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.
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.
