Anastasia Grishina's Jesolo 2012 FX & D-Score

BWD 3/2 TWISTS indirect to 3/1 TWISTS (C+E)0.2CV
DBL L-SPIN (D)
BWD 5/2 TWISTS + FWD 1/1 TWIST (D+C) 0.2CV
SPLIT LEAP + SWITCH RING LEAP (A/C)
DBL TUCK (D)
MEMMEL SPIN (D)
DBL PIKE (D)

3.1 + 0.4CV = 3.5 + 2.5CR = 6.0 D-Score

Grishina has lovely presentation and elegant dance movements on floor. It is easy to watch her on floor without feeling like I'm watching someone being forced to dance. She has once again proven that she really is a good floor worker. The only things I will criticize is the ending pose and music. I know that I criticize a lot on my blog but I feel that it's my opinion and it needs to be heard. Not everything we humans do is perfect. I don't like the music and the ending pose. Grishina's choreographer never gives her a proper ending pose. It's like right after the tumbling pass she just stands there and then salutes. There is no creativity in her ending pose. It would make Grishina's floor so much better if she had better ending poses. I actually like her old floor routine better. But then again the ending pose is a buzz kill. I hope she will get a better or more formal/proper ending pose.

Grishina's old floor routine that I prefer more.

Aliya Mustafina's UB D-Score

Stalder 1/1 + VLW (D+E) 0.2CV
Inbar 1/2 + P. Jaeger (D+D) 0.1CV
Inbar 1/1 + Pak + Stalder Shap 1/2 (E+D+E) 0.4CV
Sole 1/1 + Mustafina (D+E) 0.2CV

3.6 + 0.9 = 4.5 + 2.5CR = 7.0 D-Score

Quick Final Thoughts on Russian Championships 2012 part 4

I missed this competition online again. Here are all the final results for EF: FINAL EF RESULTS

1st place, Anna Pavlova on vault! I'm not surprise and the Russian coaches should consider her. She needs to bust out a Amanar. She did do a Amanar in Beijing vault finals.

Grishina, Pavlova, Paseka

1st place, Aliya Mustafina on bars. Again not a surprise. From what I heard around the internet forums was that every gymnasts had a fall besides Mustafina and Inshina. I was happy to see Inshina medal for herself individually. Inshina came in 2nd. Grishina came in 3rd after falling from her VLW (toe-on shaposh 1/2). I'm actually not surprised that Grishina fell on this element. She is not tall enough to catch this element. She is always fingertips away from the HB and almost falls. She still has time to improve and perfect the VLW element but I hope that her coach takes it out if it becomes too inconsistent for her.

Aliya Mustafina's UB: She is a beast!

Quick Thoughts on Russian Championships 2012 part 3

I didn't get a chance to catch this competition online today. I love Russian gymnastics but not enough to be watching it at 3:00AM in the morning. When I woke up there were already a lot of amazing information about this competition. God I love the internet and all the enthusiastic gymnastic fans out there. It was a bit weird to see that the Russians chose to do BB & FX today and then tomorrow they will do VT & UB finals. Anyway here are the results RESULTS HERE 

Afanasyeva 1st Place BB


Grishina 1st Place FX


For more videos please check out: goTribe89 YouTube

Quick Thoughts on Russian Championships 2012 part 2

This time it was the Senior team finals, results are here: Click here for RESULTS 

1. Moscow Team: Mustafina was the leader of this group. It was quite hard to tell who was who in this group. I couldn't tell who did a DTY because they were either still doing warm-ups or I couldn't really tell the differences between Paseka and Mustafina. Regardless the DTY's I saw were good or had hops fwd. Grishina's DTY was a bit short with deep landings and I could tell she was really trying to wrap in that last twist.On bars Paseka was not aesthetically pleasing to watch. Their bar rotation got a lot better with Grishina. Grishina hit her set with a stuck landing. Mustafina was the star on this event. She did her regular routine and finally hits her pak + stalder shaposh 1/2. She was a bit hesitant on her sole 1/1 but manages to connect it into her dismount, "the Mustafina".
On beam this team had some problems Grishina fell on her RO + layout. She was very shaky but nailed her double spin. Mustafina was really shaky and had very low difficulty. Hopefully she will be able to upgrade and have a better constructed beam routine. If she wants to be a potential AA contender for the Olympics something has to be done about her BB. Beam is not her forte.
On FX Mustafina did not compete. Grishina was lovely. She really stood out and she probably performed a new routine. I couldn't really tell because there were no audio for music on floor.

2. Central Team: Afanasyeva was the leader for this team. She had a decent DTY & UB. She is fighting to stay on those bars. Her BB is beautiful when she can hit it. This time she connected a very good front aerial + ff + whip. Very secure in her leap jumps. The only major problem is her double pike dismount. Her floor was ok, I've seen better from her. She brought back her 3/2 + 1/1 twisting combo.

Pavlova was just Pavlova. A really beautiful and elegant gymnast. She fell on her jaeger release on bars. Her floor is really "pretty" but really lacks difficulty it was nice to just see her compete and help her regional team. Inshina did her job but did have some issues especially with the dbl front dismount on bars, it was quite scary.

The highlight for me was Mustafina's bars (16.033, bonus points though) and Afanasyeva's consistency (AA 59.733, bonus points though).


Mustafina's 16.033 bars. Not the best video quality.

Quick Thoughts on Russian Championships 2012 part 1

First here are the results for Senior AA: Senior Results 

1. Aliya Mustafina is the all-around champion! She didn't show full difficulty but she has made a statement. She is definitely the leader for Russia and Russia absolutely needs her on their Olympic team. As the Olympic comes closer Aliya will most likely be in full strength with full difficulty and ready to challenge for a team & AA title.

2. Ksenia Afanasyeva has proven that she is too valuable to be left off the Olympic team. She manages to hit all her routines and showed that she really wants to make it to another Olympic games. She didn't show full difficulty on FX but did try to upgrade her double pike to a leap jump for CV. And finally she hits her Onodi + Side-somi combo on BB.

3. Anastasia Grishina has finally landed a DTY this is great news because a DTY will almost guarantee her a spot on the Olympic team. She had problems on bars and beam but this was only one competition and we'll see how well she does in the event finals. What really surprised me was that she had the top floor score. I think Grishina mainly focused on VT & FX for this competition and that could explain why she didn't do too well on UB & BB.

4. Yulia Inshina was consistent and quiet as usual. I was quite surprise at how well Inshina performed. She's proving to the Russian committee that she could help out somewhere and could be a very good alternate.

5. Anna Pavlova did well. She is still a very elegant and clean gymnast but with very low difficulty. What I like about Pavlova is that she is still competing and was helping her regional team for the team qualifications.

9. Yulia Belokobylskaya didn't have the best meet. On her best event she only scored 14.000 but on the bright side she did moderately well on BB.

*Please note that Komova, Dementyeva, Sidorova and Nabieva were not competing.

There are videos floating around on YT but the quality are poor due to the poor live stream, some videos = yannaGym 

Russian Championships 2012

Russian Championships are coming up. WAG is March 21-25 & MAG is April 4-8. I can't wait to see what the Russians have in store. Upgrades? I'm excited.

I'm hoping Ksenia Afanasyeva will have new floor music and some upgrades. Same goes to the other Russian stars.

Usually this competition is used as a preparatory competition and it will most likely determine who will go to Europeans. This is not Russia's Nationals. The Russian Cup is Russia's Nationals and will be held in June.

Sui Lu For BB Gold

I'm rooting for Sui to win beam at the London Olympics. Sui really brought it in Tokyo 2011 when she won the world title on beam. Her performance was almost PERFECT! A must watch.

Chen Yibing For SR GOLD

Chen Yibing is the LORD OF THE RINGS! He’s my favourite to win on rings in London Olympics! He is the current Olympic winner on rings from Beijing 2008. He is a 4 time world champion on this apparatus '06, '07, '10 and '11! What a beast!

The Girl with the Long Name

Yulia B-e-l-o-k-o-b-y-l-s-k-a-y-a (14 letters). For short I will refer Belokobylskaya as Belo.

Belo first emerged into the elite scene at the 2011 European Championships. She was Komova’s replacement as the fourth gymnast to go to Europeans. Her best finish was a bronze medal on FX.

Belo is quite a pretty gymnast with elegance. Her standout apparatus is FX. She reminds me of the Chinese gymnasts because she has a lot of twisting passes. In a way she is the underdog of the Russian team. Her chances of making the Russian Olympic team are actually not bad. She could find herself being the floor specialist or alternate in London. Her best chance of making the Russian team is to be able to vault a DTY. She has not been successful with consistently landing a DTY. Her bars difficulty is good but her execution will be hammered by the FIG judges. In Tokyo world championships she was rightfully not used on bars in prelims because of her poor execution. It was a shame to not see her bars in Tokyo prelims because she does have some interesting skills. She does an Galante (inbar Tkatchev) and was actually the first gymnast to do an inbar Shaposh. The inbar Shaposh was named after her more popular teammate Komova, as the Komova II. Her BB is just ok. When she hits her BB routine can be a very good set but I just can’t help but wonder if she can truly handle all the skills she does in her routines. It feels like she just learned her skills the night before. She’s not refined on BB or UB. IMO she is doing skills she is not ready to compete and that they are actually relatively new skills (upgrades) that she recently learned. She did take out the standing Arabian on BB so that's a first good step. Hopefully she'll be able to make her skills look more easy and refine at the up coming Russian Championships.

The girl with the long name might not make it to the Olympics but I can still see her contributing to team Russia in the next quad (’13-16). Hopefully she will be able to earn a medal on FX in future world championships.

Here are Some of Belo's Best FX Routines.

 

She's not the best bar worker but she did have some really interesting skills and she was the first gymnast to perform the Komova II (inbar shaposh).

Old School Afanasyeva Bars

Remember when Afan was doing the *VLW so beautifully. She was the "first" Russian to do this skill and the only gymnast in Beijing to do this skill, and for that I LOVE HER. I wish she could swing bars like this again.

SHE NEEDS TO BE IN LONDON THIS SUMMER!

*VLW = Van Leeuwen, I'm trying to make this acronym work because the skill name is so long.

McKayla Maroney For VT Gold

Maroney is the current world champion on vault. She has the best Amanar in the world. She upgraded her second VT to; round-off, half-on, full-twisting layout (6.1 D-Score). She is one of my favourite American gymnast. I hope she will make the USA team because they have a very deep field  of gymnasts and she might not make the cut. It would be a shame if she does not get to win a gold medal on VT in London.

 (Source: allyoursecrets)

Quick Thoughts on Anastasia Grishina

I'm starting to really really like Grishina. Her beam combo, Onodi + illusion + full turn is quite pretty. I wish she would just do a simple switch leap instead of a switch ring leap though. Her legs are kinda soggy when she makes the ring shape, it's quite distracting.

I'm not sure if she can contend for a AA spot because she only does a FTY and has been struggling to get a consistent DTY, but hopefully she can master the DTY in time for the Olympics.

Her bars are exquisite and hopefully her new upgrades will be consistent enough for her to keep them. On FX I hope she gets something new and show us that she really can be a great floor worker.

The more and more I think about Grishina is that she could be like a Gabrielle Douglas in the making. Grishina has potential. I have a very good feeling she will peak really well for the Olympics.

 Here's the floor routine where a lot of fans fell in love with Grishina

 

Random PB Stuff

Nguyen's and Belyavskiy's PB dismounts are pretty cool. Thanks to gymnasticsgifs @ tumblr for making them. One day I'll learn how to use photoshop.

EDIT: The Nguyen gif is not working on my blog, it can be found here.

Now on Tumblr

I've finally joined tumblr @ http://agymnasticsfan.tumblr.com/ I realized there are more gymnastics fans there than here. I will still post on this blog though. I prefer to post text stuff here and then reblog it to my tumblr. I wish I had blogged a long time ago, I never knew how fun it is. No one will probably read my stuff though, lol. No one in my life really cares about my gymnastics ramblings so the internet gets to hear it.

Quick Thoughts on American Cup (SCAM) 2012

Did Leyva really win? I'm not an expert on MAG but it seems like his HB score was overscored. I hope people talks about this or at least educate me about this. It just didn't feel right. But of course my MAG knowledge is very limited. I have to re-watch this competition because I watched it in sh*tty streamed quality.

On the WAG side, BLAH. The Americans lack ARTISTRY; it was SO HARD to watch, painfully hard actually and I'm not lying or exaggerating. If you top it off with some of their execution faults it just makes it worst. They may have Amanars but they do not have bars, grace, beauty, and ARTISTRY.

I really liked Douglas though. Douglas was only doing exhibition AA which meant her scores did not count. She had the highest AA total score so that meant that she would have won. Oh but wait her FX artistry and music needs to change ASAP!