Top 10: Beam routines

I appreciate a lot of different styles on beam. Beautiful Soviet and Chinese routines are always a joy to watch, but I enjoy difficult, powerful and innovative routines equally as much if not more. Watching Elena Produnova stomp a beam is just as good as watching Aurelia Dobre float along it. Anyway, here's my top 10 favourite routines.

10.  Fan Ye, CHN, 2003 Worlds EF

This is perfect, everything is done to the highest level with no tiny wobble or adjustment. Leaves no room for doubt on any connection or leap- GORGEOUS Yang Bo leap! and stuck the dismount. This deserves to be a lot higher because there's nothing to take away from it..but I find it slightly dull as there's nothing 'new' or daring about it. Amazing though.


9. Elvire Teza, FRA, 1997 Worlds EF

Elvire lacked the polish most of her competitors had but she blew them out of the water as far as an exciting and original routine was concerned. I'll watch this over Gina Gogean's winning routine any day. So refreshing to see transverse elements- Elvire does two, both of which are her own and also a ruflova, another favourite beam element of mine. Just fabulous to watch.


8.  Yang Yun, CHN, 2000 Olympics TF

A lesson in glorious elegance from Yang Yun. Love her finesse and polish..such beautiful lines. Great ruflova and dismount.


7. Chen Cuiting, CHN 1989 Worlds EF

The beauty of this routine, aside from the perfect form, was that she had a sprightliness often absent from Chinese routines. Beautiful movement and fluidity. I am in LOVE with her tucked Korbut too.


6. Irina Baraksanova, USSR 1985 Worlds QUAL

Irina stood out as being particularly graceful, flexible and having perfect extension at a time when USSR was bursting with this style of gymnastics. Just a great routine, everything is beautiful. Love her crazy back flexibility move, right into a Yurchenko loop.

5. Aleftina Priakhina, 1987 Europeans AA

This routine contains an original mount which happens to be my favourite, and also the gainer ruflova and the standing full, more innovation. No prizes for extension, but this is one of the most exciting routines ever, for which a lot can be overlooked. A trajedy she was too inconsistent to make a major team and get some of her (SIX!) original skills named after her.

4.  Olessia Dudnik, 1989 Worlds TF

Known as one of the greatest beam workers, with good reason. A very exciting routine, from the mount to the full twisting layout to the triple full. Just great, so much daring and so ahead of her time.

3. Yang Bo, 1990 World Cup AA

Yang Bo had a lot of chances to take major titles, but usually tanked. This routine was one of the few where everything came together for her- everything is textbook. She has more fluidity and confidence in her movements than other great Chinese beam workers, and fabulous choreography. The fact that she never got anywhere but is so well known attests to her enormous talent on beam. This is a total masterpiece.


2. Li Li

Another perfect routine, the originality of the mount and her incredible back spin drive it right up to the top. Gorgeous, aside from her leo. Of all the difficult elements done on beam, the back spin is just in a world of its own..amazing. Perfect extension, form and fluidity.

1.  Tatiana Groshkova

Ahh...words can't describe how unbelievably amazing this routine is. 9.95 was a disgrace. I promise she won't top vault and bars lists!


Honourable mentions: Lilia Podkopayeva, Alexandra Marinescu, Hollie Vise, Shawn Johnson, Dina Kochetkova, Kui Yuanyuan, Elena Produnova, Elena Zamolodchikova, Danusia Francis, Mariya Livchikova, Olga Roschupkina, Aurelia Dobre, Mo Huilan, Shannon Miller, Sanne Wevers, Ana Porgras, Tatiana Gutsu, Tatiana Lyssenko, Qiao Ya, Zhang Nan, Teodora Ungureanu, Nadia Comaneci, Natalia Shaposhnikova, Natalia Yurchenko, Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs, Peng Peng Lee, Elena Abrashitova

Top 10: Floor routines

Not individual floor workers, just routines. I've never been the type of fan who judges every floor by 80's soviet routines, I would often much prefer to watch routines that were way ahead of their time, broke the mould in some way, extraordinarily powerful or energetic in movement or just a plain triumphant routine for somebody who was written off by most. In this list, there's about 7 routines that will always feature in a top 10 for me.


10. Andrea Raducan, ROM 1999 Worlds EF, Tianjin

One of my favourite Romanian floor workers, Andreea combined great tumbling with brilliant dance and a real sparkle selling the entire floor exercise. It is the dance that puts it ahead of so many other Romanian floor exercises for me.

9. Dominque Dawes, USA 1992 Dodge Challenge

Her best performance of this routine. Incredibly energetic and really fun to watch, with a great back-to-back tumbling pass in the middle.


8. Deliana Vodenitcharova, BUL, 1988 Olympics TF

So much great Irish music, and this dirge was chosen. Sigh. This routine is so ahead of its time that it would still have a high start value today...24 years later. Excellent tumbling with some nice moves in between. Totally robbed as she always received a much lower score for this than the big names with their weaker tumbling.


7. Olga Strazheva, USSR, 1989 WorldsAA

The modern dance masterpiece, a total antithesis to the usual balletic Soviet floor routines. Her tumbling really is secondary to the dance, though it's not bad at all. She performed this with such ease- every movement was so thought out and so in tune with the music. Just amazing.

6. Chellsie Memmel, USA 2008 Olympic Trials

This is one of the most phenomenal floor exercises, and one I keep coming back to. The combination of the 5 very difficult tumbling pass, her illusion sequence, her presentation at the end of the pass and the most planted double pike ever seen is magnificent, made all the better by the fact that Chellsie was written off prior to Trials due to her long string of injuries. A very triumphant fuck-you to those people, though of course- Chellsie who cemented her place in the team after her Trials performances was injured right before the games.


5. Cheng Fei, 2004 Olympics TF

Perfect combination. Chinese grace and presentation combined with raw power and great energy and sparkle in her dance. Superb choice of music too. Her failure to reproduce this for both Olympic event finals was a travesty.

4. Liubov Sheremeta, UKR, 1997 Worlds TF

Liubov was a better floor worker than Lilia in my opinion. Hard to choose between this and her 1996 routine- but this edges the win due to its quirky choreography. Such a performer with such exquisite tumbling.

3. Inga Shkarupa, UKR, 1999 Worlds TF

 One of the cleanest tumblers ever with such perfect form. This would be higher but I find her choreo a bit lacking. Love the unusual third pass and just about everything, such excellence!

2. Anna Myzdrikova, RUS, 2009 Worlds EF

The third pass is upsetting because she messes it up a bit and it costs her the gold medal. I chose this one because she was at her absolute greatest here, and the first and second exquisite passes are the best she's ever done them- check out the PERFECT double arabian. Unbelievable form, great chorepgraphy and relation to the music. A joy to watch.

1. Tatiana Groshkova, USSR, 1990 USA Vs USSR

There are a lot of Soviet masterpeices that I passed over- Baraksanova, Filatova etc. This one takes the crown not only because it contains beautiful expressive choreography in the typical balletic style but because it contains the most insane tumbling pass. The first pass is a double full-in- which is the same as a double-double except that both twists are in the first salto. It would automatically have a H rating next quad as that's what the double double has. Only one other has ever competed it- Alexis Brion, but Tatiana did it on a crap old floor. Just amazing, the entire routine.

Honourable mentions: Elena Produnova, Olga Roschupkina, Simona Amanar, Oana Ban, Ekaterina Lobaznyuk, Ludivine Furnon, Aurelia Dobre, Lavinia Milosovici, Daniela Silivas, Daiane Dos Santos, Oksana Omelianchik, Irina Baraksanova, Mattie Larson, Henrietta Onodi, Diana Dudeva, Olessia Dudnik, Natalia Laschenova, Tatiana Lyssenko, Kim Zmeskal, Ivana Hong, Viktoria Karpenko, Pang Panpan, Vera Kolesnikova, Maria Filatova, Natalia Frolova, Vanessa Atler, Victoria Moors

My ideal combo gymnast

Theepanel had a great post along these lines a while ago. Here is mine, a bit more convoluted!

Must have McKayla Maroney's twisting ability and vault block and form, Sarah Finnegan's artistry on floor, Mariya Livchikova's elegance, form and toepoint, Aly Raisman's power on floor, Alicia Sacramone's consistency and confidence, Yang Bo's beam with Nastia Liukin's long lines and Shawn Johnson's acro difficulty thrown in, finished off with Elena Produnova's badass dismount, Viktoria Komova's bars swing, lines and turns with Elise Ray's dismount (yes, Shawn did this too), Li Ya/He Kexin's release combo, Beth Tweddle's release to transition combo and Tatiana Groshkova and Aleftina Priakhina's ability to innovate..all with He Kexin's bars d-score, (7.4, if she's not picked, then Komova's 7.0) Larisa Iordache's d-scores on beam and floor (6.9 and 6.7) and McKayla Maroney's d-score on vault. (6.5)

It's very interesting to think about. For this one I purposely used relatively well known gymnasts. So rarely do we get a gymnast these days who has it all, so it's fun to surmise an absolute beast in every single respect of each event.

The most memorable floor choreography

Not whole routines, though often the entire routine IS iconic. Here is just my favourites, the parts that I most remember. Not all of them are beautiful, some were just a big departure in choreography and noteworthy because of that. Or just plain awesome to see.




Chellsie has put this into almost all of her routines. A master of illusion turns, it isn't elegant or pretty but it looks amazing. Originality is usually the key to a part of a routine's dance sticking in your head.



Daniela Silivas showcasing the greatest way I have ever seen of uniquely getting from the floor to standing. I would love to see this again, but I doubt it'd ever be used because it's so recognisable.



The best part of the best 'cute choreo' routine. Mo also had great tumbling here.



Yes, I love Groshkova. This has been done in a variety of ways and is a great way of getting out of a spin, chose this because both the spin and her extension are just beautiful.



This entire routine by Olga Strazheva is famous and rightly so. Side-by-side with the most beautiful elegant routines, Olga performed her modern dance extravaganza with great aplomb. This is the most memorable part of the routine for me.



Another ground-breaking routine, Camelia Voinea displays her breakdancing skills. Always overshadowed by Silivas and Dobre (HOW deep was that team), Voinea not only had brilliantly unique choreography, she also had very difficult tumbling- double layout punchfront!


Elena Produnova attacks the floor so fiercely even in her dance!

A selection of favourite leotards

Awful leotards are much more fun to pick apart, but it's generally a concensus on that and the Leotard Fashion Police over at TheCouchGymnast do such an awesome job there seems little point in trying. But favourite leotards are based more on personal opinions and favourite colours etc. Here are some that come to mind.

 Jesolo 2012

As a team leo, I love this. I love the cut and neckline and the waistband sparkles were just perfect, jazzing it up without ruining it or looking tacky. There's better photos on this but they're generally of the back only! A little bit too shiny  and I do think US need to get rid of all-red. Blue would be nice! But props to this leo for looking great and suiting everyone

Russian Cup 2012

An even more recent one, but it's just beautiful. Russia often has amazingly elegant leos (I'm not a fan of GK designs, they are so samey and everywhere) but this is their best one ever and I would be thrilled if it came with them to London. Love the colour, the elegant split down the centre, tasteful white accents and the mesh..works! It so often doesn't but not here, just fab. It beats the awesome 2010 worlds one, which lost marks for having cuffs and being of a snakeskin pattern.  This one does suit them all but Musty is really rocking it. Logo a bit prominent however.

Visa Nationals Day 2 2012

My favourite from Visas and my favourite one she's ever worn to competition- bit too fond of crappy GK swirls usually. This leo is of course no stranger, being the 2011 worlds TF leo as well as Kyla Ross' day 1 leo at visas too. But LOVE what they've done here, the great colour contrasting so well with the black and the sparkles thrown in in such a great way. This could easily have been slightly boring, but instead it's amazing.

Chuinchi Cup 1989

Now to go much further back. In an era of extremely dodgy leotards, Tatiana Groshkova paves the way. This leo is so iconic, what a great way to break up the boring white so often favoured. Not a big fan of the neckline but probably my favourite white leotard of all time. Looked awesome on her amazing beam moves!

1996 Olympics

This one gets mixed opinions. Either it's boring and drab or it's inspired and perfectly elegant. As suspected because I featured it here, I love it. You can't seem them too well but there are sparkles. It's the sweetheart neckline and black/white contrast that make it great for me though.

I'm sure I could do a part 2,3,4 and 5 but I'll leave it there for now. Can't wait to do analysis of London leotards!

Overlooked and underrated Soviet greats

As we all know, the Soviets had an unbelievable depth of talent in the 1980's and early 1990's. Inevitably, plenty were overlooked and never made it to a major international competition and even those that did failed to make an impact. Talent was not a factor- these gymnasts have incredible form, artistry, skill and often extremely high difficulty. Silly mistakes and inconsistency kept them out of the medals and off the radar internationally. Politics also meant that not all received the chance to shine.

Tatiana Lysenko

Tatiana DID make it to several international competitions and she did medal at the 1992 Olympics. Unfortunately silly mistakes kept her from fully realising her potential. She had the potential to take the all-around, and didn't even medal. Her difficulty was astounding, particularly vault where she performed a DTY when everyone else was only doing FTY's. Because they had the same difficulty, Tatian's low landing failed to impress and she was underscored. She could have scored much higher on all of her apparatus if she had kept her difficulty down in favour of stuck landings, but she kept at it. Respect! She was great on all four, even bars which she is not particularly known for. She is certainly known, but definitely underappreciated.

Tatiana Groshkova

Tatiana Groshkova was never chosen to be a part of a major team because of her inconsistency. When she hit, it was incredible. Her beam routine at the 1989 Chuinchi cup is my favourite of all time. Not only was it incredibly difficult with perfect form, it also contained original moves and amazing flexibility moves such as the scale above. Her floor was a work of art, beautiful choreography and dance. The tumbling was not the prettiest but that double full-in has to be seen to believed.

Aleftina Priakhina

Aleftina made it to a Euros, so she was doing better than many of the fantastic unknown Soviets at this time. She had incredible difficulty and was the first to compete a standing full twist on beam AND a double-double on floor, but never made it to a worlds or olympics so neither bear her name. Her beam and bars mount were both very daring, and more associated with Olessia Dudnik. Although her skills and technique were astounding, her form and artistry paled in comparison to others and just like Groshkova, she was lost in the pool of talent.

Irina Baraksanova

Irina was a victim not so much  of inconsistency but of politics. Along with Mostepanova and others who had already had a raw deal over USSR boycotting the 1984 Olympics, Irina was pulled from the 1985 Worlds all-around to make way for the big names of Elena Shushunova and Oksana Omelianchik. Her fabulous floor alone, the most balletic I have ever seen and with such gorgeous lines and expression, means she deserves recognition but her other routines are worth a look too, especially her magnificent beam.

I might make a part two of this at a later date, but it is very difficult to find information on some. Some of the gymnasts above might as well have been world-famous compared to some competely unknown but brilliant Soviets!

Some of my favourite routines of all time

Also love her floor but her beam edges it out so will leave it as one per gymnast.

LOVE this. My favourite floor..of all time. So underrated and unheard of, still not sure why she dropped off the radar with a killer floor like this.

I love me a beautiful artistic floor routine. These two I would rate higher than far more famous ones.

This FX was wayyy ahead of its time and should have beat Shushunova at least if not Silivas. Just amazing.

The greatest music-choreography combination! This blows 'cutesy barf Bela era' routines out of the water, gutted she got rid of it for Atlanta.

Unreal. She often OVERrotated this too, don't think anyone beats her in pure power stakes.

She has a straighter form on her amanar here than she does now. It is STILL incredible and the best amanar performed by anyone but she is just straighter here. The better landing than her 2012 landings helps too. Love this girl.

I don't care if she has slightly bent knees on her transitions. Let's just see it as the marvellous bar routine that it was, so incredibly difficult and GREAT form. All the more spectacular given that she was most likely 12 here. Her beam is worth a look too!

Such. beautiful.bars

I could go on forever, think I'll stop here.