Just Because...Deng Linlin 2011 Chinese National BB

Deng's layout on beam is one of the best in the world. It's high, powerful, straight and exciting. Here is when she did layout 1/1 and trying to connect to Korbut flip. I believe she first tried this in 2010.

 

CoP - Tip of The Month

One of the CR (compositional requirements) on floor exercise is to show a dance passage worth 0.5. It must be composed of two different leaps or hops from the CoP. According to the code, "the objective is to create a large flowing and traveling movement pattern." This can be done directly or indirectly. Most of the times gymnasts will do it indirectly and take some extra runs into their second leap/hop. This can get boring and redundant.

Here are some examples of indirect dance passages done with some flair.

Deng Linlin 
Mai Murakami 
Marta Pihan-Kulezsa

What not to do Alicia Sacramone. She practically stopped and broke her indirect leap passage.

Example of direct dance passage by Yulia Belokobylskaya. I really like how she doesn't have to run into her second leap.

Gymnastics Horror Story Montage

This montage is based on a popular TV series called American Horror Story. I think it's a pretty cool montage. Perfect for Halloween time. Made by SuperGymmie

Just Because

Deng Linlin's Olympic gold beam finals gif. That's FF (B) + BHS (B) + Layout (E) + Korbut (B), 0.3 connection value. Huge difficulty.

(Source: monigymnastics.tumblr)

Ksenia Afanasyeva's beam combo. Onodi (D) + Side-Somi (D), 0.1 connection value. It took her awhile to perfect that combo. She had always had trouble making the connection but finally mastered it.

 (Source: monigymnastics.tumblr)

He Kexin's Uneven bars. I can never get tired of the Li Ya (Jaeger mixed grip) to Jaeger. That's E + D for 0.2 connection value. Not to mention that she does it after two very difficult pirouette skills. Healy (E) + Ling (E) + Li Ya (E) + Jaeger (D) for 0.6 connection value! I'm probably the only one who likes the E + E pirouettes, they are beautiful and very very difficult to master. Some people are celebrating that it might be removed in the new code but I'll miss it. Sometimes it can make a gymnast look very elegant on bars.

 (Source: monigymnastics.tumblr)

Gymnastics Olympic Event Finals Day 3

I'm really excited about this finals. The gentlemen will compete on parallel bars and high bar. The ladies will be on beam and floor exercise. The event finals will begin live at 9:00 AM EDT. Good luck to all the ladies and gentlemen. Start list: CLICK HERE  

The competition will start in about 6min I'm watching it live here: BBC

EDIT 1:

FULL RESULTS
1) Feng Zhe (CHN) Very high difficulty 7.0. Good clean stuff.
2) Marcel Nguyen (GER) Good difficulty 6.8 and difficult Tsuk dismount.
3) Hamilton Sabot (FRA) Good 6.7 difficulty and very clean routine.

EDIT 2: FULL RESULTS

This was a weird competition. Too many mistakes. Thank you China for being awesome. Afanasyeva showed GOOD SPORTS-MANSHIP. Ponor wining third is a travesty. I was rooting for Raisman to take 3rd. What a shame! Ponor was too wobbly and had many many execution faults. This will be one of the most controversial event finals. Congrats to the daredevil Deng Linlin, you rock. I thought Sui should have won but hey China 1-2, cheer up Sui.

1) Deng Linlin (CHN)
2) Sui Lu (CHN)
3) Catalina Ponor (ROM)
3) Aly Raisman (USA)

Edit 3: Raisman in 3rd Catalina in 4th. WTF this final was crazy. What is wrong with the judges! Get it right the first time!

EDIT 4: Oh god Sui Lu is such a DIVA!

EDIT 5: What an AMAZING high bar final! One of the best in history. Zonderland finally gets a well deserved gold medal. Hambuechen really stepped it up I'm happy for his silver. Zou in 3rd.

1) Epke Zonderland 2) Fabian Hambuechen 3) Zou Kai FINAL RESULTS

EDIT 6:

1)ALY RAISMAN. She is so powerful and such a phenomenal tumbler. Powerful gymnastics is just as beautiful as artistic and elegant gymnastics. Raisman may not be elegant but her attitude and determination is beautiful. She is a class act. She has such a difficult routine it's crazy. She finally gets a well deserved GOLD! It's really easy to like Raisman as a person. She seems like such a nice girl. Congratulation Aly Raisman :)

2) Ponor did a wonderful job. She had two stuck landing on DLO and dbl Pike. She really fought out there for a medal. I may not like her routine but she deserved this silver. She's freaking 24! Cool.

3) ALIYA MUSTAFINA! I somehow knew she could do it. She is a born champion. She just knows how to compete. I'm happy she got this. We at least got to see grace and elegance on medal. Mustafina is boss and I'm looking forward to seeing more of her in the next quad.

6) Afanasyeva. Once a headcase, always a headcase. I knew it was coming. She majorly went out of bounds on her third pass. She stuck her triple full from connections though :D. It wasn't meant to be Afan. She's still a wonderful gymnast.

8) Izbasa - I was rooting for her to take gold if Afan couldn't do it. She failed on her last pass. Everything else was going good though. It was really unexpected. Hey she has a vault gold LOL and she still has her 2008 floor gold.

FULL RESULTS

Women's Olympic All-Around Finals

I'll be watching BBC coverage. Competition starts live in about 18min at 11:30 AM EDT. I'm not heavily invested in this competition. I'll be cheering for Komova and Douglas. Mustafina is a sentimental favourite so I'll be watching out for her too. Oh and then there is Iordache. I'm hoping she can stay up there too. She hasn't had the best Olympic experience so far. As for Deng and Huang I have no hope, I just want them to hit. If they both hit, they're already winners in my book. Good luck to all the ladies and pleaseeeeeee make it a clean competition.

EDIT 1: GABBY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well deserved GOLD! This is amazing. You are the best. You are 1# Olympic AA Gold. So happy right now.

So disappointed for Komova. Just wasn't enough. She should be happy because of the silver. What I liked about her tonight was that she fought for her floor. Even she knew it wasn't enough. The judges made the right decisions.

Aliya freakin' Mustafina is BOSS! She still got 3rd with a fall. I am happy for her.

Tonight there was inspiration and history in the making.

Results: CLICK HERE

I'm going to watch the live medal ceremony. It's on right now  http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/2012/live-video/p00w2zwy

EDIT 2: Yeah, Huang and Deng hit, lol. Good job girls.

Chinese Team Announced

The WAG Chinese team will comprise of He Kexin (2008 bars gold medalist, now a two-time Olympian), Deng Linlin (2008 team gold medalist, now a two-time Olympian), Yao Jinnan (2011 world's AA bronze medalists, China's best hope for an Olympic AA medal), Sui Lu (2011 world's beam gold medalist) and Huang Qiushuang (rumoured to have landed an Amanar but no video evidence).

One of my favourite 2008 Olympian, Jiang Yuyuan made it as alternate. 2010 Youth Olympic silver AA medalist Tan Sixin will be the other alternate.

I think this was China's best possible team. I don't really understand what all the fuss is about He Kexin being named as the last member. So what if she's a specialist? Almost all the top team will have a specialist. For example, Russia's Maria Paseka will be taken for her Amanar vault. She is useless on the other events. McKayla Maroney is basically a one event specialist on vault. It can be argued that she can do floor but let's face it she won't make floor finals and USA might not use her floor in team finals because she is inconsistent. Maroney will not even be used on UB or BB as she's weak on those apparatuses.

He Kexin can bring in a high score for China on UB. She can score in the 15.000 -15.500 range. Any scores in the 15's is great for any team. He Kexin could also make it to bars event finals and possibly medal. It will be hard for China to contend for gold or possibly even silver. They have the potential to medal bronze.

China is one of my favourite sentimental team. I don't even give a shit about the Chinese underage scandal. I do think some of them were underage. If they are found to be underage, they should give their gold to the obnoxious Americans (not all Americans are obnoxious). China does give back their medals when found to be guilty but all other federations who were found to be underage kept their cheating medals. Gymnastic age is really controversial and I have my suspicions of other federation cheating ages (past & present). It happens and I can guarantee that the majority of some gymnasts are not the ages they really claim to be. IMO the only clean countries with no age questions are USA, Canada, UK, Australia, France, Germany, you get the idea. China, Japan, Russia, Romania etc, are not clean of this IMO, I have my suspicions. Let's all face it, not everyone will play by the rules. Gymnastic is not the only sport that has cheating scandals.

This is my China team line-up. Parentheses is for prelims and the lowest score to be scratched for the team prelim total.

VT: (He or Sui) Deng, Huang, Yao
UB: (Deng) Huang, Yao, He
BB: (Huang or Deng) Huang or Deng, Yao, Sui
FX: (Deng or Huang) Deng or Huang, Yao, Sui