Just Because...Larisa Iordache's Nanning 2014 TF BB

It's been awhile since we've seen Iordache compete. I'm interested in seeing what she will show this year.

EF Medalists Day 2 || Nanning 2014

Alright this day was filled with some disappointments and excitements. I watched the FIG stream. I still wish it was streamed free for all. As I really hate to use proxy apps but I do what I have to for the love of this sport.

Full HB Results

First off Kohei Uchimura. That HB finals! CASSINA + KOLMAN!!! What a nice surprise. He went all out and increased his difficulty to 7.2. Very nice combo and it made me happy that he did that combo. In a way I missed the tak 1/2 + Kolman but that will be his regular combo. Uchimura is amazing. I can't wait to see the tumblr gifs. He scored 15.725. It wasn't enough to beat beast Zonderland's 7.7 difficulty routine! His routine is insane. Filled with sky high releases. Similar release of Uchimura with Cassia + Kovacs a bit less difficult but still amazing. I like the Kolman + Gaylord. Zonderland is still the best on high bar for 16.225! Croatia's Moznik fought for 3rd for a well deserved 15.000. I know some won't consider this a disappointment but Zhang. Zhang's hand guard broke. It was not meant to be. He would have medalled somewhere on the podium. And Calvo from Columbia fell and that was sad to see. I like his routine.

 Full MAG VT Results 

This finals was disappointing for my friend. She was sad for Yang Hak Seon. But we both agreed that the podium finish was well deserved and good. I felt for Yang. I believe he will get the vault named after him? He did get a score for it. He is still amazing and gutsy for going for it. We already know he can do it. As he already did it at Korean Cup and it was nicely done. It wasn't Yang's day today. His second vault was not much hope too. He landed but fell. He's really courageous for doing these difficult twisting vault. Who would have imagine we'll see these kind of vaults in this day and age? Yang came in 7th. The winner was Ri Se Gwang. It really pains me to see him after the Ri vault but I guess it's worth it when he wins. It's his vault and of course he'll want to compete his own skill. It's an insane vault! He really deserved that title. Really difficult vaults. Radivilov 2nd and Dalton 3rd. They both did good vaults to finish on the podium. Just one quick comment, haha it's quite amusing that Radivilov's Dragulescu travels far.

Full PB Results

This was a nice podium finish. OLEG VERNIAIEV! He finallys leaves this championships happy :). I felt really happy when he won. When his score flashed 16.125 I knew it would take something special for the other guys to overtake him. His routine was beautifully executed. When Leyva competed I knew it wasn't enough but Leyva did a well deserved 2nd 15.933 routine. And then there is Kato :). It's nice to see him in 3rd even if for a bit he was pissy when Leyva went ahead of him :P. That made me laugh. Deng Shudi had the highest difficulty but he lost lots of execution. I was nervous when he competed the Bhavsar but nice that he stuck his dismount. He seemed happy enough that he did all he could do and even later smiled at the camera when he knew it wasn't going to be enough to medal.

Full BB Results 


This finals was a disappointment. Well I'm glad Biles took the title because it was well deserved. I'm crowning her the Queen of this championships. 4 GOLD medal wins. What an incredible athlete. My favourite part of her routine is the the dismount. Really difficult 2 ff into full in tuck. I really enjoyed watching fan favourite Bai Yawen's routine. She was on today. Very lovely dance elements, loved the slow mo replays. I hope tumblr people gif those.

Okay so now for the interesting bits. Mustafina's routine. Everything was going well. She missed her connections from switch leap and majorly failed to connect the acrobatic requirement. She lost 5 tenths for that mistake. Not arguing anything there. Yet still managed to medal. I'm not happy about that. Teramoto really deserved that bronze medal. The judges rejected her inquiry. The judges were really cruel to not give credit for the 3/1 twists dismount.

This is what Teramoto's beam got:

2/1 Turn (D)
Onodi (D)
Leap series
2 ff + LOSO 0.1SB
Front Aerial (D)
Side Somi (D)
Johnson Leap (C)
Switch Leap (C)
Aerial Cartwheel (D)
5/2 Dismount (D)

3.0 + 0.1SB = 3.1 + 2.5CR = 5.6 D-score.

I agree with everything except the dismount. Her feet was all the way around IMO. Judges needs to be consistent when crediting twists. If she had been credited with 3/1 twists she would have been given 5.8 to lead for 3rd. They rejected her inquiry quickly. Well when I thought about it, it might of been harsh to discredit Mustafina's acrobatic series too. So in many ways everything worked out. Seeing the replay made me more calm. The results seems legit enough. I just felt the judges are harsh on WAG twists and in the past they always gave credit to undeserving gymnasts incomplete twisting. Teramoto should have been credited. I just felt this final was lackluster. Thanks to Bai Yawen beam or else this finals would have been boring for me.



Full WAG FX 

What can I say? Biles was ahead of everyone. Her difficulty is amazing. And she really deserved that medal without any doubts 15.333. She is a very strong and athletic gymnast. Nice to see Iorchace get 2nd 14.800. Good for her :). The moment for 3rd was Mustafina's routine 14.733. Nice to see her make her floor more exciting with the 2 whips. Generally she is an artistic gymnast. But I didn't like her overall routine, in terms of music and choreography. It lacked something that she used to have in her past floor routines. This one was kind of boring and those socks! Those socks are not really elegant :P. But I'm happy that Mustafina fans can celebrate and be happy for her 3rd place finish.

Overall I felt this world Championships was nice. It's nice to see full teams competing. If anything Kohei Uchimura winning his 5th AA tittle really made the difference for me. I'm glad I was able to watch this whole competition. It was all worth it to wake up at insane times. It's all over and now I can relive it all in replay. Well I hope all the replay become available without the proxy restrictions. Thanks to my gym fan for skyping with me during worlds. You know who you are and it was fun :) Now it's time to celebrate Canadian thanksgiving gobble gobble.
  

Simone Biles Golden In WAG AA || Nanning 2014

Full Results

This was another nice competition. I'm happy for all the medalists. I'm most happy for Iordache. She improved a lot. I watched the FIG stream. I never saw Iordache on bars but knowing how she performed on bars in the past I'm not surprised at the good bar score she got. Sometimes she's on sometimes she's off but she was on today. Her beam is good as always. Her difficulty dropped a bit because not everything was credited. Her vault was good as usual. Her floor was a bit nerve wrecking but she kept herself composed and even upgraded her last pass to full in pike. There were no doubt that she would medal. I think she will be the story of WAG this championships. Well I found myself feeling happy for her.

Biles took gold. She did a great job today. It must feel great to win 2 consecutive AA titles in a row. Teammate Kyla Ross came in 3rd. It's not that I am surprised she got 3rd it's that in gymnastics you never know what can happen. It was sad to see Mustafina fall on her dbl Arabian mount but it is what it is. She is capable of more difficulty so hopefully next year we can see more improvements from her. It's not over yet. Mustafina can still get gold on beam or medal on the events she qualified for. Anything can happen. Good luck and congratulations to everyone.   

Quick 2014 MAG/WAG AA Wishes & Predictions

MAG Wish

1) Kohei Uchimura (JPN)
2) Yusuke Tanaka (JPN)
3) Oleg Verniaiev (UKR)

Prediction

1) Kohei Uchimura (JPN)
2) Deng Shudi (CHN) {he has the highest Dscores}
3) Nikolai Kuksenkov (RUS)

WAG Wish

1) Simone Biles (USA)
2) Aliya Mustafina (RUS)
3) Yao Jinnan (CHN)

Prediction

1) Aliya Mustafina (RUS)
2) Simone Biles (USA)
3) Larisa Iordache (ROU)

USA Wins Team WAG Gold || Nanning 2014

Full Results

1) USA 179.280
2) China 172.587
3) Russia 171.462

I watched live on Chinese feed. It's no surprise the mighty strong USA won. I enjoyed their strong difficult floor routines by Skinner and Biles. Yeah yeah I said Skinner :P. At least she woke me up because she does hard stuff that keeps me watching. I wonder what Ross's beam inquiry was about? Say what you want about Ross but she was the only one from USA that I liked on beam. I honestly do not understand how they scored so close to Chinese beam? My favourite part of team finals was China's beam, especially Huang Huidan's.

Romania qualified 7th but came in 4th. I'm happy for them. They were so close to 3rd with 170.963 for 4th place. I saw Iordache on beam and she was on fire. She scored the highest on beam with 15.5! I'm looking forward to seeing Munteanu's beam. She also scored high with 15.2.

Russia managed to take bronze. I saw Spiridonova and Mustafina on bars and they did good job. I only saw Mustafina on beam and floor she had some mistakes but she handled everything well. They fought to stick their vaults. I only saw Nabieva and Mustafina on vault. They did a really good job. They really needed those scores. They are fighters.

Not everything went well for China, Russia and Romania but they shouldn't be so hard on themselves. They are good teams they just need to hit hit hit their routines and maybe they can put pressure on team USA. They need more difficulty too but it's still mid quad. I think China, Russia and Romania knows what they need to do to improve for Rio. I hope they achieve what they intend to improve on. USA is too strong and of course they know they can't get lazy and expect to think they will always win easily. Congratulations to all the teams.    

Quick Thoughts On WAG Qualifications || Nanning 2014

Full results can be found here.

The only subdivision I saw live was China's. I was busy the other day and I couldn't stay up long enough to watch Romania. It was depressing to watch China on floor. Hopefully they can improve on that for team finals. Yao Jinnan was the top qualifier for bars.

China's uneven bars Dscores are huge. That really gives them an advantage. Huang Huidan and Tan Jiaxin tied but Huang had better execution so she's in for finals. I enjoyed that Tan Jiaxin did the layout dbl dbl dismount. Or also known as the Ray. I can't remember who was the last gymnast to do that skill since Tan. If you know let me know. (edit: Shawn Johnson in 2008)

On beam China did good. Shang put in an inquiry but it got rejected. I have no idea what that was about. China did have a few wobbly issues but generally I enjoy their beam style and difficulty. Beam is a hard event and kudos to all the finalists but I haven't feel wowed by the event finalists. I can only see a few routines from FIG youtube. I'm not sure who I want to win for this event.

Simone was top qualifier for AA, VT, BB, & FX. I'm guessing she fell from bars? I haven't seen her bar routine. I hope she wins AA. Would be nice for her to win 2 consecutive AA title. The only event I kind of dislike her on is beam. Yes I'm allowed to criticize about that. My opinion about it is that I just don't like the look of her on beam, no lines or extension. No beauty.

But damn floor is amazing. Iordache and her will duke it out. Mustafina also made floor finals. She got the 3/1 leg split turn but another girl did it so no named floor element for Mustafina. Maybe she can try for quad leg split turn for next year :P?

Vault finals should be interesting. I much prefer Hong's Amanar to Biles. I get that Cheng vault is difficult for WAG but it's not a pretty vault when done by WAG. It's nice to see that they are doing difficult vaults but none of them are doing them nicely.

Despite China's floor rotation they managed to qualify 2nd for team finals. No surprise that USA is in first and that Russia failed on BB to qualify for 3rd. Poor Romania qualified 7th. Oh and now I remember what happened to Andreea Munteanu on beam? I guess it's not surprising Romania didn't do so well. I still wish the best for them. 

American Cup 2014 Preview

It's that time of year again when the interesting and perhaps the most watched world cup begins, the American Cup. Sadly this year I will miss this event live but usually this competition gets uploaded quickly. I'm gonna try to avoid spoilers. The nominative list.

The MAG will have a strong field. I would say Mikulak (USA) and Hambuchen (GER) will duke it out for gold but I'm betting Mikulak will win. It will be interesting to see how these two do since they are some of the bests in elite gymnastics. Sergio Sasaki (BRA) could surprise us all and win. It's not that he can't do it but he's not talked a lot about. I'm guessing the podium will be something like Mikulak, Hambuchen, Sasaki or Orozco. I'm looking forward to seeing what rating Orozco will get for the Lou Yun 1/2 (I'm thinking still an E). Japan is sending Shogo Nonomura. I remember him being talked a lot about but not really making a big impact. I'm interested in seeing how he will do. Either than that the MAG competition should be good and competitive.

On the WAG side it looks like American superstars Simone Biles, Kyla Ross and Romania's Larisa Iordache will not attend this meet. We saw some exciting upgrades from Biles.

She is also working on a new choreographed routine. Many were excited to finally get to see it this weekend but it was not to be. I heard she's resting her arms/shoulders? I guess it's good to take a break since it's early in the season. USA will still field two strong AA'ers. Elizabeth Price and Brenna Dowell. I'm most excited to see Victoria Moors (CAN). Hopefully she will do the new full in tuck dismount off beam and the exciting 2/1 DLO. Ah and there is Sophie Scheder (GER) and her bar routine, I'm looking forward to that. I think she will be the class act on that event. There will be Giulia Steingruber (SUI) and Roxanna Popa (ESP). They could surprise us with finishing high on the podium. Then there are the Italians, Vanessa Ferrari and Carlotta Ferlito. Ferrari will be the interesting one to watch. She really is a veteran in this sport and she's been able to keep most of her hard tricks for so long. She's one that could surprise and medal on the podium. Last I saw she got back her Comaneci (E) on bars.

        

Part 5: Favourite Gymnastics of 2013 ~ Honourable Mentions/Miscellaneous

Alright so this is the last part of my series. Even though this is a honourable mentions/miscellaneous post these are still some of my favourite moments. Some of these choices came from anon comments in my comment sections. Without those comments I would have forgotten about these gymnasts or would have never knew about those routines.

In no particular order:

Yusuke Tanaka's Kolman + Rybalko (F+D) 0.1CV.

Jossimar Calvo Moreno PB dismount & HB routine. He was also submitting the dbl dbl  dismount off the end of pbars. I actually didn't notice that until someone mentioned it in the comment section.

Kristian Thomas VT, Nguyen Ha Thanh VT, Fabian Hambuchen HB, Kohei Kameyama PH I liked his reaction when he found out he was first, Lin Chaopan PB really good routine, Zhang Hongtao PH, Matvei Petrov PH, Aleksandr Balandin SR, Liu Yang SR, Pham Phuoc Hung PB, Scott Morgan FX,  

Sam Mikulak seems like a cool guy. He was one of those guys that could challenge Uchimura. Unfortunately he messed up HB AA. He was so close to finishing 2nd.

Ryohei Kato wining 2nd AA. He was my pick to win after Uchimura. I'm really glad he came in 2nd.

 
WAG FX - Mai Murakami, Giulia Steingruber, Larisa Iordache, Jessica Lopez, Sandra Izbasa.

Anna Rodionova was a gymnast that I liked this year. I'm glad Russia decided to send her to Antwerp. I think that was a wise move because she really showcased what Russia is all about, elegance. Some may say her long lines helps illustrates the illusion that she is elegant but it's also her hard work at the ballet barre that makes her elegance aesthetically pleasing to watch. It looks natural unlike some gymnasts who are mimicking. Some gymnasts may have the long lines but they are stiff and they are not fooling me into thinking they are elegant/artistic.

Aliya Mustafina world's BB gold. She finally wins a gold medal at worlds.

Andreea Munteanu BB, she has some of the best leaps in the world. 

UB - Kyla Ross, Rebecca Downie, Shang Chunsong I bet she will improve, Tan Jiaxin I don't like this video angle though. Aliya Mustafina I can't wait to see her full upgraded routine. I feel this is not her fully upgraded routine. Should be interesting to see what she comes up with this quad.

Well this concludes my favourite gymnastics of 2013. These were some of the things that I could remember liking. What were your favourites of the year?

Part 4: Favourite Gymnastics of 2013 ~ WAG

I don't care what anyone thinks but I think Afanasyeva's Universiade floor exercise AA and Amanar vault was my favourite thing of the year. I could criticize her faults but what's the point? As you can see this blog is kind of an Afan appreciation blog so she would be tops as my favourite :P. I like her AA FX because she almost hits everything.
Afan doing the Amanar was another big deal because who would of thought a female gymnast at her age would be able to do it for the first time? Clearly she worked her ass off to be all kinds of amazing at the Universiade Games. She even upgraded her 2nd vault. I also enjoyed that her tumbles has gotten better. Her DLO and dbl pike have improved immensely. Her European floor gold routine is another favourite of mine. IMO Afan did make the year exciting with her rumoured Amanar. It's often dubbed the Afanar :D.

Another girl that made the year exciting would be Simone Biles. I grew to like her. She ruled this year and she also had some of the best training clips. Seriously if she ever competes the stuff that she showed in training the gymternet would explode. I hope she can at least compete something from her training clips in real competition. I forgot to mention her 2 ff + full in (B+B+G) 0.1SB in my favourite combo section. That is a difficult combo to do. Definitely a favourite combo.

(Source: gymnasticsgifs)

Huang Huidan's UB world's gold. Her bar routine was a long time favourite of mine. She was actually a nice surprise win. She wasn't on most people's radar. She's badass for not wearing grips or even the gauge tapes.

Yao Jinnan's UB routines. Even without the Mo salto (G) I still enjoy her routine here. The Mo salto was also one of those rumoured upgrades that not many believed, including me. But she did it and it was exciting to see.

Sophie Scheder's UB. It's not a flashy bar routine but it's a really beautiful and elegant routine.

Anna Dementyeva's Universiade beam. Dementyeva is a great beam worker. So sad she retired. I wanted her to win beam gold at Universiade. Her team/prelim beam was good. So much difficult work. I liked her onodi + front aerial + Sheep (D+D+D) 0.3CV. It's one of my fav connections. I should have included it into my fav combos but I feel I liker her whole routine so she deserves to be here. She also dismounted to a new dbl pike which was a better choice than her usual sketchy 3/1 twists. McKayla Maroney for defending her vault title. I liked her floor routine too. I wish she could have made floor finals but she was penalized for being overtime. I like her new DLO (F). I like how she and Afan round ups into their 5/2 twists instead of doing bhs.

Larisa Iordache's beam. She does two full in's! She was my pick for beam gold in Antwerp but too bad she couldn't pull it off.

Victoria Moor's FX from American Cup. Even without the Moors II (2/1 DLO) her floor routine is still good. I think she has one of the best Silivas (H) in the world. What were some of your favourite routines from this year?

Catching Up On Competitions That I've Missed Mexico Open/Stuttgart Cup

So there were two main competitions this weekend. Thanks to all the uploaders on youtube I am finally caught up. Admittedly I haven't seen all the videos and I thought the Stuttgart Cup was next week. I guess I've been too busy to keep track of what is going on and oh technically this cup is the DTB but I'm use to saying Stuttgart. The Mexico Open happened this weekend too.

It seems everyone is fanning over Aliya Mustafina's "new" beam routine? Um there was nothing really that worth getting overly excited about. All she did was two front aerials + split jump. Sometimes I don't understand why people get overly excited for things like this. In prelims she forgot to do a bwd element thank god she did it in the team finals. Losing a bwd element is five tenths CR deduction. I don't know what she scored in prelims but hopefully it wasn't a controversy like how Afan never got deducted for no fwd element on floor at the French Cup.

Elizabeth Price won the AA. The thing that impressed me was her Amanar. Everything else, meh. It was a close competition between Price and Iordache. Iordache fell off bars the gap difference between Price and Iordache was 0.034.

Oleg Verniaiev won the AA and he doesn't have the very exciting HB release skills but his Tak turns are well done. I wish more guys could do them clean like Oleg. Jossimar Calvo won the MAG AA at the Mexico Open. I haven't seen videos of him from this competition but I like his HB routine where he does the Tak 1/2 + Liukin. Someone should make a gif of that.

Roxana Popa won the AA on the WAG side. I like the DLO and especially the two whips indirect to full in tucked.

And one more thing. Yao Jinnan got a 9.0 execution on bars in Stuttgart prelims. I get that not many people like the shuffling on bars and it bothers me too but damn her pirouettes are nicely done. Believe it or not she can do better. The 9.0 execution is justified.  

Just Because...FF + Arabian/Tuck 1/1 Combo

The ff + Arabian beam connection is one of my favourite connections on beam. I think the first gymnast to do this combo was Lobaznyuk? It's a super difficult connection. Currently Anna Rodionova does that combination. Skinner does it too but it's not done well. I also like the ff + tuck 1/1. The Romanians favours the ff + tuck 1/1. I wish more gymnasts would do these cool combinations. Both combinations are worth B+F 0.2CV.

 (Source: gymnasticsgifs)

 (Source: gymnasticsgifs)

(Source: thehappyonefrombeijing)

Worlds 2013 WAG Floor Results

Full Results

1) Simone Biles USA (6.5) 15.000

I like her routine for the difficulty. Her DLO 1/2 out is impressive, now named the Biles :) Her opening pass dbl dbl tuck had huge bounce back and ending dismount had hop back. This was not her best floor routine but considering how much she performed this week I would say it's still an impressive routine. 6.5 very high difficulty.

2) Vanessa Ferrari ITA (6.2) 14.633

She had hop fwd on her dbl dbl tuck but everything else looked good enough. She finally gets a medal on floor. She is really good at sticking her tumbles.

3) Larisa Iordache ROU (6.1) 14.600

I never thought I would say this but I enjoyed this routine the most. She has improved on her artistry. I think the music was awesome for her. My favourite part of her choreography was when she dances and then goes low to the floor for choreo. Also her ending pose reminds me of Afan's Kill Bill ending pose :) very similar.

Other highlights - Mai Murakami did good I like her stuck DLO. I was hoping Sandra Izbasa could hit her routine and maybe beat Biles, which was possible. Sadly she had a very wonky stag jump after her 3/1 twists and she went all out by adding 1/1 twist to her dismount combo but fell :( I'm still not sure what the status is with Izbasa. Will she retire or not? I hope not but if she does she has achieved a lot in this sport and she can leave with happy memories. She always looks positive after her mistakes, she still smiled and I like seeing that.

This final had 4 girls doing the dbl dbl tuck! Steingruber did 1/1 DLO. The difficulty of this final was high.

WAG 2013 Worlds AA Results - Simone Biles USA Wins

AA Award Ceremony

  FULL RESULTS 

1. Simone Biles USA 60.216

Highlight for me would be her vault and floor. Her beam could be better. She got through bars and had the second highest E- score 8.600. Overall she did a very good job, well done.

2. Kyla Ross USA 59.332

She was my favourite today. Low difficulty but very good execution. It's proof that this strategy can work. It's sad because I could see Anastasia Grishina having this kind of strategy, come on Russia are you paying attention? It's sad the Russians insists Grishina do higher difficulty. Ross had the highest E-scores of the competition with the exception of FX (Biles was higher) VT9.566  UB8.700  BB8.633  FX8.633. She won the Longines elegance prize too :) Oh and Kohei won it again. Would have been better if someone else won it besides Kohei, maybe his teammate Kato should have won it.

3. Aliya Mustafina RUS 58.856

The Americans were too strong for Mustafina to challenge them but she put up a good fight. Her DTY is good but could be better. She brought back her full 6.7 bar routine. On floor she did good. She did two whips indirect to Arabian + stag, cool. I'm happy she got to medal.

Other highlights-

The Chinese failed on beam. Yao and Shang both fell off beam. Yao did the Mo Salto though!

Larisa Iordache started off good but then on her best event she fell off beam. She is my pick for BB EF gold. She came back on floor with a nice routine.

Larisa Iordache BB 2013 Worlds Prelims

Very nice routine 6.4 + 8.866 = 15.266

Larisa Iordache's Van Leeuwen Upgrade on Bars 2013 ROU Nationals

(Edit: I'm just realizing now that this wasn't the first time she did this upgrade right?) She upgraded to a Van Leeuwen (toe-on shap 1/2). I made this abbreviation up VLW :-D. The skill is worth 5 tenths. It looks nice. Her bar D-score is decent for an AA. If I'm correct this routine is out of 5.9 difficulty.

There are tons of 2013 Romanian National routines at this youtube account mojochrys.

 (Source: thehappyonefrombeijing)

2013 FIG Anadia World Cup Nominative List

This FIG world cup event will take place in Anadia, Portugal on 21-23 of June. I believe it is only an event finals competition, no AA. The top countries like China, Romania and Russia are sending good gymnasts to this meet. The MAG list is great as well.

Nominative List

China is sending Shang Chunsong and Zeng Siqi. Shang will compete on UB, BB & FX. Zeng on BB & FX.

Romania is sending Larisa Iordache and Diana Bulimar. They will compete on all apparatuses.

Russia is sending the popular Anastasia Grishina (UB, BB, FX) along with new seniors, Ekaterina Baturina (BB, FX) and Alla Sosnitskaya (VT). 2nd year senior Anna Rodionova will be competing too.  It's interesting to note that Rodionova's best event is beam but she is planned to do VT and UB. Alla Sosnitskaya is good on floor exercise with potential. She apparently will only compete on vault.

Check out Alla Sosnitskaya's floor. It's a long video so I won't embed but I marked the link at 17:17 time.

Check out Anna Rodionova's beam from 2012. It's pretty impressive. She does flic flac to Arabian!

The 2013 European AA MAG/WAG Winners

Max Whitlock 2nd, David Belyavskiy 1st, Oleg Verniaiev 3rd

Larisa Iordache 2nd, Aliya Mustafina 1st, Anastasia Grishina 3rd

Some Favourites For WAG European 2013

Okay this will be a post for some of my favourites to win or medal. I just quickly wrote this so it's not a well thought out post. First I'm just going to start talking about Ksenia Afanasyeva, after all my blog is named after her Olympic number. She has made this competition exciting. Let's all admit it we all thought it was crazy when we heard reports of Afanasyeva training the Amanar vault. At her age and knowing her vaulting ability it was just crazy to hear that she could do an Amanar. She does says that she can only do it to pit surface and doesn't know if she will compete it. Later reports on the gymternet reports that during podium training she in fact did do the Amanar, even if some of the attempts weren't successful, it is 100% true that she is training this vault. Reports also says she warmed up 7/2 twists, that's 3-1/2 twists in case you're wondering. Apparently she will do AA. I think she can have a shot at AA but her best shot is floor gold. I'm not sure why she is even trying to do AA or an Amanar but good for her! She is my favourite gymnast so it's exciting to hear all these news.

I love love her spin combination. 

 (Source: starkofwinterfell)

She is taking risks on spins while other gymnasts are taking risks on leaps. Her main competition will be the Romanian gymnasts. I don't particularly like their style but they are very very good on floor. Here is Afanasyeva's winning 2013 French Cup floor. She has posted the highest FIG world Cup score on floor for this year, 14.633.

(Source: starkofwinterfell)

Larisa Iordache VS Aliya Mustafina 2013 European AA

This is a cool edit done by tumblr user mustafinaencounter. It suggests that the all-around final will be a showdown between Romania's Larisa Iordache and Russia's Aliya Mustafina. I won't do an analysis but may the best gymnast win. There are other gymnasts who can threat for gold like Anastasia Grishina. Grishina could surprise.

 

Iordache & Zeng 2013 Doha Cup Balance Beam

Larisa Iordache's beam is full of difficulty. Everyone is raving about the two full twist saltos in her routine but I love her dismount, round off + bhs + 3/1 twists :D. She will be a major contender on beam for European and Worlds. I like her beam but she is a bit scrappy with her toes but I generally like her routine more than dislike. I understand that every style is different. Romanians like to move quick on beam and it works for them. I just prefer more slow fluent artistry than scrappy fast paced movements.

D-score 6.7 + 8.8 E-score = 15.5 1st. When I calculate her beam I get 6.8. I'm thinking she lost the front aerial + wolf jump connection but it looked connected enough.

FF + Tuck 1/1 (F) 0.2CV
RO + Layout 1/1 (G) 0.2CV
Switch leap (C)
Switch leap 1/2 (D)
Front Aerial + Wolf + Split Jump (D) 0.1CV
Y-Spin (C)
Side-Somi (D)
RO + BHS + 3/1 Twists (F) 0.1SB

3.7 + 0.5CV + 0.1SB = 4.3 + 2.5CR = 6.8 D-score

Another favourite BB routine I liked was Zeng Siqi. I like the switch ring leap + sheep jump combination. I'm always impress with the Chinese dance element connections. Zeng placed 2nd D-6.6 + E-8.55 = 15.150

FF + FF + Layout + sissone (E) 0.1SB 0.2CV
Switch Ring + Sheep Jump (E+D) 0.2CV
Front Tuck (D)
Front Aerial + Split Jump (D) 0.1CV
Aerial Cartwheel (D)
Switch leap + tuck (C) 0.1CV
Full Turn
RO + dbl Pike (E)

3.4 + 0.6CV + 0.1SB = 4.1 + 2.5CR = 6.6 D-score