Alright this is the final part. I won't do much explaining tonight. I might have missed some of my favourite moments. There were so many great gymnastics this quad. If you guys have any favourites please comment. Here are some honourable mentions:
Kohei Uchimura 2011 WC FX EF. Also for being the king of the quad. Four time AA gold medalists in a row! Now that's history for gymnastics.
Sui Lu and Ksenia Afanasyeva. Most gym fans consider these two gymnasts "headcases" or basically inconsistent gymnasts. Usually falling and making silly little mistakes. It's not completely a bad thing to be considered a headcase. Most of the time headcases are the type of gymnasts you want to see succeed because they deserve to be recognize for their beautiful gymnastics. They are like the underdogs that you are rooting for. Sometimes I want to give up on these type of gymnasts but it's fun rooting for them. When they hit their routines it can be a special moment.
It was amazing how Sui Lu transformed into this consistent gymnast in 2011. She totally rocked in the WC event finals. Her beam was near perfect. It amazed me how confident she was. When she went to compete FX I was shocked at her upgrade. I was not expecting a stag out of the triple. She lost the gold to Afanasyeva but she proved that she can be an artistic and solid gymnast.
Aliya Mustafina in 2010! Oh the memories. She was a BAMF, destined to be a world champion. She lead her teammates to a team gold at the 2010 WC. She was the leader. One of my favourite routines from her was her '10 FX prelim. She stuck pretty much every single tumble and her 3/1 spin was perfect. She immediately became a star in 2010. I even remember making a thread poll titled something like "gymnast of the year" on the IG forum and Mustafina won! LOL 2010 memories, sadly I'm now banned from that board, boo. She's basically my second favourite gymnast of all time. She knows how to compete and doesn't give up easily. I'm happy that she was able to win UB gold at the Olympics after being seriously injured for a year.
It's that time of year again when gym fans starts to blog about their favourite gym moments of the year. I'm going to blog about my favourite moments of the quad, '09-'12. I might have missed some moments but these are some moments I can think of off the top of my head. It's been a crazy quad. I am really happy that I was able to see it all unfold. There were so many disappointments and happiness. I'll start off with 2009-2010.
One moment that comes to my mind was when Koko Tsurumi won 3rd AA in London 2009. Her clean execution was refreshing. I'm glad that Tsurumi was able to win medals at a world championship (WC). I really liked her beam and her very beautiful Ono pirouettes on bars. She even won 2nd in UB EF.
Here is Romania's Iridon doing a Memmel spin on balance beam! Pretty cool. Has anyone else done this before? I think this was just a training video. It would be cool if she could do it in a full beam routine. I think this will be rated at "E" if a gymnast can successfully perform it at worlds or Olympic.
Here is Olympic bronze medalist Denis Ablyazin Voronin Cup FX routine. He moves really quick. One issue about this routine is that there is no real artistry. Great routine though. Shame about the foot going out of bounds on the Piked Arabian.
I'm running out of ideas for this blog. I guess I have to think harder :D. This blog post is pretty much random/rant.
It's no secret that I am a huge Afanasyeva fan. I was watching some training videos of Afan when I came across a video of her training the double attitude spin. The double attitude spin is named after Ksenia Semenova. It's no surprise that these two have the best double attitude spins in gymnastics. They both come from the same gym and have the same coach. I personally find attitude spins more aesthetically pleasing to watch than any other spins in gymnastics. Doing a double attitude spin is hard and it's hard to make it look beautiful like Semenova's and Afanasyeva's. I have seen a lot of nice single attitude turns from many different gymnasts but no beautiful double attitude turns like Afanasyeva and Semenova. The Memmel Spin is probably harder than the attitude but most gymnasts make that spin unpleasing to watch. Plus there are too many gymnasts doing the Memmel. I've seen some gymnasts attempt double attitudes but none of them come close to looking anything like Afanasyeva's and Semenova's. Even some of the other Russians who attempted the "Semenova" made it look wonky.
Here's the short training vid. It was during the 2010 Netherlands tri-meet.
And here's another turn being done by Afan. It's the leg at horizontal turn or L-turn. I absolutely hate that turn. It's ugly. It began to be a trend in the 05-08 quad and it never died. I can't stand that spin. Afan adds a little elegance to that ugly spin on FX. I like how creative her coach is. Afan eventually stopped doing the double stag because it's worth nothing. Later on Grishina started to do the stag too but took it out.
Yup I said it, I'm starting to like the leaps/Jump out of tumbles. At first I wasn't used to leaps out of backwards tumbles but I have gotten used to it. At first I hated them with a passion but it does make gymnastics more exciting. I like how explosive some of the leaps are. I like getting caught off guard then BAM a nice huge leap or Jump. But of course it must be well performed and not look dodgy.
I read on tumblr via uchimura-kohei that Uchimura is planning to get married. He had already planned this before the Olympics. If this is true news, then congratulations Kohei! I will be following this news. Original source.
I really like Ponor's 2004 floor routine. I think the music and choreo was perfect for her. I didn't like her 2012 floor routine because the music was honestly lame and her choreography was weak and overly sexualized that it didn't feel artistic, just cheap looking.
Now you all might think I'm a hater but I'm not. I guess I'm just a harsh critic. There's just something about her 2012 floor music and choreography that screamed amateur. But her tumbling was exceptional and I am a fan of Ponor. I loved how she stuck her DLO and dbl pike. What a pro.
In 2012 she had nothing to prove to anyone. She was already a triple Olympic gold medalists. I was very happy that she could still be competing for Romania at her age. She came back to help her team. I'm glad she won bronze with her teammates in London. She also did a good executed floor routine for 2nd place in London (I wish fans would stop saying she deserved gold, she did not deserved gold). I was disappointed that she had major mistakes in beam finals. She could have won gold but it wasn't meant to be.
I think her most famous piece of choreography has to be this:
Okay so I've seen some videos. I'm only going to quickly talk about the Chinese and Russians. I was really impressed by the Chinese and very disappointed with the Russians. I'm not really feeling the Russian juniors. The Russians still have time to peak and get in top form but I hate to say it, they are the biggest chuckers. I'm not really impressed by the Russian juniors. They could get better, they need to work on their execution ASAP! I feel like the new up and coming Russians will not be dominate in the next quad. I think most of their seniors will have to stick around for awhile. I could be totally wrong though. China on the other hand looks pretty great. They at least do skills they can handle.
I'm really liking Liu Zhilin's beam combo. Wolf + aerial cartwheel. It's a really creative combination. I don't think anyone else has done that combo before? It's worth nothing in this code but in the new code it will be eligible for the Acro + Dance connection value = 0.1.
I was not impressed by any of the Russians. Check out new 2013 senior Evgeniya Shelgunova's uneven bars. Oh the horror! She could improve so I guess I'll just have to wait and see how she does next year. This was a massive upgrade routine for Shelgunova.
Viktoria Kuzmina did an interesting bar routine for a Russian. She did an Ono pirouette, she has potential. Hopefully she can maintain the hard pirouette. She reminds me of Kurbatova. Kurbatova couldn't maintain her hard pirouettes so hopefully Kuzmina can. Kuzmina also has the exact same floor music as Kurbatova check it out:
Hopefully the Russians can improve on their beam and floor too. I just think they are rushing things. Maria Kharenkova who will be a senior in 2014 won floor EF. I'm not really feeling it:
Anna Dementyeva is slowing coming back. She recently competed in Spain at the Memorial Joaquim Blume Cup. She won AA with 56.600, full results @ IG. She looked A LOT more better than when she competed at the Mexican Cup.
Her vault is still weak. She can decently still perform well on bars. Hopefully she can bring back her full bar difficulty. Her double layout dismount is a big concern for me though. She shouldn't be doing a double layout anymore, she can't handle it. She has grown up a lot and her body cannot handle a DLO dismount. She needs to work hard on finding a new dismount or she's going to have to do "C" dismounts. The DLO will cost her a lot of execution and potential injury problems.
Her balance beam execution is still decent. She still has great lines. I think if she really wants to make it to another worlds she has to get this event consistent. She has the most potential on beam. She just needs to do a lot of repetition. Again though, her 3/1 twists dismount is scary. I wish that her coaches would be more responsible and give her skills that she can perform well. Her 3/1 twists was not close to being completed. Why not just go with a 5/2 twists? Or do the dismount with no combination. I'm scared for the health of some of the Russian gymnasts sometimes.
On floor Dementyeva was okay. I'm still hoping she can improve on this event. She brought back the two whips indirect to 3/1 full and nicely did 5/2 + layout. Her Memmel spin is gorgeous. I liked how someone in the audience gave her a loud whistle for a well done Memmel turn :). She was lacking in the choreography department though. She took out a lot of her choreography :(. I think she will have new floor music and choreography for 2013.
Videos courtesy from Sarah Daunay YouTubeYou can watch more videos of Dementyeva at her YouTube channel. Or please click to read more after the jump.
The YouTube Olympic channel has a new montage about Li Ning called The "Little Prince of Gymnastics" is born - Ning Li - Los Angeles 1984 Olympic Games. You can read more about this great Chinese gymnast @ http://www.olympic.org/ning-li
The Olympic YouTube channel does not allow embedding. You can watch the montage HERE.
Li Ning is one of the most popular gymnast from China. He is known as the little prince of gymnastics 体操王子/體操王子. He was the most decorated Chinese gymnast at the 1984 Olympics. It was China's first time competing at the Olympic games. He is now the owner of his own sportswear company called Li Ning. It's basically like Nike or Adidas.
It's fun to watch old gymnastic videos of popular gymnasts from the past. It's good to learn about gymnastic history. There is a Li Ning documentary on YouTube that should interest some gymnastic fans. There are English subtitles, enjoy:
Another video I watched on YouTube was his 1984 floor routine. Wow the height on his tumbles.
As you all already know the North Koreans are back and allowed to compete in major gymnastic competitions. Their federation was banned for 2 years after they were caught falsifying some of their gymnasts ages. They are currently competing at the 5th Asian Championships in Putian, China.
The difficulty of their vaults are insane. In event finals Hong did the Amanar and Cheng vault. Even though she fell on the Amanar it was decent and clean enough, she was a teeny bit short and so she had to take a fall. She did not win this event. As soon as I find results I will edit/update.
Ri Se Gwang still does his incredibly hard vault. It is named after him, a Tsuk 1/1 twist dbl tuck. I read on gymnasticscoachingthat he qualified 1st to event finals and his second vault was a piked Dragulescu.
This is my first time seeing NBC's Olympic gymnastics coverage. Uploader gabrielmcdonough has been uploading the NBC clips to youtube. They might get deleted so I suggest that people who have never seen the NBC coverage to check them out. Although they are only clips of routines it's still interesting to hear the American commentators perspective (I hate them and I feel sorry for the Americans who have to listen to them and I do realize that the woman commentator is Canadian, she's annoying.)
I'm still surprised that Maroney fell on her second vault. She was the best female vaulter at the Olympics. The whole female vault finals at the Olympics was UGLY! I have nothing against Izbasa but her vaults were not really impressive, but I'm glad she walked away with the gold medal. I truly believed she won because she never fell. I still think Paseka was lucky to have been credit a Amanar. I just wished that the vault finals could have been more clean. But I do respect that these women work very hard to achieve these vaults.
This is my all time favourite gymnastic spin, the Semenova. In the dance world it is known as the attitude spin. P.S check out the dude waving in the background, LOL!! He's famous for being in a gif now :D
Thanks to a very kind anon I was informed 5 days ago that Russia's 2013 Universiade team will be Aliya Mustafina, Ksenia Afanasyeva, Tatiana Nabieva and Kristina Goryunova. It's great that I have kind anon readers giving me information even though I do read other blogs for news. I read it first on Examiner but thanks to the anon for informing me. The kind anon asked me to do a D-score breakdown of Goryunova's beam and floor routines. I have finally got the chance to check out the links the anon gave me. They were all recent videos from the 2012 Moscow Championships.
I'm going to start with her floor routine because I do not know what exactly she does in her routine. I do not know what her first spin is. Although her routine is a lot like Afanasyeva's there are subtle differences that actually makes a big difference in the d-score. Goryunova's floor difficulty is too low unless she upgrades it. She could try to do a 3/1 after the whips but I have never seen her do a 3/1 twists before. Also her third pass could use some combo upgrade. I cannot give a d-score for the routine because some parts are missing, sorry anon. But here is what she does:
There is a new radio interview from The Voice of Russia where Viktoria Komova and Aliya Mustafina talks about their plans for the new quad. Komova's and Mustafina's goals are basically to upgrade their routines and make it to Rio 2016. They talk about upcoming competitions and which apparatuses they will work on the most.
I am really looking forward to seeing these new upgrades. It's interesting that Mustafina states she will not focus much on upgrading her balance beam. I'm hoping Komova can upgrade her floor routine. Maybe she can do two whips indirect to 3/1 twists? I hope so :D.
I love these two pictures of Komova doing her own bar skills. The first is her Komova I (Inbar Shaposh 1/2 turn) and the second picture is the Komova II (Inbar Shaposh). A neat fact is that Komova's teammate Yulia Belokobylskaya did the inbar Shaposh first before Komova. It never got named after Belokobylskaya because she was never used on bars at a world championship.
She is one of my top favourite gymnast. I was re-watching 2006 world championships last night and was reminded of how magnificent Cheng Fei was. Her gold floor routine was perfect in my eyes. So much better then today's standards. It is true that most floor exercises from the past were more innovative and difficult. The only floor exercises I can think of that was truly unique this quad was Raisman's first tumbling pass, 3/2 twist indirect to Arabian dbl tuck + front layout (okay the layout after the dbl Arabian is original, not so much the other parts) and Ellie Black's 5/2 twist indirect to 3/1 twist. There are probably some more unique passes from this quad but those were the only two that really came to my mind.
Here is Cheng Fei's 2006 world's gold medal floor routine. One of my all time favourite floor routine, heck I don't really have an all time favourite floor routine list. I just love this routine. Her last pass Tsuk dbl pike is quite amazing. Most gymnasts nowadays don't even do full in dismounts.
And watch her 2006 gold vault final, just because...
Oh yeah! This is great news for all Ksenia Afanasyeva fans! I'm happy. It's already old news that Miss. Afanasyeva is in a political party. In this new article Afan states that she is not done with gymnastics. She is preparing for the Russian Championships, European Championships and Universiade Games. I wish her all the best of luck and that she succeeds and competes at at least the European Championships or Universiade Games. She has missed three European Championships in a row! I hope she's lucky this time. Just never quit Afan :).
The new "H" skills that will be worth 0.8 tenths in the WAG 2013-2016 code of point is the full twisting double layout (Chusovitina) and the tuck double double (Silivas).
These montages are quite old but you can get an idea of which gymnasts that have performed these skills. Does anybody think we'll see a gymnast perform a Chusovitina and Silivas in the same routine? I'm predicting yes.
Dementyeva watered down her routine but her dancing style is still nice. I like the way she moves. I really like the spider-man tune too :D. It's so unique how she can make it work without being cheesy. She is still a very classy gymnast. I'm glad she came in 3rd AA.
I will definitely miss the 2nd Mexico Open, Oct 12-13. It will be live online but I'm almost certain it will be for Mexicans only. I will be busy this weekend. I hope there will be some fan recorded videos :).
David Belyavskiy will represent Russia. I quite like his floor style, really stylish. Listen to his teammates "yay" at around 0:30 mark :D.
And here is his PB. Awesome dismount, the "Belyavskiy."
I'm super bored and there's really nothing exciting going on in the gymnastics world right now. Tomorrow will be a better day though. It's Canadian Thanksgiving and the popular Oktoberfest parade. I'll probably skip the parade though. Been to so many of them already. I can't wait for Thanksgiving dinner though, turkey, turkey :D.
This week should be exciting in gymnastics though. The 2nd Mexico Open will start on October 12-13. Check out the official website for competitors and schedules. Depending on what I have plan for this weekend I might miss this competition online. I'm pretty sure there will be online coverage. I watched the online stream last year but I had to hide my IP address.
There is now finally a good quality YouTube video of Elena Produnova from Russia doing a front handspring double front vault. The hardest female vault in gymnastics! Produnova is a BAMF.
Special thanks to GutsuFan for uploading the video clip.
After Afanasyeva's disappointing performance in the 2010 floor event finals many gym fans were already anticipating her retirement. We later found out that she was injured during '10 worlds and required knee surgery. She eventually got her knee surgery.
In 2011 Mustafina had a frightening ACL injury at European Championships. Mustafina was not able to compete for the rest of the year. Many people questioned if Mustafina could comeback after an ACL. I personally knew she could come back because she has a tenacious fighting spirit. It never surprised me how well she did at the Olympics. Mustafina was not the only gymnast to comeback after an ACL injury, many fans seems to think this though. I think Aliya is quite something special and has something that most gymnasts don't have (I can't really explain it).
While many other Russian gymnasts had injuries and were dropping like flies Afan seemed to be slowly coming back. She was very much needed for the Russian 2011 worlds team because their star Mustafina was seriously injured. So Afan was given another chance to prove to team Russia that she was worthy of going to '11 worlds. The first step was to show decent routines at the FIG world cup event Moscow Cup. The Moscow Cup took place in May and was her first competition in 2011. I'm glad she was able to come back in 2011 and win floor in Tokyo.
Here are her 2011 Moscow Cup prelim comeback routines with big hair...just because.
It's a boring Tuesday today so here's some Ekaterina Kurbatova videos. She was a promising gymnast for Russia. Her pet events were vault and uneven bars. She once had a 6.6 D-score on bars and she did a Healy connected into double front 1/2 out dismount, pretty cool. She managed to win gold at 2010 world championships with her teammates. If anything that was a good achievement for her gymnastic career. She was used as a vault specialist in team finals and hit her bar routine in prelims. She qualified to vault finals but was sadly subbed out for Tatiana Nabieva. Kurbatova is not one of my most favourite gymnast but I do like her floor style. She doesn't have the most difficult and cleanly executed floor routine but her artistry style is pretty hard to ignore. She has presence on floor. She should be proud that she can say, "I was a world gold medalist champion."
Here's her 2010 team vault. Note, in 2009 hater Elfi said that she would be surprised to see Kurbatova make it to another worlds. Ha ha Elfi she made it to another worlds and won GOLD.
One of my favourite Mustafina moment, winning Olympic uneven bars GOLD! Love the Pak to Shaposhnikova stalder 1/2 and her dismount from connection is sick.
The new Russian WAG head coach will be Evgeny Grebenkin. He was the main coach for the gymnasts on uneven bars through most of the '09-'12 quad. Source
Grebenkin (to the right) helped Mustafina win UB 2012 Gold.
Alexandrov's contract will expire on Dec 30th and it is unknown if he will continue to coach Aliya Mustafina. Anastasia Grishina has departed from her coach Sergey Zelikson. Alexandrov and Zelikson had some kind of personal beef with each other. It will be interesting to see what will happen to Mustafina and Grishina. Heck, I am interested in seeing how Russia will do in the next quad. Source
I just saw this article today. Alexandrov was dismissed as the head coach of the Russian women's artistic gymnastic team. He is also the personal coach of Aliya Mustafina. I'm not sure who will be replacing him. Apparently he was a failure because the Russian team was not successful in London. I personally think that's bullshit. Russia's WAG team was pretty successful at the Olympics. I'm guessing the Russian Federation really wanted team GOLD. Source
Afanasyeva did not go on a training vacation trip with the Russian national team. Afanasyeva has been to Mallorca many times before. She's been keeping herself busy though. She recently visited a town called Bogoroditsk, where she visited a rhythmic gymnastic club, a palace museum and park. She was there to show support for the rhythmic program. Afanasyeva, "thanked
the students for featured performances and expressed the wish that the
school had all the conditions for students to train at full capacity,
and then to win the most prestigious competitions." Source
Ksenia Afanasyeva is also organizing a gymnastic competition in her hometown Tula. The Cup Honoured Masters of Sport is a competition to honour the three beautiful famous successful gymnasts that come from Tula. They are Ksenia Afanasyeva, Ksenia Semenova and Maria Zasypkina. The competition will begin in October on the 17-21. It has been noted that Afanasyeva ordered special medals and cups for the competition, maybe she personally designed them? Source
I thinks it's pretty cool that Afanasyeva is supporting rhythmic gymnastics. She once wanted to be a rhythmic gymnast.
So that's all the news I got so far on Afanasyeva.
I'm not sure what's going on with my blog but it's back up now hmm. Just some random stuff for today. If a gymnast could dance like this I would be happy forever. Alex Wong is an incredible dancer. Even though this dance clip is old it's still amazing. The Alex Wong video linked me to another dancer I had never heard of, Milena Sidorova. Her spider dance is stunning, I love the creativity of that piece. Alex Wong- Capture of the Tiger
Edit: The link don't work no more. You can download MAG code from the FIG site.
Here is my analysis of the MAG code of points. If I misinterpreted anything please correct me in the comment section. I am still learning the MAG CoP and will hopefully understand it more by the time 2016 Olympics games rolls around. I compared the the '12 CoP with the new '16 and there seems to be very little changes, which is a good thing for me I guess. I already mildly know how to calculate D-scores for each apparatuses. Vault is obviously the easiest to determine D-scores. I'm most familiar with FX, VT and HB. Men count the top 10 skills. The skills are grouped into 5 different groups and the gymnast must compete one skill from each group. A maximum of 4 skills can only be used from one same group.
Floor Exercise: Not a lot has changed from the old code. By now pretty much everyone knows that only one rollout salto can be performed. The skills from the '12 code and the new one still seems to be the same. Pretty much floor scores will still be closely the same as the '12 code.
Pommel Horse: This apparatus is hard for me to understand. It's kind of like the equivalent to understanding WAG's Uneven bars. From what I can see not a lot has changed from the '12 code. But honestly I don't know enough about PH.
Still Ring: This apparatus still seems the same as from the '12.
Vault: A lot of vaults have been downgraded a point lower. The Shewfelt vault (Yurchenko 5/2 or Amanar) is 5.6, a lot different from the WAG code now. There are three 6.4 vaults, the Yang (3/1 front handspring), Ri (Tsuk dbl tuck 1/1 twist) and Piked Dragulescu. Those three vaults are the highest difficult vaults in this code. I'm going to have to get use to the lower vault D-scores. The calculations for vault finals will be (DVT1 + DVT2)/2 + 10.00 – (VT1 ex deductions
+ VT2 ex deductions), same as the WAG.
Parallel Bars: The Bilozerchev - Peters, and Dimic are all consider the same elements now. Tsolakidis I is now a G element instead of E.
High Bar: Not much has changed. The connection value for on bar D/E/F + flight D/E/F or vise versa will now be worth 0.1CV instead of 0.2CV. C+C or more (both flight) is new for 0.1CV. I suspect C+C to be very popular. _____________________________________________________________________
So that's my attempt at analyzing the MAG CoP. From what I understand not a lot has changed. I could be missing some valuable information.
Edit: The link don't work no more. You can download from the FIG site.
Basically a gymnast will get 0.1 SB for doing 3 connected acro elements
in a row. The formula starts with B + B + C or more in any order. The key is to
remember the two letter skills for 0.1 and 0.2 connection values.
The Formulas for 0.1CV are C/D + D (or more,
without rebounding), C + C, and B + E.
The Formulas for 0.2CV are C/D + D (or more,
with rebounding), B + F (or more e.g B+G), B+D (rebound forward direction only)
These are very important formulas to
remember when adding up the series bonus (SB). I know it might sound confusing but
bare with me.
For example the overused D+B+C (Front Aerial + flic flac + laid out step
out) will now be only worth 0.1CV instead of 0.2. If you look at the D+B+C it
has all the required “series bonus” B+B+C or more in any order. So it will get
0.1 for SB. Now you will have to look at the connection value parts (CV). This
was posted in the bullets above. Remember that CV only works for two acro skills,
no dance skills. If you look at D+B+C it does not meet the required CV. There
is no D+B (forward + backward) connection value and there is no B+C connection value. Therefore no
CV is rewarded for doing D+B+C, only the SB will be rewarded. Here is the
calculations, 0.1SB + 0.0CV= 0.1 connection point.
This is great news for a gymnast like Komova.
The famous old school flic flac + laid out step out + laid out step out will
now receive a total of 0.2 connection points. Example B+C+C meets SB
requirements so add 0.1. B+C no CV. C+C = 0.1CV. So 0.1SB + 0.1CV = 0.2
connection points for difficulty score (D-Score).
Another Example, B+B+F dismount. Take
Iordache’s RO + BHS + 3/1 Twists for example. B+B+F meets SB requirements add 0.1.
B+B = 0.0CV, B+F = 0.2CV. The whole B+B+F will be worth 0.3. That’s good news
for some gymnasts.
Edit: I totally misread the CoP. So there will be no CV for dismounts. I think that's a stupid rule. I really like dismounts in connections for more value. IMO there really is no point in doing connection dismounts now. You'll only get 0.1 for SB, that's lame.
I really like the SB formula. This SB thing might also make a lot of
older gym fans happy. We’ll most likely see a lot of old school combos coming
back e.g lots of laid out step outs in connections.
Edit: The links don't work no more, boo. You can all download from the FIG site.
Alright, so I got a chance to read the women’s new 2016 CoP. I’ve read some of the men’s CoP but I
don’t even know where to begin in discussing that code. I only understand men’s
floor, vault and high bar. I probably won’t make a MAG post. You might get
bored to death reading my analysis but here goes nothing.
Vault: Not much has
changed from the provisional one. The calculation for vault finals will be (DVT1 + DVT2)/2 + 10.00 – (VT1 ex deductions
+ VT2 ex deductions). The most difficult vaults have been devalued.
Cheng 6.5 to 6.4
Rudi ( FHS 1 ½ ) 6.3 to 6.2
Produnova (FHS 2/1 Tucked) 7.1 to 7.0
Tsukahara 2 ½ 6.7 to 6.5
Amanar (Yurchenko 2 ½ ) 6.5 to 6.3 – This is good because a team with
all Amanar vaults will not have a huge advantage. This will also be good for
the AA competition and maybe vault finals.
Mustafina (ro 1/2 on fwd 1/1 twist) 6.1 to 6.0
Uneven Bars: Connection Values (CV) are a bit simpler to understand now.
There are three formulas.
D+C or more (low bar to high bar only) will still be 0.2CV. An example
would be shaposh (D) + clear hip 1/2 (C).
D+E (both flight elements) will get 0.2 CV. For example, Beth
Tweddle’s signature move Toe-on Tkatchev to mix el grip (F) + Ezhova (D) will
get two tenths. Another example, Piked Tkatchev to Pak Salto (E+D) 0.2CV.
The E+E connection has been removed. I actually liked the E+E pirouettes
that the Chinese were doing. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Chinese will still
do them. It will still get 0.1CV because of the D+D or more rule. It seems that
FIG is trying to encourage more high flying release skills and less connection
bonus value. One skill that I am disappointed to see not get upgraded was the
Seitz (Toe-on Shap 1/1 to high bar), it is still an E and should be at least F
in my opinion.
The Shushunova will now be an E element. It used to be a G.
Balance Beam:There have been some significant changes here.
Some mounts have been upgraded to one letter
higher. Most of these mounts will probably never be used anyway, like a round
off flic flac ½ walkover forward. It used to be a C now it’s a D element. Also
if you add a full twist it will be E instead of a D.
Remember all the front tuck mounts in the
90’s? God I got so bored of seeing them but kind of missed them now. Well they
have been upgraded to D’s and the Pike to E (à laAlicia Sacramone’s mount). I feel like the FIG is
bringing back the 90’s code. I just hope the skills and CV won’t be overused.
Kochetkova (flic flac 1/1 twist) and Gainer flic
flac 1/1 twist have been upgraded to E’s. I really like those skills. The catch
is that 3/4 of the twist must be finished before hands touching the beam. I could
see a gymnast doing Kochetkova/Gainer 1/1 + flic flac + laid out step out (E+B+C)
for 0.2CV, beautiful series. EDIT: These two skills have both been downgraded back to D.
Connection Values for beam got a little bit more confusing. If you’re
already having trouble with connection values (CV) you’ll be even more confused
because there is a new “series bonus” (SB). Example (CV+SB=)! It took me
awhile to understand it but I finally get it. I’ll explain more about it in a
new post: Click Here
Most of the connection values are pretty much the same from the ’12 code.
New CV combos are mixed ones. D(salto) + A(Dance) 0.1CV e.g. Front
Aerial (D) + Wolf Jump (A). D + D 0.2CV e.g. Onodi + Sheep jump, Front aerial +
Sheep Jump etc.
Floor Exercise: Not much has changed. Most of the connection values are
still the same.
Remember how the provisional CoP had 0.3 CV?
Well there will be no 0.3 CV. I’m HAPPY to see it not being approved, YAY.
There will still be an “H” value on floor. H
skills will be the tucked double double and full twisting
double layout
Some dance elements have been upgraded too.
I’m not sure if any gymnasts will actually do them though. Cat leap 2/1 and
tuck hop/jump 2/1 are now C elements. The split ring leap is now C, basically
it is the same value as the switch ring leap. I suspect that most gymnasts will
just do the split ring leap now. EDIT: some cat leaps have now been removed from the CoP.
The D (Salto) + A (jump) is here to stay. I
must say that when a gymnast performs the D+A well, it can look pretty but most
of the time I hate them. I mostly hate backwards D saltos with A jumps because
they look a bit awkward, especially when not performed well. EDIT: D (salto) + A (jump/dance) must be D+B. E (Salto) + A (dance) is allowed.
The connection turns will materialize. So D
+ B (with step allowed) or B + B (no steps allowed). I hope to see some
creative spin combos e.g. Memmel + Illusion or Double L-Turn + Illusion.
Although we could be in for some disastrous combos.
FIG talks a lot about artistry for beam and floor in this CoP. If you
read the ’12 CoP there is barely any mention of artistry. In the new code,
artistry is the first thing mentioned for beam and floor. I think artistry
should be taken very seriously. I love that FIG stated artistry first for beam
and floor rules.
I mostly talked about the skill upgrades and the D-score. There is still
a lot more to the CoP, like execution. The CoP is very difficult to understand.
I pay more attention to how a gymnast builds their difficulty scores because it
is less subjective than the execution scores. Plus I find D-scores more
interesting than execution deductions. Execution can be very subjective and sometimes I feel really obnoxious when I nitpick at a gymnast’s flaws.
To make it short a judge is only allowed to take 0.1/0.3/0.5 and a full
point (falling off apparatus) off each skill a gymnast does. There are other
special deductions like 0.8 on vault. There are a lot of little details as to
how a judge can arrive to a skill getting 0.1/.3/.5 deductions. I won’t go into
these details because then my post would never end.
Usually when I watch a gymnast perform I can naturally tell if she/he
performed a good executed routine. Toes pointed, legs together, nice amplitude,
straight arms/elbows, no crossed feet/legs in twists, good landing positions
etc. A bad performance would obviously be not performing like the above list,
wobbles, wobbles, wobbles, out of bounds, uncontrolled landings, sloppy form,
not hitting handstands, deep landings, heavy laboured bar work, hesitations,
takes long to perform a skill, lack amplitude, lack of precision etc. The
execution deductions can be found on page 28 in the CoP.
According to New York Post Olympic AA bronze medalist Danell Leyva might join Broadway's Spider-Man show, lol.
Aliya Mustafina will definitely go for Rio 2016. If Mustafina makes it to Rio 2016 she will be 21 at the games and will be turning 22 that year. The article also talks about her University plans. Education seems like a big commitment for her right now. She plans to compete at the Universiade (University) Games in Kazan, Russia. Her next 2012 competition should be the Stuttgart Cup in Germany (Dec. 1-2). Hopefully she will compete :).
Anna Dementyevais not over yet, YAY! She will be competing at the 2nd Mexico Open (Oct 11-13). This was the same competition where Afanasyeva won the inaugural Mexican Open in 2011. Dementyeva will be joined by Russian MAG David Belyavskiy. Other competitors, Sergio Sasaki (Brazil), Luis Sosa, Yesenia Estrada and Ana Sofia Lake, all from Mexico. Other countries that confirmed their place in the competition are USA, Italy, Australia and Colombia, there is no official roster yet.
According to People Magazine Gabrielle Douglas will write a book called, Grace, Gold and Glory, My Leap of Faith. I think I'll pass.
Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Anna Pavlova. She turned 25 today. She will always be remembered for her elegance and ZERO vault. She should have known better!
