Worlds Experience/Competition Part 2

Warning: This is longer than the previous post and only covers floor and vault Day 1 event finals as a result. Read part 1, the AA, here.

Saturday

OMG, the breakfast. Continental breakfasts in mainland Europe are always great, but this was just such an unbelievable spread. I've never seen such a varity of fruit, fruit salads, yoghurts and seeds on top of the excellent hot food and pastries- there were these tiny doughnuts which were amazing. Anyway. Event finals were starting a lot earlier than the all-around of course, at half 2. We got to the arena at about 2 and hung around it for a few minutes, magically hoping a stream of gymnasts would appear as spectators. But....Mai Murakami and Asuka Teramoto obliged!

Source- beautifulgymnastics.blogspot.com

!!!!! :D :D :D :D Nothing like elite gymnasts to make you feel like an awkward giant, at the lofty height of 5'3. This practically made my year, seriously. Both girls went unnoticed by those outside and seemed very surprised when I asked them for a photo. Probably as I have a big red Caucasian head on me - they'd be far more used to just an Asian fanbase I think. They thanked me afterwards! It's odd to be beside someone I've written so much about and fangirled over. I wasn't very interested in actively trying to find gymnasts though. A bit, but not super stalky or anything. So random encounters seemed more fun for that reason.

Our seats were the same as yesterday, 2 rows further back, so the same view. Great for MAG floor, which started off the day. The noise of them warming up was astoundingly loud, like BAM..BAM..BAMMMMM. No music obviously so of course the landings were exemplified. It was really exciting to even think of seeing Kohei Uchimura's routine and Kenzo Shirai's AMAZING twistathon live and of course, they didn't disappoint. Mindblowing stuff. Every single roll-out skill was nervewracking, I'm delighted they're being phased out. I felt that it was a great honour to see Kohei Uchimura competing live and although his difficulty was a good bit lower than some, he was incredibly impressive and so clean. I don't really watch MAG floor and after watching so much of WAG floor, it's refreshing to see the differences - like the amount of great twisting combinations that we just don't see in WAG. However, I think I'd get bored of the lack of double backs if I watched or saw it in person more often. The fact that Kenzo Shirai was competing last was wonderful, it allowed the tension to build nicely. Everybody definitely got the memo about his crazy routine, huge cheer when he saluted. That quad twist...just incredible. Almost the best part of his routine though was Kohei Uchimura's reaction to the landing of the quad twist and the sheer joy when his score was posted. It's fantastic to see such sportmanship in action.

Thanks to Agnes Suto for mentioning the name of the marching in and out song, Martin Garrix- Animals. The cut the arena used is better than the video I found on youtube. The beat of it really fired up the crowd and I was thrilled when the vault finalists marched in...and there was no hot pink from the Americans. No red, white or blue from them either which I know bothers people but uhh such a stunning leotard, and I just love purple so much. So glamorous and regal with the jewelled neckline/bodice. Each time Simone Biles marched out at these worlds, at all five possible finals, I was blown away by how much shorter she is than the average gymnast. It's a reflection moreso on the changes of gymnast's builds over the years I think. Did you know that Shang Chunsong is actually taller than her? Barely, but still, hilarious :D

Sadly no timers this time around of course, I really think it's stupid and possibly dangerous not to allow it for event finals. Giulia Steingruber got the competition off to a great start with a fabulous Rudi. Yes, her feet are messy and she's a little bit too piked in the first half twist or so, but it looks amazing from the side and she almost stuck the landing. It's a weird experience to experience firsthand how little time a vault takes! And to be close enough to gymnasts that I could hit them with my water bottle if I so wished, people I've written so much about having only ever seen them on screens. Not to mention the weirdness of seeing yourself in the audience on footage! Back to Giulia, I'm so impressed that she learned the DTY in such a short space of time. A very wise decision as the DTT hadn't been working out, famously keeping her out of vault finals in London when she crashed it. And what a great DTY it was! She barely had leg separation on the block and she kept her legs glued together throughout the vault, which as we know is very rare, especially on vaults more difficult than a FTY. Again with the flexed feet...but again with the great landing, though she was bent over a little too much at the waist. A worthy contender for bronze.

Next up, the cannonball Produnova from Yamilet Pena. I admire her spirit a lot and I do think she does have a lot of innate vaulting talent, but this is a waste, and still so dangerous on her knees and ankles. It's especially surprising that she's still doing it after suffering setbacks with injury and with her coach leaving this year, and the fact that she could not land a handspring-layout front at Pan American Games not that long ago. Predictably, it was scary both in the air with her insufficient height, and on the ground though there was no doubt she got her feet under her and bearing weight enough to get a score. Huge groan of course from the crowd. I wonder what people like Oksana Chusovitina and McKayla Maroney who have been watching her splat this vault in the same finals for years think when she goes for it. It was upsetting to see the anguish on her face when she got up afterwards, though also maddening, I wished I had a stock of rotten tomatoes to throw at her coach and any other officials encouraging this gigantic hot mess. Even worse when she fell backwards on her second vault, sigh. I wish she could do an exchange programme with a US gym for a few months (not WOGA..) or just plain change citizenship.

Unsurprisingly, a huge roar greeted Oksana Chusovitina. Another legend I got goosebumps to see competing in front of me. She must like the springboard being set further back than usual, but this looked a bit like overkill as she hit the horse very far forward and the vault was consequently a struggle which she landed low. Still, she landed it, very impressive! It was hilarious when her coach was speaking to her right after and you could almost imagine Oksana thinking 'Be quiet, child!' It's got to take nerves to give constructive criticism to her. Happily, her second vault, Tsuk 1.5, was great! So straight and with great leg form. When you think of the pounding vault entails at her age, I highly doubt she does half the repetitions in training that her fellow competitors do. Which just serves to highlight the brilliance of that second vault, and indeed the ability to get around the first when the takeoff was wrong. What a privilege to see her in action.

Fourth to vault was Phan Thi Ha Thanh in another stunning leotard, pink this time. I've no issue with the colour when it's not sickly pale, hot pink, or pepto-bismol. She is so, so beautiful. I was gutted when she didn't make London finals last year, so it was great to see her here. She does pike her Rudi as we all know by now, and the last half twist is wild but it's really lovely in the air, very dynamic. At least from the side, which does mask quite a bit of what you see from the straight view on replay. Easier than ever to imagine why the judges don't deduct for things fans see on these replays. A pity she couldn't get her chest up on landing the Rudi though. And...I had a heart attack when 6.3 flashed up for her second vault. It never crossed my mind she would go for an amanar, because her DTY is not particularly great, or even secure. Madness to try it. Predictably, she barely got the two twists around and it was the scariest thing ever because it was the worst case of twisting into the ground I have ever seen. She's very lucky she got up and walked away after that. I'm all for difficulty and going all out, but they need to be skills you can actually do and do consistently. That was just frightening.

Chantysha Netteb qualified with low difficulty vaults, ahead of teammate Noel Van Klaveren who failed to make the final after practically landing her gorgeous DTY off the mat entirely. Chantysha has had issues with the DTY with a bad fall at Euros, and did revert to a 1.5 Yurchenko after. But the final is the time to bring it, so she went for the full 5.8. It looked good in the air and very clean and secure so it was a huge shock first of all when she fell backwards and a second, sickening shock when she grabbed her knee in agony. Just awful. My view of her face in intense suffering was all too clear and the big screen on my right which was too close to block out replayed it over, and over, and over again. The obvious pain on her face, the replay of her landing and the knee grabbing all screamed ACL tear, sadly. Chantysha is so promising, especially on vault, and it's just gutting to see her world championships go like this. What discipline it took for her not to make a sound.

After Chantysha Netteb was carried off on a stretcher (the worst sentence I think I've ever written here), it was Simone Biles' turn to vault. It's unnerving to be first up after that, harking back to Aly Raisman who had to go up on beam after Rebecca Bross dislocated her knee on vault at Nationals two years ago. But no problem for the new world champion, who launched her amanar up to the ceiling and had a better landing than the all-around, with just a small bounce back. The noise of her block is just BOOM, so explosive. Amazing. Her second vault, the Lopez, is the best I've ever seen. Her block is perfect, much superior to McKayla Maroney even, and she never once wavered from her pencil-like straight form. Her Cheng when we see it will no doubt be even more mindblowing.

The 2008 Olympic vault champion, Hong Un Jong, the only gymnast North Korea brought, has the second highest difficulty of all- 6.4 and 6.3 (Yamilet Pena just a tenth higher..), but her execution leaves her in contention for nothing more than bronze and the Cheng is a bit beyond her at times. Her first vault, the amanar, was better than I expected though. Very clean in the air but an uncontrolled landing marred it. It's a different story for the second vault, which was scrappy in the air, and so piked. The execution score she got was kind of hilarious, but then they mostly were in this final. Certainly it should not have approached a 9, a clear case of the judges afraid to penalise difficulty, again. Still, at least we weren't treated to a carcrash TTY, after an already scary few vaults! She's quite broad in the shoulders, and is definitely healthy and strong. The same can't be said of her coach, who looked like a doll by comparison- and basically, undernourished as a result of living through the famine in the 90's. I wonder how closely their delegation is watched at international competitions like this?

Last but not least, the reigning world champion, she of the stupid meme, McKayla Maroney appeared at the end of the vault runway. It was quite a tense moment seeing her focusing and getting ready after what happened the last time she appeared in an international vault final. No white leotard this time! The step back, the incredibly fast and powerful run...no fear for her amanar, which was just unbelievable. She still has the most incredible block and airtime, even though she's not getting the same height as last year. And another almost (soo..close) stick! She knows how to please a worshipping crowd, such an exciting moment. That said, I have issues with that score. Her hips and knees are bent, she was off direction by quite a bit and she didn't quite stick it..so her score being higher than the TF vault in London last year, taking into account the lowering of difficulty on it, is funny, and not in a good way. Yes, yes, she will beat Simone Biles on difficulty. There's no need to be ridiculous about it though. Also, Simone's own amanar was better, but scored worse. McKayla's second vault was a great vault for anyone else, but it was a bit poor from her, her block was really quite wonky. The important thing was that she landed it, and it was really good otherwise, great explosive distance I thought. That must have been one great sigh of relief to banish the ghost of London with a second consecutive world title. Onwards and upwards hopefully, her execution and height are even better than what we witnessed here.

The Podium
 
And the world champion is...big surprise here...McKayla Maroney! Silver of course went to Simone Biles with what were to me, easily the best two vaults of the competition and in third, Hong Un Jong beat off stiff competition from Giulia Steingruber and not so stiff from Phan Thi Ha Thanh, given her bad fall. It is absolutely fantastic to see somebody retain a title, and so magnificently. We shouldn't forget McKayla's string of injuries in the last year, and she had just 8 months of training to get to this point. I'm not sure we'll see a Cheng but I think a TTY is definitely possible, and I'm hopeful she can brush up just a bit on her execution and/or height. She absolutely deserved her gold..BUT..there's usually a but, it should have been closer as both of Simone Biles' vaults were in fact better. It's great to see these two sparring in international competition as well as internally, good motivation. Don't be fooled by gamefaces and Simone's polite but disinterested looking clap for McKayla after the latter landed her second vault. After the competition they marched out smiling and talking and when they came back for the medal ceremony, there was a great camaraderie between the two. What incredible vaulters, what a pleasure to see them raise the roof like this.

Many are saying Giulia Steingruber was robbed, and it's easy to see why. But although her vaults were great she did throw marks away with her low landings, and form issues particularly on the Rudi. It just wasn't enough to best a girl with seven more tenths of difficulty. I cannot but be happy for Hong Un Jong to take away a world championship medal. She is surely celebrated as an Olympic gold medallist, and entitled to live in the capital etc...but it's got to be miserable all the same and another prestigious medal cannot but be a good thing.

Here is a ridiculously great stop-motion photo gallery of every vault finalist in action. Love it!

Favourite Leotard

Simone Biles and McKayla Maroney's glorious purple leotard. Perfect on both.

Highlights

- The two amanars of the Americans, great to watch for different reasons.
- The clean fabulousness of Kohei Uchimura's floor.
- Everybody survived their roll-out passes.
- Kenzo Shirai's quad twist, because it's insane.
- And his entire routine, so exciting. I don't care how one-sided it is.
- Simone Biles' Lopez, it's just fantastic with the perfect block and technique.
- Giulia Steingruber's lovely DTY, despite the haste in which it was learned.
- The atmosphere before McKayla Maroney vaulted, so tense and expectant- waiting, wanting, hoping for the usual magic.

Not-so Highlights

- What looks like an ACL tear for Chantysha Netteb.
- The constant replays of her injury.
- A totally unneccessary and dangerous amanar from Phan Thi Ha Thanh.
- The cannonball from Yamilet Pena and her fall on the second vault. :(
- Roll-out skills. So fearful of them.



Who do you think has the best amanar now? Who should have gotten bronze? HOW CUTE is it that Kenzo Shirai and Mai Murakami are a couple and have been for years? How much crack are Yamilet Pena's and Phan Thi Ha Thanh's coaches on?

I had to split this post in half, so coming up soon will be the second half of Saturday, and hopefully some of Sunday if I can squash it in. Being closer to vault helps me blab on more about it, not to mention their being so kind as to take it in turns to compete, rather than all at once in the AA :)

Origin of London's difficult skills

All commentators stress the difficulty of certain skills. Certainly some of them are more prevalent now in competition than they ever were before, but extremely few were invented this side of the millenium which shows how innovative the 80's and 90's were when it did not pay to break the mould and perform a super-difficult skill. Here are the ones seen in London and their origins.

The Double Double/Silivas

This double double is currently a G skill and will be a H under the new code. In London it was performed by Jordyn Wieber, Victoria Moors, Larisa Iordache, Vanessa Ferrari and Anastasia Grishina. Though it is named after Daniela Silivas of Romania who performed it at the 1988 Olympics, it was first done by Aleftina Priakhina of USSR in 1986. Neither had great landings, but they were using a crap old floor.


Double Arabian beam dismount/Patterson

An exceptionally difficult beam dismount which requires a lot of height and speed. In London it was executed by Aly Raisman, Viktoria Komova and Marta Pihan-Kulesza. Carly Patterson of USA was the first to perform it, at the 2003 Worlds but Corey Fritzinger also of USA did it first in 2001. 

Standing Full twist- beam

A move which elicited awe when Shawn Johnson did it but it's much older than that. Usually has quite a low landing due to the difficulty of fully rotating it in time. In London it was performed by Gabby Douglas. This is another skill done first by Aleftina Priakhina of USSR, again in 1986.


Tucked full twist in acro line/combination

This one is more common as it provides more momentum to get the twist around, but is just as risky otherwise. In London it was performed by Larisa Iordache. The inventor is Ecaterina Szabo of Romania who performed it in 1983.


Full twisting double layout

This is the other skill to be awarded H status in the code. Performed only by Daiane Dos Santos of Brazil but although Catalina Ponor of Romania warmed one up in podium training she never competed it. Named after Oksana Chusovitina of USSR (at the time) who performed it in 1991. It was first done by Tatiana Tuzhikova of USSR in 1987.

Li Ya Jaeger-Jaeger combination bars

Performed only by He Kexin who despite growth has managed to keep this. Often called her original skill but it was first done by Li Ya also of China who competed it in 2006.

Tucked Barani/Grigoras

My favourite acrobatic skill on beam, it's quite rare. Sui Lu of China performed it in London and it was invented by Cristina Grigoras of Romania in 1980. Chellsie Memmel had a nice one too.

Amanar vault

The most common difficult skill/vault. It was performed by McKayla Maroney, Gabby Douglas, Aly Raisman, Jordyn Wieber, Maria Paseka and Viktoria Komova. First performed by none other than Simona Amanar of Romania who did it at the 2000 Olympics.

Produnova vault

This was performed (read: sat down feet first) by Yamilet Pena Abreu of Dominican Republic in London. It is the hardest vault with a difficulty of 7.1 Notoriously difficult as it requires immense height and a powerful block. It was first attempted by Choe Jong Sil of North Korea at the 1980 Olympics but she completely crashed it so credit goes to Yelena Produnova of Russia who most notably landed it totally upright in 1999.

Def release- bars

The Def is a one and a half twisting Geinger, first performed by Jacques Def of France. His name has carried over to WAG as the first woman, Snejana Hristakieva of Bulgaria who first performed it in 1991 has a much less catchier name. It was done in London by Elizabeth Seitz of Germany. Interestingly, both perform it very sloppily but is IS possible for it to look neat- check out Cha Yong Hwa and Elena Dolgopolova.

Double Double bars dismount/ Fabrichnova

One of the hardest bars dismounts, this was performed by Beth Tweddle and Viktoria Komova in London. It was first done by Oksana Fabrichnova of Russia in 1993, and remains fairly rare.

Piked Double Arabian/Dos Santos I

This was performed by Aly Raisman and Beth Tweddle. The originator, Daiane Dos Santos of Brazil who first performed it in 2003 was in London but has not been doing it recently. It is one of the hardest floor tumbles and should be rated higher.


Full-in beam dismount

Having watched the 1996 AA all over again just recently, this was more common then. Performed in London by Catalina Ponor of Romania. It is was first done by Albina Shishova and Natalia Frolova both of USSR in 1983.

If I have missed any others in London who performed these skills please let me know. I did watch every single subdivision but some things can be forgotten easily. I have real issues about the standing full..there's no way it was just done by Gabby. As for the originators, I stand by all of them as being correct.

 

 

Official: London judges actually on crack

The judges report has been released and it makes for interesting reading. Some very questionable and downright mad judging going on.

Qualifying

Floor

Lauren Mitchell got an 8.0 and a 9.0 in execution for this routine. Seriously a whole point between two different judges?

The 9.0 judge gave Afanasyeva and Raisman the same execution score, when every other judge rightly had 0.1-0.4 difference in favour of Afan. Interestingly, gave Tweddle her lowest execution score too. So you hate artistry or not?

Bars

One judge gave Tweddle a 9.2 execution score and Komova an 8.5! Not surprisingly, this was Komova's lowest execution score by three tenths. The same judge gave Mustafina an 8.3, also her lowest by three tenths. Going to go out on a limb here and suggest this judge doesn't like Russia?

Douglas, Mustafina and Jinnan all had an 0.7 range between their execution scores.

Beam

One judge saw a tenth in the execution difference between Deng's and Sui's routines. Another saw a full point.

Jordyn's scores ranged from 8.2 to 9.0- 0.8 difference.

Two judges gave Raisman and Ross the same execution score..

Vault

One judge gave Douglas a higher score than Maroney's amanar by three tenths. WTF. The same judge also scored Jordyn's and Aly's amanars two tenths higher than Maroney's amanar.

Actually, only one judge thought Maroney's amanar was better than Jordyn's.


Team Finals

Floor

Victoria Moors was lowballed, receiving 0.7 less than Raisman for execution by the same judge. Not one judge scored her higher than Raisman.

Vault

One judge thought Douglas and Wieber deserved 9.6 for their vaults and Mustafina a 9.5. No, just no. All three have form and technique errors. And had just two-tenths between Maroney and Douglas..

Bars

One judge has 0.7 in the difference for execution between Tweddle and Jinnan, and 0.8 between Tweddle and Qiushuang, both in Tweddle's favour. ???

Beam

One judge gave Iordache and Ponor 9.0's and Sui 8.3!

Kyla Ross' scores have jumped from qualifying, for the exact same routine.

0.7 difference in Asuka Teramoto's score range.

A full point in Hannah Whelan's. Also the difference between Hannah's highest score and second highest score is 0.6.

All-Around

If the reference judges scores were used, Komova would have won the AA.

Floor

One judge gave four scores over 9. The rest only gave one each. The same judge gave Komova a 9.5! Also gave Douglas a 9.3 which devalues it a bit.


Vault

Douglas received THREE 9.5's for hers


Raisman received a 9.6!

Mustafina's lowest score was a 9.4

Bars

Mustafina's scores jump dramatically.

Douglas jumps too, and has 0.7 range in her scores

Beam

An 0.7 range in scores for Raisman and Komova

Komova received a 9.4! The same judge gave Deng four tenths less.

Douglas' scores have inflated again.

Floor Finals

The same judge who gave Raisman and Mustafina 9.3's gave Ponor an 8.5. This was Ponor's lowest score by SIX tenths.

The e-panel's score gave Ponor one tenth higher overall execution. The reference judges gave Raisman two tenths higher execution. Because of the difference between the e-panel and ref judges of Ponor's execution- 0.4, it was averaged between the two. If it had not been averaged, Ponor would have received 15.4. Still would have lost though.

Ferrari was lowballed completely.

Beam Finals

One judge gave Ponor and Raisman the same score.

One gave Deng a higher execution score than Sui   

Vault Finals

Paseka received no less than two 9.0's for her (not a) amanar.

Berger was lowballed and got an 8.5 for her Rudi.

Maroney's amanar received a 9.8 (before the neutral deduction), despite being noticeably not as good as the team finals one.

One judge have Pena an 8.0 for her unbelievable mess of a first vault. Another gave her 7.0- another point difference.


Overall

- Far too much disparity between scores, several instances where there was an 0.7 range and a good few where there was a full point. Regardless of the highest and lowest scores being dropped, this shouldn't be happening in the first place.
- Vault judges all on crack. An amanar once actually landed on the mat nevermind what direction it was facing or how much the gymnast came off the mat afterwards was totally gifted. Not near enough deductions on vault in general- dynamics, height, block technique..all ignored. Not near enough difference between Maroney and others.
- Too much inflation going on. Raisman in particular was gifted a lot of her scores, but few remained consistent throughout the whole competition for much the same routine.
- Some gymnasts were totally screwed, Ferrari the most obvious. Qiushuang another. Sui Lu in team finals beam, and Deng in the all-around.
- What subdivision you were in in qualifying greatly affected your score.
- Overscoring a big problem. Hard to believe that everyone thought crappy amanars were going to get slaughtered and that beam and floor were going to be harsh.




 

OH MY GOD

WORST. VAULT EF. EVER

Absolutely devastated for McKayla Maroney. To expect a gold and have EVERYONE in the world ever expecting you to get a gold and then to have that to happen has to be the worst moment of her life. But did she rage and cry? No, and I am sbolutely amazed she didn't cry. She held it together, hugged Sandra and smiled on the podium. WOW. That takes guts, considering this was far more assured than even Komova's gold chances. Komova had at least one fierce contender to deal with, Maroney had none- just a strong fight for silver and bronze below her. Nor was she ungracious about her medal, she stated 'I am not disssapointed with silver, I am dissapointed with my performance'. If anything good comes of this it is that she will be fired up to beat everyone next year and probably to stick a TTY in the process. Ultimate respect for her reaction and quotes.

'OMGZZ she should NOT have gotten silver with a fall, it's disgraceful.'As long as you blame the system, not the gymnast. However, I agree with her silver. She has far and away the best technique not only of her fellow finalists, but in general. Nobody has done the amanar better. We see textbook form and great landings often, but with the rest of her vaults Maroney stands as the best vaulter of all time. This will never happen again, vault scoring is being changed. As it stands now, nobody can touch McKayla for vaulting and it's too bad that Paseka and Berger are too far below her difficulty and execution combined to touch her. Hardly McKayla's fault now is it.

Paseka's 'amanar' was actually a 2.25 yurchenko. Not only was it not fully around, she came OFF the mat and looked like this on her block:

 

Her landing looked exactly like Shawn Johnson's infamous 2.25 "amanars". So, Maroney was gifted with her silver? More like Paseka was gifted 0.7 in crediting this as an amanar, and on top of that- it got a 15.4! What a joke.

But it doesn't end there! Not only was Paseka's score a disgrace, it edged Janine Berger out of bronze. Janine had two excellent vaults, big steps back but really great vaulting. Janine was devastated and furious, and no wonder. Clearly was not going to challenge for gold or silver with Maroney and Izbasa around, but that WAS a bronze.

Is that it? NO! Elsabeth Black had a nightmare, crashed her first vault and got a zero. It's another controversial zero too. She was injured after that and balked out of doing her second vault, running past the mat. Wise decision, but what a nightmare for her. Even BBC thought she should appeal the first vault.

But wait for it! We were also treated to Yamilet Pena Abreu trying to land her handspring double front. Produnova must rue the day she introduced that vault to WAG (yes she was't the first attempt, a Korean tried..but everyone forgets her) if she cops any of Pena's efforts. Now, because Pena comes from a nonentity of a country in the gymnastics world, it's really not suprising that she attempts the most difficult vault in order to qualify and try to medal. However, her technique is flawed on this and it's hard to watch when you know she has no chance of landing ir properly. What was REALLY wrong with this was the expectation placed on her. Normally after crashing it, she gets up with a smile and a shrug and looks happy to be alive. Not here, she was absolutely gutted. Clearly, far too much pressure was placed on her to medal. Ridiculous.

I AM happy for Sandra Izbasa, who clearly vaulted the best today and was elated with her win. But a vault final featuring the golden favourite sit down a vault, a crash and an injury, a cannonball sit down, a vastly overscored and wrongly credited amanar and devastation on the face of no less than three girls is a nightmare. Scoring has been a letdown in ALL events in London. I am absolutely disgusted and heartbroken at how shoddy this has been.

McKayla is going to continue training apparently. FANTASTIC NEWS. I would have expected her to continue even if she did get gold, but this will hopefully inspire her further. What do I want to see from her? I would like to see her unleash a fabulous floor routine with an unscary third pass and a consistently strong beam routine. IF she continues training bars which I hope she does as she has great potential there- I'd be thrilled if she threw a Def. The height and flight she gets on her geinger is the highest I have ever seen, and the fastest and best twister in the world is probably very capable of a Def. As for vault, I would be thrilled with a TTY and she absolutely deserves a vault named after her (not the amamanr renamed..). Having a TTY would also give her the opportunity to downgrade her second vault. Her Amanar is well capable of more twists. BUT if it's not consistent, keeping the amanar is still enough to keep her ahead of the pack.

To everyone freaking out that Maroney didn't hug Paseka, shut up now. Evidence suggests she was looking so far up that she didn't realise and the camera panned away very fast. Who are you to suggest from a second of footage that Maroney didn't hug her? Who cares anyway? She was in absolute shock. And I'm not a hypocrite- I will absolutely not pass judgement on ANY gymnast regardless of nationality for being in shock/crying instead of smiling like a loon while their dreams crash around them.'Komova's a bitch, Musty is a brat, Maroney is spoilt and ignored Paseka'. Just horrifying to see this ignorance and spite everywhere. Update: McKayla has seen all the fuss about her, and has tweeted about how she hugged both girls, both are her friends, that she was in absolute shock and didn't know what she was doing and that sportmanship is very important to her. Hopefully that will shut everyone up, but I'm gutted she had to see it. Because what you really need after the worst day of your life is to find everyone turning on you for not being thrilled about it. Mustafina had had to ask people to stop contacting her, Vika and Grishina on vkontakte (Russian facebook). Clearly they were getting lowballed too. Disgraceful. I hate people. I have to go back and edit the sl** word out of a mocking post about USAG facebook because it's leading a lot of sick sick people to this blog who are searching 'McKayla Maroney sl** Mckayla Maroney bu** McKayla Maroney as*'. Just vile.

I'll never predict medals or describe anyone as a lock for gold again. Predicting favourites is one thing but this just shows you're never safe from being suprised until you're dead.

And thank you Reddit, I am well aware that this reads like a rant. But what vault final were you watching? The one I watched was a disgrace, and I wrote this right after. It is absolutely rant worthy. I am not professional and am allowed sound like a teenager if I want..especially since it's only a few years since I was one. Also, I am not American. In fact, only a few posts down I mention being Irish. 

2 days with no gymnastics :(

It's getting tough to cope I have to say. But, all event finals still to come! Tomorrow we have men's floor finals, women's vault finals and men's pommel horse finals. For men's I'd like Denis Ablyazin of Russia to win floor and Louis Smith of GB or Kristian Berki of Hungary to win pommel horse. Vault is of course obvious and the most predictable victory of all. The highest execution score in FIG approved competition is 9.8, Dragulescu's 2008 vault. It would be awesome if McKayla could beat that and officially have the highest e-score since the new code. I know the deduction they are taking but that thing deserves higher than 16.233 if having a low vault that is offline and onto the red is 15.966. Her Mustafina is textbook too. Cannot WAIT.

Silver and bronze is more of a fight. Certainly Sandra Izbasa is the next highest contender, but Chuso, Paseka and Berger could give her a good run for her money. Am I worried about Pena? No. I admire her ability to fling that thing regardless, and I understand why it's important for her to do such a difficult vault and stand out from the crowd and qualify, but seeing a vault crash like that and still score high goes against the spirit of gymnastics somehow. I don't want her zeroed, but I don't want to see it rewarded with a medal or for her to be injured either. Ideal podium? Maroney, Izbasa, Chuso..but I think Chuso could be pipped as her execution is pretty bad these days. But this is the Olympics of insane scoring, so who knows!