Rio 2016 Olympic MAG/WAG Event Finals & Final Thoughts PART 2

Uneven Bars Results
1. Aliya Mustafina 15.900
2. Madison Kocian 15.833
3. Sophie Scheder 15.566

Aliya Mustafina is the Queen of uneven bars. She is the 2x Olympic champion on this event. I am really happy she won! Madison Kocian in 2nd and I think this was her best routine. And Sophie Scheder! Wow I forgot that she was in this finals. I have always knew about her and even blogged about how much I liked her routines. I wasn't expecting her to medal at the Olympics. This is a great win for her.

MAG Vault Results
1. Ri Se Gwang AVG 15.691
2. Denis Abliazin AVG 15.516
3. Kenzo Shirai AVG 15.449

Man this finals was exciting to watch. Two new crazy vaults were performed. Igor Radivilov was 2nd to perform and he attempted a 3/1 front tuck! This guy is crazy gutsy. He was awarded the full 7.0 difficulty but I read he will not get it named after him since he fell. Then there was Kenzo Shirai. After his disappointing floor finals he came back with a crazy 7/2 (3.5) Yurchenko! I am happy Kenzo was able to medal individually. He also had the highest execution in this finals. Ri Se Gwang is another fearless competitor. He is truly the champion because he did two vaults that is named after himself. His vaults may not look pretty but they are crazy difficult. I'm happy he won. Then there's Abliazin who maybe could have won if he stuck his Ri vault. I think he could of but who knows. In this case it's still nice to see him medal for team Russia.

Balance Beam Results
1. Sanne Wevers 15.466
2. Laurie Hernandez 15.333
3. Simone Biles 14.733

As always this was a nerve wrecking event to watch. Simone could have won this event but she grasped the beam and almost fell from front tuck. I was so nervous. In the end she was able to win 3rd. Laurie had a chance to win after Wevers but her execution and difficulty was not quite enough and she had to settle for 2nd. Then there is Sanne Wevers! I absolutely love her beam routine. Very unique and beautiful with all the difficult turns. The judges took quite a long time for her score and when it came out I clapped in happiness. I think it was the suspense that made it all exciting. Sometimes Wevers is inconsistent but this was her year. So happy for her. In a lot of ways this was probably my favourite win of this Olympic gymnastics.

Parallel Bars Results  
1. Oleg Verniaiev 16.041
2. Danell Leyva 15.900
3. David Belyavskiy 15.783

Again I was disappointed with the Chinese guys Deng Shudi and You Hao. Deng was shaky and lost lots in execution. You Hao was doing really well up until his difficult double front 1/2 out. So close he was but it was not meant to be. It's also clear to see which style the judges like. Danell performed very well and stuck his landing. I'm happy he won after from being an alternate. Belyavskiy won 3rd. His routine is nice and its awesome how he got 3rd in such a difficult finals. Never giving up and fighting is the name of this sport. Then there's Verniaiev. He had an error issue with handstand but his routine has good difficulty and execution through out to make him win. It also didn't hurt that he was a major favourite to win this event. I'm happy he can leave with a gold medal from these games.

WAG Floor Exercise Results 
1. Simone Biles 15.966!
2. Aly Raisman 15.500
3. Amy Tinkler 14.933

This was another good finals. I really enjoyed watching Wang Yan on floor. I think she was low balled on this event. She deserved a better score. Through out this competition I have been impressed with Wang. She hit all her routines through out the games. Very impressive. Amy Tinkler was a nice surprised. How nice that Great Britain won an individual medal on the WAG side. If it wasn't Claudia Fragapane to qualify and medal it was a nice surprise to see Tinkler do it. Aly Raisman was simply amazing. I really like her on this event. This is her forte. This is her event. Her third pass sticking a DLO gah. She was not able to defend her 2012 title because Simone Biles was also amazing. Biles difficulty is out of this world! Such difficult tumbling and very energetic routine. Simone Biles won her 4th gold on this event in Rio. Wow.

High Bar Results 
1. Fabian Hambuchen 15.766
2. Danell Leyva 15.500
3. Nile Wilson 15.466  

This is always an event to look forward to. I'm disappointed that Kohei fell in qualification but there were great guys in this final. Sadly Zonderland was not able to defend his title. His friendly rival friend Fabian Hambuchen was first up and killed his routine. It was a thrilling and exciting routine. This was his last time to compete as he is retiring. What an amazing way to end his competitive gymnastics career with an Olympic gold medal! He now has all the collected medals of bronze from 2008, silver from 2012 and now Gold. That's cool. Danell Leyva was also amazing to see on bars. It's nice to see him medal again. Some people are calling him the silver prince. Nile Wilson fought and did a great job to place 3rd. Never give up because you never know what can happen. It's great that Great Britain has been winning several individual medals. That is a success for their program.

Team Japan MAG Wins Rio 2016 Olympics

Full Results
1) Japan 274.094
2) Russia 271.453
3) China 271.122

It was a thrilling and intense competition. I am very happy Team Japan won since 2004 Athens. They have been wanting this for so long. Of course all teams dream of winning gold and Russia was close to winning. They were amazing yesterday too. They hit all their routines and did the best they have ever did. And after 16 years later they made the podium again with a new team for silver medal. In honesty I never thought Russia would have medal so it was exciting to see. China was able to win bronze. As of late they have not been doing the best but if they have not made some costly errors they could have been close or maybe won. But China has been lacking consistency and difficulty in some apparatus during this quad. It'll be interesting to see how they develop their program for the future. I'm happy China was able to medal. I'm happy about this whole finals.

Team Russia - Montpellier 2015 Montage

By: RUSGymnastics

Favourite Things of 2014

I might have missed a lot of things but these are the things that quickly came to my mind. This was not a well thought out post.

WAG

VT: Hong Un Jong's EF Nanning

UB: This was kind of hard for me but I will go with Yao Jinnan's Nanning EF. I love how crisp her connected pirouettes are and the stuck DLO. Of course I still like the look of Russians on bars and the unique combos of team Great Britain.

BB: Bai Yawen's Nanning EF. This comes immediately to my mind. I love her lines and clean execution. This will definitely be something I will remember of 2014.

FX: Simone Biles USA Classic floor routine. It's just amazing. Overall this is my favourite routine of 2014 for WAG.

Cool skills: Mustafina's 3/1 Y-Turn, Schaefer's Side-somi 1/2

MAG

FX: Denis Ablyazin & Kenzo Shirai.

PH: Krisztian Berki Nanning EF

SR: Liu Yang Nanning EF

VT: Donnell Whittenburg, Yang Hak Seon & Ri Se Gwang (badass)

PB: Oleg Verniaiev Nanning EF

HB: Kohei Uchimura Nanning EF  

Cool Skills: Bretschneider's 2/1 Kovacs, Shirai's 3/1 DLO

What were your favourite routines, skills or combinations for this year. I would love to know so that I can remember what routines happened this year. Please comment :).

EF Medalists Day 1 || Nanning 2014

I watched this live on FIG feed. I managed to stay alive during all the event finals. By the time it was over I was struggling to blog about it on here. I even had to save this post as a draft. Perhaps last night I should have not been blogging on tumblr :P. This is pretty much a half ass post. I'm gonna try to remember everything from early last night.

MAG FX Full Results 

This final was okay. I think the floor routine I liked the most was Hypolito. Very unique combinations. He came in 3rd for 15.700. Ablyazin came in 1st 15.750. He did a good job. Not his best in terms of landings but his routine had all the nice tricks. I really enjoy a nice DDLO. Disappointed for Kenzo Shirai but even he knew he didn't do enough to win. He went out of bounds again and he wasn't as crisp on his landings this time. What's interesting is that he almost won if it weren't for that out of bounds or perhaps the small little hops on landings. Shirai came in 2nd 15.733. Other guys, Jake Dalton and Korea's Kim Hansol were clean guys. Very nice to see that. Dalton's 3/1 full dismount is always nice and clean. What else? There was Zapata from Spain who rebounded out of something and flew high. I missed what that was. Later I'm gonna go replay it. Perhaps we'll see a gif of it :)

WAG VT Full Results

Hong Un Jong of N. Korea took the gold. Her Amanar has improved a lot. Her Cheng vault was good enough for 1st. At first I wasn't sure if she'll be able to win because Biles had two cleanly executed vaults. The tension was building after Biles finished her second vault. The judges just didn't give her a high enough execution to win. This time I felt Biles had a superior Amanar to Hong's. She had a small hop forward like always but the height and aggression on it was amazing. She really put her energy into it. Skinner came in 3rd. Her Cheng was cleanly done except for the one handed technique. It still bothers me a lot but it obviously doesn't for the judges. The guy commentator said it was beautiful vault. While I do agree to some level I just can't say it since she doesn't block with both hands. Still yeah it's clean enough.

PH Full Results

This event started off with Keatings. He had the highest difficulty but had too many issues. Too bad for him. I really liked the elegant and long lines of Tommasone. He came in 3rd 15.600. I didn't catch much of Ude but it seems he was good enough for 2nd, good for him 15.783. Berki came in 1st 16.033. He is still a world class pommels worker. Very nice routine. I'm still trying to get the hang of the pommel codes :).




UB Full Results

Mustafina kicked off this event. Her difficulty was just too low. And the judges weren't forgiving to her form breaks. She's a great gymnast and I know there are many disappointed fans that wanted to see her medal but everything was not in her favour. She is a big girl and can accept the results. We all know she can do a harder routine. Perhaps this world championships was not to rush difficulty but to mainly focus on team finals. We'll never know. In any case Spiridonova got 3rd 15.283. How good for her? Her routine is based out of 6.4 and she had slightly better escore. How dare she beat Mustafina :P Nah just joking her routine was better. I hope this gives Spiridonova more confidence going into the next world championships and perhaps the Olympics. Please stay healthy! Downie had an exciting release filled routine but her execution really hurt her. The Chinese were in a league of their own. Yao 6.9 and Huang 6.8 Dscores! Just too much advantage for them. Chinese will always find ways to be on top of bars difficulty. It's gonna be hard for other nations to get close to those Dscores but it can happen. I'm happy Yao finally got a gold medal 15.633 and what about Huang 15.566. Badass for not wearing grips. Not even those small dinky tape ones. Badass. Very old school gymnast.



SR Full Results

It was a battle between Liu and Zanetti. Last year Liu qualified first and disappointingly finished 4th. This year he was out for blood and came on top. Very strong and cleanly executed routine 15.933. Zanetti was not quite on today but managed 2nd 15.733. There will be a battle in Rio. You Hao put in an inquiry and so his Dscore raised to 7.0, the highest in the competition. Ablyazin was on fire today. He tied with You Hao for 3rd 15.700. Let's see what Ablyazin can do in VT finals.

Overall day one event finals was nice. I can't wait for day two. Hwaaaaaah I'm tired. Next quad wolds needs to be in N. America. At least the Olympics will be in Rio so the times will be sane for us North American people. Well for us east coasters that is :P.     

Part 3: Favourite Gymnastics of 2013 ~ MAG

My favourite would be king Kohei Uchimura reigning as world AA champ for the 5th time in a row (one being Olympic AA). It never gets boring watching him win. He is truly an amazing gymnast. What makes it more exciting is to see if any other guys can beat him. Uchimura has the execution that most gymnasts do not have. Even when he is not perfect he is still ahead of his competitors. Not many gymnasts can execute skills like him. He also has some insane difficulty that he doesn't even compete because he is working the code to his advantage. He doesn't need to do some difficulty because he doesn't need them or he sacrifices them for safety and execution. Hopefully one day we will get to see his full out difficulty in competition. He always comes out with some of the best training clips. Like Kovacs + Kolman + Kolman or Cassina + Kolman + Kovacs.

My favourite HB routine. Check out the 3/1 DLO Fedorchenko dismount (F).

Denis Ablyazin FX from Universiade is one of my favourite routine of this year. He does a lot of hard difficult salto skills. Love the fwd 2/1 twists + dbl front tuck (D+D) 0.2CV and the 2/1 DLO (F). Also someone in the comment section from part 1 mentioned his dbl front twists + dbl front pike (D+E) 0.2CV. I can't believe I forgot that. That's a nice combo. It's a shame he didn't qualify to world's floor finals.
  Jake Dalton FX from worlds EF. He won 2nd on this event. I like the Tamayo (F) and the stuck 3/1 Twists (D).  

Kenzo Shirai FX from worlds EF. I can't leave him out. I like his gold medal performance. That quad twists (F)! I also like the side-somie with a 1/1 twist (C).

Yang Hak Seon being a badass on vault. His 3/1 front handspring (6.4) still impresses me. I hope he will get the Kas 5/2 by 2014 Nanning. Ri Se Gwang is another badass vaulter. Too bad he didn't qualify to worlds vault finals because his vaults are insane. Check out his vaults from this year's Doha's Cup. They are easily some of my favourite vaults from this year.

Epke Zonderland's HB from worlds EF. I get that he's not the cleanest guy on bars but his routine is still insane and worth fanning over. His high D-score advantage helps him a lot.

Bobby Baker's full twist double front. I wasn't sure if I should post this in the new skill section since technically we knew he was doing it in 2012 but this is still MAG and it's a favourite skill that I like, heck this whole routine is good.
What were your favourite MAG routines of the year?

Quick Thoughts on MAG TF/QF Universiade 2013

Alright so here is my very quick recap and impressions of this event. These are unofficial scores. The broadcast only showed the last subdivision.

1) Russia 273.150 2) Ukraine 3) Japan 269.700. Yesterday I promised that I would put the results in but I'm sure my small amount of followers know where to find results. In case you don't. I like to check this site gymnastics results.

I think Russia did pretty well they were under pressure and they delivered. They had some mistakes but nothing too serious and costly. They showed some routines of the Ukrainians and Japanese but not enough. Japan pretty much had a B team compared to Russia's A team. Even though Yusuke Tanaka didn't make Japan's world team he did okay here. The broadcast showed a lot of him and he made it to some finals, yay.

I heard the results of Yang Hak Seon was great on VT, he wasn't in this subdivision. I'm hoping all the best for him in VT finals.

One of his competition will be Denis Ablyazin. He did a nice Tsuk dbl pike with a 0.3 step back IMO. His second vault FHS 5/2 with a 0.1 step back. VT1 15.350 VT2 15.400 AVG 15.375. I wonder if he will do his Li Xiaopeng vault in finals.

His floor routine was good too for 15.650. He did, fwd 5/2, 2/1 twist DLO, fwd 2/1 twist + 2/1 front tuck, Thomas Stretched, Japanese hstd, dbl pike Arabian, bwd 3/2 + fwd 1/1, 3/1 twist dismount.

2013 Russian Championships (March 3-7)

Check out the poster for this year's 2013 Russian Championships. Cover girl Aliya Mustafina and cover boy Denis Ablyazin are the featured gymnasts :D.

This competition will start on the same week as American Cup. No Russians will attend the American Cup (March 1-2). This competition will be used to decide the team that will compete at the European Championships (Moscow, April 17-21). Although Valentina Rodionenko has already announced that Mustafina, Afanasyeva and new senior Evgeniya Shelgunova will compete, the last spot has not been named source. The names could change because Russian Championships results will give a better indication of who deserves to go to Europeans. This year's European will only be individual events: AA, VT, UB, BB & FX. No team competition and only four gymnasts can compete for a nation. I'm looking forward to see how Grishina will do, hopefully she will compete this week. There isn't a participation list up yet but most likely all returning Russian Olympians will compete with the exception of Viktoria Komova. Komova is dealing with a back injury and is taking a break.

Schedule: source
March 3rd: WAG QF & AA finals 11AM-2:45PM
                  MAG QF & AA finals 4PM-8:15PM
March 4th: WAG Team Finals 3PM-5:30PM
March 5th: MAG Team Finals 3PM-6PM
March 6th: MAG/WAG EF (FX, PH, SR, VT & UB) 11AM-1PM
March 7th: MAG/WAG EF (VT, PB, HB, BB & FX) 11AM-1PM
-All times are Penza, Russia time.

Ablyazin 2012 Voronin Cup FX

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.

Gymnastics Olympic Event Finals Day 2

This event will feature men's rings and vault. The women's will be the uneven bars. Good luck to all the competitors. I'm watching the BBC live coverage.

Rings: 1) Zanetti 2) Chen 3) Morandi - I'm obviously disappointed for Chen but silver at the Olympics is still awesome. Zanetti did a great job, it was a beautiful style with some very nice difficult strength moves. Congrats Zanetti. Morandi takes a well deserved bronze. RINGS RESULTS

Uneven Bars: 1) MUSTAFINA!!!!!!!!!! 2) He, 3) Tweddle - ALIYA MUSTAFINA DID IT! She finally gets a gold medal for a beautiful routine. She is the boss. I'm very happy with the results. He Kexin proves that she is still one of the best bars worker in the world. I'm very happy for He Kexin :). Beth tweddle had little trouble with her dbl dbl dismount and had to take a huge hop back. Tweddle still did good and should be proud with the bronze. I'm happy for her. This bars finals was one of the best finals. Every single women hit their routine except for Douglas. Great stuff. BAR RESULTS

Vault: 1) YANG HAK SEON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2) Ablyazin 3) Radivilov
Yang's 3/1 FHS could have been landed better but the massive difficulty is insane. 3/1 twists and CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN form. His second vault was even more beautiful 3/1 Tsuk with beautiful stuck landing. This makes me incredibly happy. Congrats to all the medalists. VAULT RESULTS

Gymnastics Olympic Event Finals Day 1, Part 2

The competition will start in about 5 minutes. I'll be watching here live: BBC

EDIT 1: HELL YEAH, Zou Kai! He was on today on floors. Uchimura had tooo many twists but at least they were CLEAN, I'm happy he won silver. No more event finals for Uchimura. Russia's Ablyazin had a pretty sick routine, congrats to him. Floor Results

Women's vault finals was a DIRTY competition. I felt so sorry for the majority of the ladies. Especially for Maroney. What a sad day. I thought she had it. Honestly, I thought she had still won even with the fall but it wasn't meant to be. I'm happy that Izbasa won but I hate to be a downer but she was pretty scrappy and her vaults weren't really pretty. She didn't fall so she deserved her win. I really want to see her step it up in floor finals though. I would be more happy for her on floor if she wins. OK so Maria Paseka's Amanar was not fully rotated and she had huge landing problems but got third, oh well that's the COP. Vault Results

In Pommel Horse finals Smith and Berki tied but Berki won with the better execution. Berki was truly the cleaner gymnast. He floats much better than a heavy and a bit laboured Smith. Congrats to all the medalists.

PH Results