CoP - Tip of The Month

Lately on floor I've been noticing many gymnasts quickly doing an extra dance jump out of another turning leap. This new trend really helps the gymnast to get her difficult leaps credited.

The November 2014 code update states: "When there is a jump/hop, or leap with turn directly connected to another element from the COP and in the first element the turn is not completed exactly (but the gymnast is able to continue into the next element), the first element will NOT be devalued or recognized as another DV from the COP."

An Example would be split leap with 3/2 (1.5) turn + split jump 1/2. Basically if the split leap 3/2 was not fully rotated but the gymnast was able to directly link it to another jump/hop or leap then the split leap 3/2 will be recognized as D element.

Video Example:

Ksenia Afanasyeva - split leap 3/2 + split jump 1/2 split leap 3/2 is credited

MyKayla Skinner - switch leap 1/1 + sissone switch leap 1/1 is credited

*My personal opinion is that I dislike this new rule. A lot of leaps has become so unrecognizable and unattractive. But difficulty is the name of the game.

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.     

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.    

Part 2: Favourite Gymnastics of 2013 ~ New Skills

Kenzo Shirai

The Shirai/Kim By Kezno Shirai & Kim Hee Hoon aka the triple twisting Yurchenko: Worth 6.0 in the MAG code. All I can say is that this vault is super duper hard. I honestly thought we would never see it this year but here it is done by Korea's Kim Hee Hoon.

The Shirai I & II: Bwd 4/1 Twists (F) & Fwd 3/1 Twists (F). Kenzo the twisting machine!

Yang Hak Seon doing the 5/2 Kas vault. Doing  a 2/1 Kas is already insane but Yang is badass and is trying to get the 5/2 name after him. I hope next year he will be more successful. Really, he is amazing.

Simone Biles

The Shang by Shang Chunsong: Cleap hip Piked Tkatchev (F). This is a cool skill. I can't believe this skill hasn't been named after someone from before. I don't know if Shang was the first to ever do this skill in WAG but she definitely deserved this skill name. I'm happy she got it named after her.

The Biles by Simone Biles: DLO with 1/2 turn (G). This skill is nice because at times the 1/2 turn catches me by surprise and it's super difficult to spot the landing. She's brave for doing it.

The Moors II by Victoria Moors: She broke the code! It's worth "I", "I"! This skill is even hard for guys to do. I can't snub out Skinner who actually does it well. She was the first one who got everyone talking about the 2/1 DLO.

What were your favourite new skills from this year?

Thoughts on 2013 U.S. Classics

The thing that I was most impressed from the Americans was their difficulty. I think they didn't try to peak or tried to hit all of their routines. I could be wrong though. A lot of them had some problems with their routines but it's not a major issue because this is not an event for them to be at their all time best.

Simone Biles did a cool DLO with a 1/2 twist out. I wonder what the FIG would rate it. Simone should just do DLO 1/1 because she can probably do that skill easily and it's a H. I think she's doing the DLO with 1/2 twist out just to get it named after her if she makes the USA team and successfully competes it in Antwerp. IMO the DLO 1/2 twist out should stay an F. IMO it's easier than the Dos Santos II (Arabian DLO), which is a G. Since FIG has "H" skills IMHO the Dos Santos II should have been rated H too, especially if the DLO 1/2 becomes G. Speaking of the Dos Santos II, Kennedy Baker does it. Edit: Kennedy pikes the Arabian skill. At first it looked laid out.

Kyla Ross won this meet and I was most impressed by her bar routine and her stuck DTY in podium training. I can tell she is working really hard to up her difficulty. I liked that she worked hard on her Van Leeuwen (toe-shap 1/2). She used to have leg sep but now she doesn't and it looks nice.

Maroney is still great on vault. That's not a surprise. I think her new floor routine is okay. I like the DLO but it went out of bounds. I think the middle section of her floor routine music (around 0:41 sec) is funny because it's something my parents would listen to. You know that weird old music tune, it's like an old folk love song. Actually a lot of her other previous floor music has that old feeling music. It's funny in a good way.

Other things that stood out were the difficulty the Americans were doing on floor. Some of the gymnasts were doing two H skills in their routines. I thought Lexie Priessman had interesting music compared to her old music choices. Mykayla Skinner does the DLO 2/1 twists and what's crazy is that she does the dbl dbl tucked as her third pass. One thing that the Americans did a lot was the tucked stand spins on floor and beam, yuck. Also they love to do leaps + tuck/pike backs connections on beam. It gets too boring and Simone Biles rarely gets those skills connected. IMO she should take those out of her routine. She does it once at this competition but earlier in the competition season she was doing more of them and not getting them connected.