..Because I never had an accomplishment in my approx. 6 weeks of gymnastics anyway. Except a cartwheel on beam, an utter fluke. And who let me do that when I couldn't hold a handstand for more than split second..??
Anyway. These are St. Bridget's crosses, not swastikas. The older generations, especially rural, would all know how to make them but barely anyone my age would, which is sad. Every year in school there'd be serious carnage and mangling, except mine :D Anyway, I doubt anyone has seen these before and I think they're cool. We usually have 3 in the house, front door, back door and somewhere else. Keeps the evils away don'tchaknow. I think it's a nice tradition to pass down, and I'm proud that one of mine is better than wikipedia's stock photo...but I'm late by 12 days. Ah well.
And it's totally time for a new blog header. I just had a thought of shopping in tiny gymnasts onto the cross doing handstands and stuff, wow how lame would that be. So it won't be that...
The gymnastics world tends to be very dismissive of cheerleading. The eternal complaints against it are most often that cheerleaders do not exhibit great form and obviously do not master four apparatus' like gymnasts do. Great powers of deduction but how does that make it any less worthy of admiration or acknowledgement as a sport? Because of course, that is the other great annoyance I have surrounding cheerleading. It's classed as dance.
Does that look like dance to you? These girls (and sometimes guys who make up 5% of the total number of cheerleaders) are displaying strength, agility, balance, flexibility, endurance, athleticism, competitiveness and above all, LONG hours of training and practice. Gymnastics is a sport, and cheerleading should be too. It has evolved so much from waving pom poms around and needs to be recognised for what it has become. Much like gymnastics has evolved from arm-waving and the odd cartwheel on beam and floor. Because keeping it from being a sport means these things happen:
- Cheerleaders make up just 3% of female high school athletes. Yet they account for 66% of all catastrophic injuries in this category. These are not the incredibly common injuries like strains etc., but serious, disabling and fatal ones. College cheerleading has a slightly higher injury rate. Statistics are from the National Centre for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research annual report from 2008, compiled by the National Cheer Safety Organisation.
- There are more than 60 national and regional cheerleading competitions in the US. This means that winning nationals means absolutely nothing, it cheapens the reputation of the sport, and further prevents it from being declared a sport in the future. It's hard to get an exact figure- I've seen a lot of references to 'more than 60' and one for 72.
Injuries happen in any sport. It's just that most sports (including gymnastics, which is the second offender in the above statistic, at just under 10%) do all they can to limit them, and have as much safety equipment or protection as possible, as well as highly trained coaches and top class facilities. In cheerleading, that is not the case. NCAA insists on college cheer coaches being trained to a certified health and safety programme, but there are still a lot of holes regarding this at school and college level especially the fact that it's not part of NCAA by virtue of not being a sport. College has rules, and all-star is governed, but thay still have problems and everything below them is a free-for-all. Check out the mats and floor they use! All star equipment is not adequate, and further down the line it's worse with lots of reports of extremely old, thin mats that don't cover enough area, or any mats all all- like those who practice in school canteens or carparks. Obviously they can't use giant padded mattresses because of the speed, pace, dance and even surface needed...but they could use 8 inch mats, with extra ones where tumbling passes end in the corners and possibly under the pyramid too if that's not too much of an obstruction, which I suspect probably would be. The height they get, the speed of the routines, the neccessary synchronisation, the hard pounding of the multiple tumbling runs..it is a recipe for disaster. And no team is immune. Cheer Extreme Senior Elite, the team above, are highly regarded as being the best- or at least, having the most difficulty. In a routine only a few weeks back, the difficulty is clearly higher than the one from a few years ago shown above, even in the jumps they do, but especially the stunts. There are 2 falls though neither hit the ground thankfully, and 2 near collapses that I can see and they appear to have received a big deduction for not having another flier (the girls who are in the air) assist at the most intricate parts in the pyramid towards the end, which I would agree with- the point flier (the centre girl who assists in tossing the others) looks to be under a huge amount of strain. And that is coming from the top of the sport, where the girls train substantially more than the majority of cheerleaders. This extremely high level of stunting is pretty rare, but the same height and therefore the same risk is present in pretty much all levels.
I have a lot of respect for cheerleaders. What they do is incredibly difficult and just amazing to watch. Here in Ireland, cheerleading does not exist at all and the idea of my secondary school having a squad or having a squad at local GAA (our national sports) matches in the rain and mud is hysterical. Hence having no exposure to cheerleading except episodes of Sabrina and Sweet Valley High and the film Bring it On. The day I stumbled across all-star cheerleading routines on youtube was a great day because they are utterly mindblowing. Finding out how at risk these girls are and how their sport is perceived...not so much. So, cheerleaders don't do standing fulls and backhandsprings with perfect form? Well..so what? It's not something they have to care about, so why would they bother? And since when is gymnastics a bastion of perfect form anyway?
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Not that these issues are brand new to gymnastics. Lack of toepoint used to be a lot rarer, but leg seperation used to be a lot more common and crossed feet and shoddy form on backhandsprings and layout-stepouts are no new inventions either. It is just that slight form issues used to be ignored. They still can and are ignored, but they ARE now in the code of points. The point is, they are valid deductions in gymnastics and are still rampant.
In short, I'm sick of seeing how maligned cheerleading is in some circles. It's not your cup of tea? Fine. But no need to spread negativity about it. Not liking something is fine. But you should respect the hard work and talent that goes into it. The fact that cheerleading remains in a dangerous limbo when golf and darts are going to be Olympic sports in Rio is frankly, sickening.
Oh and this is worth watching. Penn and Teller's episode on cheerleading- contains profanity, footage of injuries/falls and very very brief nudity at the start. I will say that the 30,000 ER visits is a little misleading, because the vast majority are not kept in, or serious or even treated. The huge increase is concurrent with the huge increase in girls taking up cheerleading compared to stats from decades ago., and the fact that cheerleading is a year-round sport means that its injury rates cannot be directly compared to sports that only run for a season, like football. That's why I used the stat above instead of 30,000 cheerleaders admitted to ER!!!!!!!!!111for shock value. But it's still a very good video. Look out for the part showing a practice session, 30 seconds in a girl lands on her head in a tumbling pass and doesn't get up. What does the coach do? Rush over and implement emergency procedure to assess the presence of concussion or anything worse? Haha, you must be joking. The girl is asked if she's okay and continues. With no assessment. It's the worst part in the whole thing and shows just how big the problem is.
I'm going to jump on the Twitter frenzy about this...here is Mykayla Skinner's new floor routine. It's on TCG, Examiner, Gymnastics Coaching and Triple Twist so you can't miss it..but I'm just too excited about it to ignore it. I've posted about her and her opening pass in training before, but the routine in full deserves its own post. Presenting...a laidout double double, tucked double double, double arabian and 1 and a half into 2 and a half. Given her completely upright landing on the double arabian and overrotation (!!!) on the 2 and a half, I wouldn't be surprised for them to become piked and a triple respectively. Alternatively, she could add in a jump or two..or maybe a punchfront. Jumps now need to be a B value out of a D tumble, or A out of an E or higher tumble. This routine has been calculated to be 6.5..the same start value as Aly's, which had two jumps AND a punchfront A combination pass is not needed in the new code..I wonder if she could put a full twisting double layout, 3.5 twist or piked double arabian there instead? Incredible. I want to see this at worlds. I know she begins her first pass out of bounds, but there's a tiny snippet of a competition where she does it fine in bounds so I wouldn't be concerned. Mykayla is also training a Cheng which looks fine and not a fight to get around or anything. And she has had an amanar under her belt for a while.
Skip to 0:50 EDIT: I've just seen the complete video of this routine in competition and she does sit the double arabian, but it looks like a fluke, so I'm not bothered. This routine sells itself, she just has to nail it in front of Marta.
Even with disregarding the Fierce Five completely, USA already has enough powerhouses..Ebee, LexiePriessman and Simone Biles. Mykayla would need to prove herself as an all-arounder before she could displace Ebee or Lexie..but with the difficulty she has, she could still get in to major teams. Classics/Nationals just got more interesting...
As for her new skill, it can only have a H value as it stands as that's what the tucked version is worth and it's the current maximum. However, that's not to say it couldn't get a higher value if she submitted it at worlds. They are forever revising the code, and it would be unfair to have both skills with the same value, as well as having the version with just a single twist worth the same. I wouldn't say definitely..but quite likely..that they would introduce I and J for this and for other future skills. OR revise the tucked version and full twisting DLO to G and leave this as H. Either or..
The Italy Serie A competition is taking place now. It's a competition between the various gyms,and will see Vanessa Ferrari, Erika Fasana, Georgia Campana, Chiara Gandolfi, Carlotta Ferlito, Elisabetta Preziosa, Serena Bugani, Enus Mariani, Elisa Meneghina, Tea Ugrin, Anna Pavlova and more battle it out. I'll add videos if and when they become available, I'm most excited to see any upgrades the juniors have as out of the countries battling their way into the top 4, Italy have the biggest chance I think. Time will tell. Edit: Fasana, Ferlito and Anna Pavlova did not compete, the latter due to a problem with her flight and the others due to minor injury/illness. There's a full report with scores on TCG but no videos as of yet. Great to hear that Enus Mariani had such a strong showing, though it appears to have been a meet full of falls as it's sooo early in the season.
Elsabeth Black decisively won the AA at Elite Canada. Ellie was injured in the London vault final, so it's thrilling to see her back on form. Victoria Moors did not compete AA, but since she is down for SCAM it would be unwise to go all out now. Some videos here. Hope to see more from their juniors. Edit: Moors' floor is up, and it's a bit worrying. Not because she has watered down, but because she looks sluggish, tired and just not interested. She seems to have grown quite a bit in a short space of time and was dealing with a minor back muscle injury at the end of last year, so hopefully she'll recover soon. Black has watered down too and has issues with coming up a bit short on her tumbles, but she seems much more 'on' than Moors. Yay, junior videos are going up here. I really like Heaven Latimer, she is such a great tumbler and has the best layout full on beam ever done. As I'm typing, there's only 3 routines up. Shallon Olsen needs to have her coach back AWAY from new skills and clean up her form, it was already bad and seems to be getting worse. And I haven't even seen her beam yet..it's so dissapointing given the enormous natural talent she has.
The WOGA Classic is taking place next weekend. Its main star will be Katelyn Ohashi of course, with an ideal chance to show what she has planned for her first year as a senior. She's known for her beam and bars but her vault will be the most interesting aspect, as it looked extremely troublesome last year. If she actually does vault as she may not do AA. What I liked most is that Mariya Livchikova and Krystyna Sankova of Ukraine are both competing and that their trip was mostly funded by WOGA due to Ukraine's gymnastics federation's money problems. Mariya's strengths are floor and beam, with some gorgeous original combinations on beam and beautiful elegance and textbook tumbling on floor. Krystyna is quite powerful and has done Arabian double pikes recently, so she'll be interesting to watch too. Other international competitors are Ellie Downie and Ryhannon Jones of GB and Kristina Yaroshenko and Alexandra Yazydzhyan of Russia. Domestically, ones to watch are Laurie Hernandez, Madison Kocian, Nica Hults, Kennedy Baker and Peyton Ernst. There are tonnes of girls attempting to qualify elite as well. The ones I'm most interested in are Jordan Chiles and Irina Alexeeva. Irina is only 10, but so promising. Lots of videos to come hopefully. IG forums are down, which is where I got both rosters from, and WOGA's own links open in Excel which I'm not happy with linking to. Edit: Nevermind, TripleTwist have all rosters written out, divided into junior and senior. Important to note that Irina will have to qualify as an elite to compete in the junior session later in the day, though since she is from WOGA they might be able to have her compete if she doesn't make it. Rosters are here. TripleTwist also have a nice succinct guide on what the girls trying for elite have to achieve here.
Lloimincia Hall got a perfect 10 on floor, LSU vs Mizzou. It's the third 10this season, after Mackenzie Caquatto on bars and Vanessa Zamarippa on vault. I know that on first viewing this routine is baffling, and seems like an insult to the name 'artistic' in the sport. Like, WTF is she doing? It takes a few goes. I am in love with it and her and I want her to win the national floor title. She is living her routine, so involved, so passionate, and selling the life out of it. It is the definition of artistry, taking your music and bringing it to the next level. In general for NCAA the time difference makes it very difficult for me to watch meets, as well as only a handful of them being free. I catch up with the odd routine on youtube and follow quick hits. That's why I'm thrilled that UCLA's meet tomorrow is both free like theirs always are (THANK YOU..and since they're hosting national championships..any chance of them being streamed free??) and on early.. it starts at 10PM for me, much better than the usual midnight, 1AM starts..bleurgh.
You can see part two of Gymnastike's Off the Mat series with Nia Dennis here. I love seeing how well grounded her and her family are. GREAT height on her releases. I'm so excited that one of her coaches is Li Li, the exquisite former Chinese gymnast with killer extension, leaps and DAT back spin. It bodes well for Nia's form, beam and bars work. You can hear and see her in the footage but she isn't interviewed, sadly.
European Championships are going to be streamed live, via eurovision, the same crowd who did the Olympics (without commentary, but still). I will give the link and timezone information closer to the time. I will say that it will not be possible to watch it outside of Europe unless you *cough* shield/change your IP to a European one. The timezone will be gross for Americans, Moscow is 4 hours ahead of me currently (might get clocks going back before that) and therefore 9 hours ahead of EST and 12 hours ahead of PST. I suppose it depends what time the competitions start at for how non appealing that is to those in the US. Still, EXCITING :D
Florida vs Alabama from last night is on free replay, thanks to Spanny Tampson for broadcasting that info. YES! I was so sure it was free and then when I got on the site and found out it wasn't..very dissapointing. But here it is, and at a much more suitable time for me ha. I'm going to subscribe to the growing view that Florida are going to win this year. The link should be here. If not, just click on game replay and it should show up there at the side. Considering Florida had to drop Kytra Hunter's scores on bars and beam (she's had stomach flu this week but that beam fall is just..so odd and unlikely), the fact that they broke 198 is HUGE. A team with Bridget Sloan, Ashanee Dickerson, Kytra Hunter, Marissa King, Alaina Johnson and Mackenzie Caquatto looks unstoppable, as they don't have a weak event at all. If you do rewatch the meet, make sure you read Aunt Joyce's hilarious live hits.
Alexander Alexandrov did NOT sign a contract with Brazil. There will be more negotiations at another stage. Personally, and obviously not knowing anyone involved, I think he'll wait until Aliya is done before moving on. He clearly has a lot of motivation to leave the gymnastics federation that screwed him over like they frequently do their head coaches, but the bond those two share is very strong. I hate the idea of her being dumped a second time. The original source is in Portugese, but you can read/translate it from here.
My laptop might break in two at any time so blogging might have an abrupt hiatus (can't blog on phones outside US). A DIY screen replacement weakened the hinges and now more than a year later it falls back and has to be propped up. Damnit! I'm going back to college in September (unrelated to my degree, but much more likely to get a job out of it..) and obviously this one won't withstand transportation. Check this out:
Looking healthy. I'm not sure what the silver thing stabbing my screen is, but it needs to GTFO. Or back in, whichever. The other side is lifting too. Sigh. Also, 200th post! 200 posts in just under 8 months of blogging is pretty good going, though since a lot of my obsession burst in a torrent in the first 2 months, I don't expect to maintain that frequency.
Chantysha Netteb and Eythora Thorsdottir recently competed at a national competition. I rave about Eythora all the time because she is a Soviet gymnast reborn, but I'm also excited to see Chantysha, who's very different but very promising all the same. I'm delighted to see Eythora nailing her beautiful triple turn combination, and as always having a gorgeous Onodi and sheep jump. Wondering if her coaches also trained the great turner Sanne Wevers? Hopefully her consistency can improve on this event. A pity she has dumped her beautiful 'Mostepanova extension' press to handstand to a really boring mount but if it preserves energy then that's fine. On floor, her first pass has upgraded to a double pike. She is getting enormous height on that and given that she's grown, she looks well capable of more difficulty there. Likewise, her other passes seem a little easy for her. New music! On facebook the music doesn't cut out like that but this video says 'music falls halfway' so I'm not sure if it did in reality. If it did, awesome because she's not bothered at all. Vault remains the same..maybe she can do a DTY?..and I can't find bars, if she did them. In general, her choreography on beam and floor is sassier but still beautiful. Excellent.
Evgeny Grebenkin, the new Russian head coach, has just given an interesting interview. You can find it in English here. The first interesting, but perhaps not surprising, point he makes is that he does not have gymnasts to replace the London team..unlike America, who can. The girls will have to compete, except of course Komova, who will be out for about the first half of this year. He also states that they have four good junior gymnasts born 1998-1999 who will be prepared for Rio. They have more than four, but perhaps his words should be taken to mean great, or with great or star potential. Undoubtedly these include Maria Kharenkova, Maria Bondareva and Viktoria Kuzmina. The fourth is harder to pinpoint- I kind of hope it's Daria Spiridonova. Evgeniya Shelgunova, who is now a senior, will be given experience in world cup events. Interesting to see if she lands a Euros spot or not.
Russia's most important senior gymnasts are of course, Aliya Mustafina and Viktoria Komova. Komova is out of Russian Championships and Euros, and too young for Universiade. She will be gunning for worlds. Aliya will probably compete one or two events at Euros, more fully at Universiade and with all guns blazing for worlds. She has said her main priority is Universiade, though that doesn't mean she won't be at Euros..she probably will. She does say other competitions depend on her availability, which I read as doesn't want to say worlds when it's so far away. Ksenia Afanasyeva and Anastasia Grishina could still be core members. It's really hard to know where they are at, especially Grishina. Anna Dementyeva could definitely be a part of major teams if she continues to cope with her growth spurt and really overcomes her former inconsistency. Especially valuable on beam, while Afan if she just continues to be a beam and floor specialist could really compete throughout the quad. Grishina could be right up there as an all-arounder and capable of medalling in three out of four event finals. Hopefully her new coaches can prepare her to realise her full potential.
Who else is there? Anastasia Sidorova, who was injured before London. She's one to watch at Russian Championships to see how useful she could be. Likewise Anna Rodionova, who looks to have grown quite a bit. Maria Paseka is definitely still in the mix, especially as it looks like she's training a much more difficult second vault. Tatiana Nabieva is still on the National Team and a strong prospect for Universiade, but I don't see her making other teams. Maybe as alternate. New seniors Ekaterina Baturina, Yulia Tipaeva and Evgeniya Shelgunova are certainly in the mix, depending on difficulty. Shelgunova remains the brightest prospect, because although she needs a lot of work on her form, she has very good difficulty and a lot of fighting spirit and determination. She could be the Aly Raisman rock for her team this quad I think.
I think at Euros we'll be seeing Aliya Mustafina, Anna Dementyeva, Ksenia Afanasyeva and one of Anastasia Grishina/Evgeniya Shelgunova/Anna Rodionova. Right now I'm leaning towards Shelgunova for it. At Universiade..Aliya Mustafina, Tatiana Nabieva, Ksenia Afanasyeva, Anna Dementyeva and Ekaterina Kramarenko. Worlds is very tough to say, though I know I already did predictions for it.
Who do you want to see shine for Russia this year? This quad? Do you see Viktoria Komova fully regaining her 2010 self? My own favourites are Mustafina, Demy, Rodionova and further on in the quad, the trio of Bondareva, Kharenkova and Kuzmina. I think Russia will struggle in collecting hardware until 2015, when they have their full battalion.
Alexander Alexandrov is in Brazil this week, with a view to forming a contract to coach their senior National Team. Brazil already poached another ill-treated Russian coach, Oleg Ostapenko, who coaches the junior team. While this would be beyond fantastic for the team leading into their home games...it would be a great shame for his personal student, Aliya Mustafina, who has already been dumped by her personal coach before. (Not Alexandrov..) So I'd be happy for Alexandrov to take up this oportunity, or indeed any fabulous opportunity that comes his way as he is an excellent coach and deserves it. Just after Mustafina retires would be preferable.
A video of the Chinese National Team training has emerged, shot by some Australians who were beyond lucky to even be there...though it's hard to call people suffering through Beijing's poisonous levels of air pollution lucky. Sui Lu can be seen on floor at the start. Shang Chunsong is the one on bars doing the lovely Hindorff to uprise. Zeng Siqi and Tan Sixin are tagged. It's great to see that Tan is back on the National Team and in full training, though it's obvious she has deteriorated. Hopefully just growing pains, she should be able to adjust. Zeng looks great, lovely connections. The other two on beam towards the end are Wang Wei and Yuan Xiaoyang, two of the most promising juniors. Wang is the one who falls on the layout and then nails it. It's private so I can't embed, watch it here.
Videos are circulating of Beyond the Routine- a Gymnastike documentary following Mary Lee Tracy at her gym, CGA. I find it hard to watch, from the dog on the mats to her beratement of the younger girls, the explanation of Amelia Hundley's nickname, her condescension to her gymnasts, favourtism, obsession over some stupid clock all the way to her dangerous driving. All in all, it confirms what I had already thought about how she operates, and then some. In a much more uplifting documentary (and this time free, so I'll link), we get a look at the daily lives of elite gymnasts. Very excited about this one! It's called Off the Mat and first up is the lovely Nia Dennis. The first episode focuses on her family life, the morning routine, her interaction with her cutiepie little sister Mya, and how her parents balance her gymnastics with quality family time- like her dad's conversations with her on the way to gym. An immediate impression is created of a great supportive family, it's nice to see. Next will be looking at her daily gym routine I think. The first episode is here.
Here is yet another great interview with McKayla Maroney, at the Metroplex Challenge where she signed autographs for 3 hours and only left because she was made to- I like hearing stuff like that. McKayla insists that she's not done and will be gearing up for worlds. She has an automatic berth for Nationals given her Olympian status, though if she misses it and verifies routines before Worlds, she would still stand a very good chance..particularly with a TTY or Y double back.
Alicia Sacramone has officially retired. Given the excellent shape she was in last year after another injury in late 2011, it's a shame, but she's definitely been around long enough and has a lot of medals to her name. She's not a gymnast I particularly like or enjoy watching, but I appreciate her enormous talent and longevity. I'll miss the fierceness of her beam certainly.
Here's Beth Tweddle's third performance on Dancing on Ice. Sadly her expression regressed a bit, though I can't blame her for entering wooden gymnast mode given the huge complexity and difficulty of her routine, which she nailed. Hopefully she can polish her performance more in the weeks to come.
None of this is particularly new because the One to Watch post took me 3 days or so, so news got old in the meantime.
BUT this is new- Romania will only have 3 girls at Euros! Dropping a place is a little ominous. I'm thinking Larisa Iordache, Diana Bulimar and Stefanie Stanila. There's no team finals, much like worlds, though I'm not sure if there's an AA. If there is, I don't think Iordache will do it because she will have done so at LRSY a month before. Germany will not have Elizabeth Seitz or several other elites because of the timing, right in their exam season apparently. Edit- Diana Chelaru is returning to the National Team and Sandra Izbasa is in full competitive training for this year so both of them are in the mix. I'd like to see Daniela Andrei get the nod for Euros though, especially if they don't want to tax Iordache and Bulimar.
Ellie Downie will compete at the WOGA Classic. She is the younger sister of Becky and has some lovely work, looking forward to seeing her. Also Jordan Chiles, who will be competing optionals in her bid for elite.
Danusia Francis won beam at UCLA vs Stanford! Nice. I.want.videos. Time difference kills me.
