Drop everything! Read read read..

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source- beautifulgymnastics

The State of China

So, with just less than 5 months to go and coming back from a fairly dissapointing Olympics last year, how are China fixed as regards Worlds? And in general, what are the future prospects towards Rio? The National Games Prelims were a great chance to have a look at where they stand.

- Deng Linlin, He Kexin, Huang Qiushuang and Sui Lu have all said they will retire after the National Games, which will take place in September. This is very very close to Worlds and the East Asian Games, for which they might be persuaded to hold out that little big longer, particularly He Kexin who has a very good chance of making the worlds team. The fading of the old guard is of course sad, but neccessary to pave the way for the focus to be on their new talents.
- China's greatest hope, Yao Jinnan, is regaining her form steadily. She has said herself that she is about 70-80% 'back'. Floor is probably where the most work needs to be done, as she has her DTY and her beam and bars are pretty difficult. Her beam has a 6.7 potential with all connections hit, and while she did have issues with the standing full, it is similar to Aliya Mustafina's beam issues in that she looks very capable of ironing out the problems. Her bars are stellar as always, very sharp and clean work. I don't see any potential for the DTY to become anything else, not least because she injured herself doing a DTY last year. By contrast, floor was watered down quite a lot. If she can get it back similar to how it was during 2011 then she is a major medal threat in the worlds AA, though probably not gold given the lack of amanar, sadly.
- Shang Chunsong is bursting with potential and is definitely staking her claim as China's best all-arounder after Yao Jinnan. Her bars are extremely dynamic, containing her own move- the piked Hindorff into immediate Pak salto and her tumbling is extremely strong, especially her amazing first pass of 1.5 twist into triple twist-punchfront! Her beam saw her become the deserving beam champion and she did it perfectly during event finals. She does have a DTY in training, though just like Asuka Teramoto I think she will need to grow a bit in order for it to be a totally successful venture and for it to score well. Both girls are quite slight and don't have the push off the table that similarly short but extremely powerful girls like Simone Biles do. She's also a little inconsistent and shaky, though she did banish that in event finals. Unfortunately her fantastic tumbling is accompanied by a travesty of a routine choreography-wise that I'm sure most fans want to see binned fairly quickly. Hopefully being the new beam and floor champion as well as coming second in the AA will bolster her confidence. She's strong and small and could have great longevity for that reason alone.
- Tan Jiaxin unfortunately did not have a good competition. However, she has still upped her game as she now has an excellent DTY in her arsenal as well as an insane bars routine. That makes her a good bet for worlds, especially if HKX definitely retires before then and given that the bars fall is not characteristic for her.
- Tan Sixin has clearly come on a lot even since the winter training video emerged. Lovely beam as always, but I don't see her as important enough to make major teams.
- Zeng Siqi inspires worry that she'll be relegated to being a specialist, instead of the fabulous all-arounder that she could be. Her endurance and stamina are still so low that although her beam is a thing of beauty and very difficult, her dismount is always a problem. She shows no signs of regaining the DTY she had before her injury in 2011, though that is relieving given how almost frail she is. Her bars dismount remains more likely to be splatted than landed and while her floor does have difficult tumbling in it, it all looks a bit much for her.
- Wu Liufang looks set to continue fading into the background, unfortunately. Still has beautiful gymnastics, still woefully inconsistent and still not enough of an asset to the Chinese team.
- Huang Huidan stepped up and hit a cracker of a bars set in event finals with an enormous 6.6 difficulty. The fact that she beat bars-champion-since-2007-HKX must have been a good boost too, though the latter did make an error. Sadly HHD's hit record is still far from inspiring and her chances are still running out, reigning bars champion or not.
- Liu Tingting, a 2000 baby, was solid as a rock and placed FIFTH in the AA. Her extension, toepoint and general amazing execution are staunchly in evidence in everything she does and thankfully her difficulty has come up since last year. Slow and steady wins the race, she has incredible potential as as well as having the execution bit down, she is also quite springy and powerful.
- Yuan Xiaoyang, a 1999 baby, astonishingly took the vault title. She benefited from injuries and falls from the favourites as her vaults are quite low in difficulty, but still she is very impressive on more than this event.
- Wang Yan, probably born in 1999 or 2000, has a 6.7 beam routine. It contains the acro line made famous by Shawn Johnson- RO-RO-LO, a plethora of extremely high and well landed punchfronts and back tucks and an absolutely perfect please-upgrade-me double pike dismount. It's no fluid beauty but it's an incredible routine. She also shows promise on floor and vault, looks like she could develop into a strong all-arounder.

In general, beam and bars continue to be the dominant strength with gymnasts like Yao Jinnan, Tan Jiaxin, Shang Chunsong, Huang Huidan, Zeng Siqi and juniors Luo Huan, Mei Jie, Fan Yilin, Liu Zhilin, Liu Tingting, Wang Yan and Lv Jiaqi adequately covering all bases.

The vault and floor situation is as always, more questionable. They do have a few DTY's; Yao Jinnan, Tan Jiaxin, Luo Peiru and junior Wang Wei. They also have vault specialists Li Yiting, Yang Pei and Jiang Tong. However, there's no sign of their top two all-arounders flinging amanars which in this day and age is bad news. Shang Chunsong at least looks capable of nailing the DTY she already has (in training) and of all the girls, Tan Jiaxin looks able to give an amanar a go. But this area will still be weak by comparison to others. As far as floor is concerned, Shang Chunsong, Yao Jinnan and Zeng Siqi are the best bets, with Wang Wei and Liu Tingting looking like very good future prospects. Again, they don't have a depth of talent here and will really have to hone the routines they do have. And start Alla Sosnitskaya/Ksenia Afanasyeva'ing turn combinations, stat! And as Rick from gymnasticscoaching just pointed out, the ideal situation is that the top all-arounders have strong vault and floor, not that they just have strong vault and floor girls to go with their crowds of bars/beam girls. I'm hoping that will come in time. After all, the great Cheng Fei herself is coaching.

The worlds team will contain (if healthy) Yao Jinnan, Shang Chunsong and Zeng Siqi. The fourth place could go either way, vault specialist or bars specialist. At this point I think Tan Jiaxin will take it. So this potential team will have
- Yao Jinnan AA, BB, UB
- Shang Chunsong AA, BB, UB, FX
- Zeng Siqi BB, FX
- Tan Jiaxin UB

I know there's too many bars and beam qualifiers, hard to know what could happen there though.

In short, China are in desperate need of mini Cheng Fei's as they're still lacking in the power event categories, with an overemphasis instead on their pet events. They do have springy powerful looking young girls like Wang Yan and Liu Tingting but still crying out for depth in the power department. The last time they won a team title, the code was in their favour as it glorified bars and pirouette-heavy routines. They also did not have to contend with an amanar fest as their biggest rivals fielded one amanar, a Rudi and a DTY versus their own offering of an amanar and 2 DTY's (they had planned a second amanar, Jiang Yuyuan but she lost the ability at the last minute) and the American advantage of 0.5 on vault was swiftly lost after bars. Now, the code is against them somewhat and their bars have taken a nosedive in start value. Thankfully they have adapted to this and they already have dynamic release-release and release-transition routines, but it's not enough. I don't see AA gold appearing in the next two years, or the team gold next year. But they are moving in the right direction and have already appointed a new head vault coach with this in mind. Hopefully their results will continue to improve in other areas besides beam and bars event finals.

Who do you see as China's greatest hopes? On their team? Can they get it together and start to challenge outside of beam and bars again?

Check back for Russian, Romanian and USA versions soon :)

Videos are here and won't embed for me. If I had to pick just to a few to recommend they would be...Wang Yan, Shang Chunsong and Liu Tingting on beam, and Huang Huidan and Yao Jinnan on bars. Youku has more, there's a good selection here. These are, in order left to right (until they become duplicates of the YT videos) Lv Jiaqi FX, Luo Peiru BB, Liu Tingting FX, Liu Tingting UB, Jiang Yuyuan FX, Liu Tingting BB, Fan Yilin FX, Zhu Siyan BB, Wang Yan FX, Chen Li BB. Out of this lot you should watch Wang Yan FX, everything Liu Tingting and Lv Jiaqi FX at least. I still need Tan Jiaxin's everything and Shang Chunsong's UB. If anyone has links please leave them in the comments.

News

Brenna Dowell leads the Mexican Cup after Day 1. The competition is being split over two days, vault and bars were contested, beam and floor is next. Anna Dementyeva is in fourth place, knocked down after a very scary yurchenko full which she barely got around after no block. Dowell had a DTY, the only one of the competition. Although she is a GAGE girl, Dowell's form is pretty sloppy. Nevertheless, her difficulty puts her ahead- her bars contained shaposh 1/2, Jaeger and a full twisting double layout dismount. Demy is usually excellent on beam, but doubtful that it will be enough for gold at this point. Dowell is strong on floor and will be looking to get a double front piked credited. It was apparently downgraded to tucked position before, which as a deduction as she already has one of them. If you're that good at front tumbling, do Podkopayeva's double front half out in place of the tuck and save the penalty! Georgia Rose Brown of Australia is in third and Yessenia Estrada of Mexico is in second, delighting the home crowd. Tomorrow will be a strong day for Brenna Dowell and Marta Pihan-Kulesza who would be able to work her way up the rankings. Nobody's sure what Demy can or will bring on vault and beam, hopefully enough to medal. Videos are available, I will be putting up highlights in a new post along with Dityayin Cup videos, if they become available.

Amanda Reddin is the new head coach for Team GB. Amanda is the long-term coach of Beth Tweddle, as well as Hannah Whelan and Jenni Pinches. It is very obvious from seeing how she interacts with her gymnasts and looking at Beth's longevity and continued extremely high level of performance that she is a fantastic coach. Former head coach Adrain Stan is moving on to high level coach development. Bring on the continued beautiful gymnastics of Rebecca Tunney and the new era of wunderkinds Gabby Jupp and Angel Romaeo!

Amelia Racea of Romania has retired. Amelia most notably had success in 2010 Europeans, where she won beam. She qualified to 2011 worlds event finals on that event, but was hindered by low difficulty. Nevertheless, she had lovely gymnastics and would make a nice addition to Euros teams. Amelia is just not feeling gymnastics anymore and has gone to university, so fair enough. This year has seen the retirement also of Ana Porgras and Gabriela Dragoi.

McKayla Maroney has rejoined the Kelloggs tour. McKayla was still in two casts last week, so I highly doubt she has been medically cleared to do any actual gymnastics. She will of course need to spend a lot of time getting back into peak condition anyway after resting for so long.

Along with the Mexican Cup which will be streamed live here, the Dityatin Cup in Russia is attracting some interesting faces. Anna Pavlova, Ekaterina Kramarenko and Evgeniya Shelgunova are the major Russians competing. Anna has quite low difficulty now and seems to train more recreationally but still gets decent vault scores which shove her up the rankings. Ekaterina is she of the infamous vault touch-automatic zero from 2007 Worlds. Not sure what shape she's in, but I'd say her floor is still worth watching. Evgeniya is a 2013 senior, and is quite promising though probably not the best Russia will have in its arsenal leading into Rio. From Ukraine, Darya Kloptsova, a junior with a lovely elegant floor is competing. Kim Janas, a German junior is also very exciting and elegant. Hope to see videos from this. I'll put some up of both comps if they become available.

China's roster for the Asian Championships has been announced. It's quite the break from the usual faces, but should be very interesting. It is composed of the girls who excelled at the recent Nationals. Zeng Siqi, Li Yiting, Huang Huidan, Shang Chungsong, Wu Liufang and Luo Peiru.

Chinese National Individual Championships

As mentioned, Zeng Siqi won the AA. Huang Huidan came second with a mistake and Shang Chungsong came third with a few mistakes.

Event finals have also taken place. Huang Huidan won bars with Tan Jiaxin in second and Wu Liufang in third. Li Yiting won vault- by a mile, her vaults are 6.0/6.3. Second place Xiang Tong's vaults are 5.2/5.3! Third place Yang Pei also had 6.0/6/.3 vaults but fell on both judging by the scores. Zeng Siqi added the beam title to her AA win, helped by a fall from Tan Sixin. Lou Nina came second and Li Shanshan (not the 2008 Olympian) came third. Shang Chungsong won floor, with Zhang Qing in second and Cui Jie in third. No 2012 Olympians performed.

Overall, a great competition for Zeng Siqi who with a DTY and some upgrades on floor (she did introduce one in this competition) would be able to rival Yao Jinnan nicely. Huang Huidan also had a strong competition and Shang Chungsong too. Very dissapointing for Tan Sixin who had a point to prove after being left off the 2012 team for inconsistency. Also for Wu Liufang who would have wanted a better outing than this, and counted a fall on day 1 from beam. All of these girls- and the 2012 Olympians- will be performing next year in the National Games, barring injury. They carry huge prestige and will be the final competition for many. It is expected that He Kexin, Sui Lu, Deng Linlin, Jiang Yuyuan and Huang Qiushuang will retire afterwards. That leaves room for new faces- and Li Yiting, Zeng Siqi, Huang Huidan and Shang Chungsong in particular should be at the forefront as well as upcoming juniors like Lou Nina. Li Yiting is an event specialist- but the most important kind, and a potential vault medallist.

I will add videos here as and when they become available. So far there is one which includes Li Yiting's DTT, starting at 0:56. Also in this video is part of Huang Huidan's bars.

And here is Wu Liufang's beam from day 1- AA, with a fall.

Part 2 of the first video, featuring an amazing tucked Barani on beam from Xiao Kangjun. Towards the end are Zeng Siqi on beam and one of Shang Chungsong's passes, she was lucky to land that punchfront. There are videos of Zeng on that channel but they are from Nationals in May, at which she was still recovering from injury so wasn't at her best.

Also some interesting insights from Lu Shanzen, Chinese head coach about the 1994-1996 team, brought on by a biography by Liu Xuan

- Not only could Mo Huilan, Bi Wenjing and Meng Fei perform the Mo Salto- so could Kui Yuanyuan, Jin Yu and Wen Jing
- Zhou Duan of the insane Gaylord II who medalled on vault at the 1997 Worlds was supposed to perform the move there too to have it named after her. Unfortunately her technique completely messed up right before Worlds so they had to hold back on it. I always wondered why she didn't do bars then!
- Guan Yujing did the counter-Kim and Liang Qiong the Gaylord in a piked position.

I really love these bars releases, amazing the talent China had at this time. Apparently the new code allows for an intermediate swing with some releases, which may mean we might see some of the above again some day!
 

News- UPDATED Mustafina training video

Aliya Mustafina training beam and some vault timers from Mallorca. Anna Dementyeva can be seen on the other beam. Lovely work from Aliya, she looks very comfortable on all of her skills. Seemed to be the harder acro skills and leaps giving her trouble in London, but she has plenty of time now to get back up to her old level on beam. BEAUTIFUL spins from her and Demy. Her timer is refreshing as without twisting she has great form. Looks like there will be a part 2.

Lexie Priessman and Amelia Hundley are both injured, Lexie training at her gym and Amelia from doing split leaps at camp. Neither sound like very serious injuries, moreso sprains.

Zeng Siqi has won the all-around at Chinese Individual Games. Huang Huidan was second with an error and Shang Shungsong was third, with a few mistakes. Tan Sixin only did bars and beam and Wu Liufang had a pretty bad day, including a fall off beam. Scoring is notoriously harsh at internal competitions- nobody broke a 15 that I can find, however I haven't seen the results of those who did not do AA- ie. Li Yiting on vault probably scored over 15.

 Here is a fascinating translated interview of Alexander Alexandrov. http://rewritingrussiangymnastics.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/lupita-translates-interview-with.html
He never holds back and in this one blasts Anastasia Grishina's coaching- with good reason- and damns the chances of any of them making the 2016 team.

A video of Vika training has emerged. I can't get it to embed here but here is the link- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELmc1fchr80&feature=player_embedded
The very start is interesting, standing double tuck. If she could train that in combination it would be extremely valuable in the new code, but she doesn't really seem like someone who would have the power or endurance to do that. The uploader has said that a video of Mustafina will appear on Friday.

Word is that Maria Paseka has broken her ankle in Mallorca. Maria is not at 100% this year as she is still coming back from a long list of injuries, so she would probably be more prone to a further setback like this. Unconfirmed as of now. May just be giant fat rumour. Update: Vika has posted on her vk (Russian social media) that Maria does not have a fracture and no need to worry about her ligaments so sounds as if she's fine. Relief!

China's roster has been confirmed for the National Individual Games, prelims for which are taking place now. You can see the full list here:
http://chinesegymnastics.tumblr.com/post/31862842545/chinese-national-gymnastics-individual#disqus_thread
Lots of these names are new to me, but I hope the whole comp is put up- or all routines. Ones to watch are Shang Chungsong, Wu Liufang, Tan Sixin, Luo Peiru, Lou Nina, Xie Wenwei, Li Yiting, Cui Jie, Zeng Siqi and Huang Huidan. WAG takes place on Friday. I'll stick up videos if they are available.

McKayla Maroney has her cast off, still looks quite swollen though. Judging by the location of the scar, people in the know are saying that it is a tibial plateau fracture, which is quite a nasty one apparently. However, McKayla IS rejoining the tour soon and the cast is off so that's good. Most likely she will come out and wave, and maybe do a few dance moves.

Just to clarify my top 10 lists- all of them are individual favourite routines- not all-time favourite floor workers etc. as some of the gymnasts listed never hit the big time, and quite a few were seriously inconsistent or had extremely short careers. If I don't have the seriously big names in them, it is because I prefer other routines, not that I despise Nadia, Olga etc.