ross' upgrades and my main hope is that it will be a good fight for bronze. Jordyn Wieber has reported that she is training and has almost all of her skills back. That will make for an interesting Nationals if she's ready. Aly Raisman looks to be a dead cert for Dancing With the Stars (Strictly Come Dancing) which should be good as dancing definitely does not come easy to her. The official announcement will be tomorrow. Aly's age first and foremost makes her a good choice as she does not have to jump through the hoops Shawn Johnson had to first time around- child labour laws, court, guardian at all times, reduced practice etc. etc. However, I think she's also a smart choice due to her sunny, pleasant personality and she seems very genuine and humble. It's no suprise that she is raking in endorsements all over the place. EDIT- Aly has been confirmed. The competition starts mid-March.

EDIT- Bit of a shock! Katelyn Ohashi and Simone Biles will be the two USA girls for SCAM! Kyla Ross has sadly withdrawn due to a bruised heel. It's fine apparently, but she has had to reduce her training in the last few weeks so isn't ready to go on all four events. I'm sooo suprised to see Katelyn Ohashi, as I expected her not to be fully ready on floor and vault yet, she scratched floor at the WOGA Classic and only did a FTY so I thought she would take longer to be fully ready as an all-arounder. Not liking the fact that injury has forced a complete reversal of the original American lineup..it's very early in the season. It has also kept Lexie Priessman out, she's recovering from an injury apparently. Really looking forward to Biles, and also to see what Katelyn has up her sleeve in an all-around. Koko Tsurumi has withdrawn and will be replaced by Maegan Chant of Canada. Ross may compete exhibition on beam. Full lineup is Moors, Chant, Jupp, Teramoto, Seitz, Ferrari, Ohashi and Biles with withdrawals from Price, Ross, Iordache and Tsurumi. There's a lot of snark going on about Kyla not being injured/recovering. There's no evidence for that but there is for the opposite so I'm going with that.

Peyton Ernst, another new senior, has been added to the National Team. She will compete at the Tokyo Cup, the previously unnamed USA spot.

Chantysha Netteb suffered a scary fall at a Euros qualifying competition at the weekend when she landed her beam dismount on her neck. She was taken to hospital as a precaution but thankfully the damage is only minor- a bump on her arm and some neck pain. There's a lot of optimism that she'll be ready to go for the next qualifying meet in a fortnight.Edit- Chantysha has her own blog. The fall sounds even scarier, she missed her foot before the dismount, attempted to get back up after and fell back down. She herself remains hopeful she can compete at the second qualifier. Get well soon Chantysha! Her blog is here. It's in Dutch of course, which translates fairly well but mixes up bars and beam. The accident happened on beam, not bars. I just left a comment which has probably translated as gibberish. I love when gymnasts have blogs- Jennifer Pinches has started to blog her London experience with looooads of photos, it's fascinating. I'll link the posts when she's done.

Does anyone else miss the old-style nicknames the Soviets got? I absolutely love them and wish they would be reinstated.

Olga Korbut- The Sparrow from Minsk

Maria Filatova- The Siberian Sparrow

Svetlana Boginskaya- The Belarussian Swan

Tatiana Gutsu- The Painted Bird from Odessa

Tatiana Nabieva- The Peacock from St. Petersburg

LOL JK Tatiana Nabieva does not have a nickname other than Nabs. In fact, this type died with the Soviet Union. I don't count Simona Amanar's nickname meaning airhead and Raluca Haidu's meaning dwarf (lovely bunch in the Romanian National Teams...), they have to be of this exact type. Sometimes a Russian comes along who deserves to be memorialised like former Soviet greats were. Tatiana is one, Aliya another. Bring it back!

Old-school favourite bar routines

It's odd to look at bar routines where gymnasts are doing skills impossible these days, and with no giants. Incredible releases were still present, and interesting transitions were the order of the day, as well as fabulously original dismounts, especially off the low bar- never seen today! The margin for error in some moves was massive, and very painful- belly beats were very brusing if misjudged even slightly. Routines known for one spectacular release will be included as the rest of the routine was also very impressive and exciting to watch.

 The most famous of all, Olga also had, apart from her flip, very dairing transitions and a perfect dismount but was never rewarded for her excellence, due to the dissaproval of her 'circus tricks'.

Elena Mukhina, who would have won the 1980 all-around due to her brilliance on all events upped the ante with the full-twisting Korbut. Her difficulty was astounding.

This includes both routines. Nadia's form was absolute perfection here, but her releases and transitions were also very difficult, if not as creative as some other routines of her era.

Teodora was underscored compared to Nadia, as well as being totally overshadowed by her. A wonderful gymnast in her own right, she excelled on bars and her routine is the most exciting to watch by far. She deserved 10's on bars.

Ma WAS the Queen of uneven bars, and deserved to beat MacNamara outright every time. Beautiful form and my favourite bars dismount, just incredible.

Emilia is another true great of the bars. She always looked so sad and thin, which helped to corroborate her later assertions that the Karolyi's were abusive. She is known more for that and for her ecletic floor choreopgraphy more than for her spectacular and exciting bars, which is such a shame because they deserve just as much recognition as Nadia's did. Amazing.

My all-time favourite uneven bar worker is Teodora. Others I enjoy but didn't put up here are Maxi Gnauck, Steffi Kraker, Karin Janz and Gabriela Fahnrich. I wish bars were creative again, instead of the tired old..geinger..tkactchev..pak salto..ono..double layout. It gets so boring. Would love to see someone crack out a Ma dismount, it's still rated an F whereas the other dismounts here are too easy to do.

Amazing uneven bar releases

The problem with the majority of these is either that they are now illegal in the code of points or the fact that they end in a dead hang and/or require empty swings which incurs an 0.1 automatic deduction, which means they are unlikely to be done again, especially as they are so difficult in the first place. I would love to see Viktoria Komova, Yao Jinnan and Beth Tweddle have a go at them though.



 
The legendary Olga Korbut performing the famous Korbut flip at the 1972 Olympics. Korbut also had creatives moves elsewhere but judges did not appreciate her 'circus tricks' and she never cored as highly as she should have.


Elena Mukhina adds a full twist to the Korbut flip. Mukhina was a true all-arounder and swept the 1978 Worlds. She was a shoe-in for the 1980 Olympics but was paralysed a few weeks before due to her over-ambitious coaches insisting on a dangerous roll-out move, which she landed on her neck in training. These moves have since been banned for women but are still fine for men to perform.


 Mo Huilan competes a Gaylord, a tucked salto over the bar. This was also competed by Bi Wenjing and Meng Fei. What's almost as amazing as the release is the flight Mo gets on her transitions. The Chinese today are famed for their dead-hang transitions and laboured kips, Mo however shows them how it's done.


Zhou Duan performs an unheard-of Gaylord II, which does not bear her name. This is a front tuck with a half twist to regrasp the bar, and is pretty similar to a Kovacs that the men perform. Just as above, it requires empty swings and a dead hang, both verboten. Zhou was also a beast on vault, difficult floor and a really difficult beam which appears to include a barani. She took bronze on vault at worlds but form issues and falls kept her from taking centre stage.



Kim Gwang Suk competes a counter-Kim, also known as a Marinich. I'm not too sure how to define it but the motion of it is where the difficulty lies. This routine is always overshadowed by the age falsification scandal. Kim was no more than 12 here. Her age, the release AND the fact that it was done in combination in a routine which also features other releases is incredible. Bent knees aside, that was an issue she could have fixed had she been allowed to keep competing. This has never been performed in competition since, but footage has surfaced of an unknown high-school girl competing it from a more difficult toe-on position. There are other, such as Nabieva's layout over the bar and the Church, but these are the ones I love the most.