Ksenia Afanasyeva Retirement

I haven't been blogging here for awhile so I'm a bit rusty. According to Russian media the Rodionenko's has said Afanasyeva retired due to health issues. To my knowledge Afanasyeva has not said anything about her retirement yet. I wish she would say something or the media would at least have a quote from her. But for sure she will not be in Rio 2016.

Afanasyeva has been a huge part of the reason why I am a gymnastics fan. Without Afanasyeva not competing I will still find joy in watching gymnastics. I have so many reasons why I adore Afanasyeva but I don't know where to begin and explain. Sometimes you don't have to explain so much. I just know that I had a lot of fun watching Afanasyeva compete. She is definitely my favourite gymnast. And I am glad that I have gotten to know this gymnast existence. I wouldn't know what I would have been doing all these years if I have never known about Afanasyeva. But I have no regrets that I have became a huge fan of hers. I wish her all the best.

One of my favourite moment was when she debuted her Amanar at age 21! I never thought it would be possible. It was definitely one of my favourite highlight of this quad too. In a lot of ways she kept gymnastics pretty entertaining and exciting when she did this.

She's mostly known for floor and beam but she was truly an All-Around gymnast. She doesn't get much credit for her bar routines but she was pretty good on this event. I still always remember her as the first Russian gymnast to do the Van Leeuwen or toe shap 1/2 on bars. In many ways her bar routine composition started all the craze for the standard Russian bar routines we see today.

And now for the floor routine that is widely known and respected for being the best floor routine of the 2012 quad. It's not so much about the tumbling. It's about the artistry and style. There's not much to explain but many fans from this quad will understand why this floor routine was named the best floor routine of 2012. She had lots of history and so did that quad. When I saw her perform this routine for the first time I knew I would love it forever. So badass with the Kill Bill sirens. So badass.

Thank you Ksenia Afanasyeva.

Kohei Uchimura: In his own words

Wanted to share this from FIG:

55th NHK Results & Videos

Uchimura easily won this competition. He scored here 93.35! The first score is from 70th All Japan combined with NHK. Tanaka did beat Kato here but with the combined total Kato won in 2nd. Uchimura and Kato are officially locks for the Olympics. The full team will be announced at the 70th event final competition in June.

Full results here

1) Kohei Uchimura - 91.3 + 93.35 = 184.65
2) Ryohei Kato - 89.4 + 90.7 = 180.1
3) Yusuke Tanaka - 89.050 + 90.95 = 180.0

Here are some videos that most likely won't be deleted (click here).

And here is the youtube upload by labflapper  of Uchimura and Kato:

Just Because...

An inspirational Gabby Douglas video edit. I hope she makes it to Rio 2016.

Max Whitlock Doing Gymnastics in Paul Smith Suit

Cool :)

 

Ultimate Guide to Gymnastics with Kohei Uchimura | Gillette World Sport

Uchimura explaining the 6 MAG apparatuses.

Team Russia - Montpellier 2015 Montage

By: RUSGymnastics

Ksenia Afanasyeva // Frozen Silence Montage

By: SuperGymmie

Yang Hak Seon 2014 National Sports Festival

Here is a clip about Yang at a recent National competition. He competed Kas 2/1 & FHS 5/2.

Kyla Ross Team/AA Routines From Jesolo 2014

I've finally got caught up with Jesolo 2014. My favourite would be Ross. I heard that she was coming back from a back injury? Well I think she did good at this competition. It's still early in the season and she has time to catch up. Even with watered down routines and a 1.0 deduction on vault she still managed to have the top AA score of 58.000. That's pretty impressive. Although I do think her e-scores were a bit high. I just wish she could be a bit less stiff in her gymnastics. Results.

Thoughts On 2014 American Cup

I have to admit I haven't seen the full coverage of this meet. So far I saw most of the clips that USA Gymnastics uploaded to their youtube channel. I tried watching the over 3 hrs feed but I just couldn't do it. It's too long.

WAG/MAG Results

I was pleasantly surprised that Shogo Nonomura did well (and I shouldn't be). He's gotten a bit more difficulty since 2011 and his execution is really good. Too bad about the fall from HB. He would have been closer to Mikulak. It's nice seeing that Mikulak won in his home country. The scores were also close between the 2nd to 5th  finishers. All scores in the 88 range. Orozco didn't do the Lou Yun 1/2, I wonder why? Purvis did good for 3rd place. I liked his floor routine even though he went out of bounds. Too bad about Hambuchen falling on floor and only dismounting with dbl pike. Either than that his HB was exciting, oh and stuck Shewfelt vault. Oh and my prediction of Sasaki finishing high didn't happen but he did okay I guess.

On the WAG side Price won. I think her real competition was only from Dowell. I'm just realizing that Dowell's beam difficulty was low, I've never noticed that. But the Americans are just too good that the other competitors could not really surpass IMO. I know that it was close between Dowell and Steingruber but personally I feel Dowell is a bit better overall than the other international field. It's nice too see that Steingruber got third though. Her front 1.5 half vault really helped her. I think overall I really did like Price's bar routine but I also liked Scheder's routine too. Too bad she stalled for a bit on her inbar 1/2 to Jaeger combo.

I think I like Moors floor but I will have to say I like her old routines better and it's cool she did the full in tuck on beam :).

I actually liked Ferrari's floor routine. She had the highest floor score. I'm not the biggest Ferrari fan but she really is a good floor worker.

The Lou Yun

After seeing John Orozco's Lou Yun 1/2 it got me remembering the badassery of Makoto Okiguchi's Lou Yun + Punch front 1-3/4. Awesome combo. Too bad that combo is not allowed anymore.

(Source: Frangymnasticsfan)

Here is the originator of this unique skill.

 Here is Orozco's Lou Yun 1/2. I wouldn't be surprised if they kept it at E. Personally I'm not a complete fan of the way Orozco does it but it's pretty badass.

Year of the Pommel Horse :D

Well not really but in the Chinese New Year it's the year of the horse and I thought I would share some of my favourite pommel horse routines. Okay admittedly I don't know much about pommels but I just like these routines. I'm trying to learn more about pommels so today I watched a bunch of Olympic and World routines. If there are any cool pommel routines you guys want to share please leave a comment.

Matthias Fahrig Dbl Front + Dbl Front 1/2

Fahrig is training a cool combo of dbl front + dbl front 1/2 (D+D) 0.2CV. Cool.

News Roundup - Komova Making a Comeback & Uchimura Training TTY Again

Yesterday I first saw these news on tumblr. I gotta love tumblr yet sometimes I hate it but I like it more than hate. Okay so Komova is training to make a comeback again. She grew a lot and is looking vibrant and strong. She seems really positive. I hope this will be the year for Komova. She is such a beautiful gymnast. Word on the gymternet is that Mustafina will be taking a break from Round Lake. She will still be training at her home gym but not at Round Lake. Maybe she will miss Europeans? Here is the wonderful uploaders tumblr page lakekrugloye.

On the Japanese front Uchimura is training the TTY again which is named after Kenzo Shirai and Kim Hee Hoon. You can also see snippets of Shirai on pommels and rings. Kameyama, the reigning world gold pommel horse winner can also be seen doing a Kolman on high bar. I got this news from gymfanjapan's tumblr.

Just Because...

Today there is a snowstorm warning and it's supposed to feel like -40 Celsius! So I thought here is Yulia Belokobylskaya 2011 team final floor routine. I like this routine and the music. The music is by Edvin Marton called Ice Symphony. Hopefully there will be no power outages today like the ice storm before Christmas 2013.

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.  

Catalina Ponor @ 2013 Mexico Gala Gimnastica Internacional

There was another gala in Mexico. This one was highlighted by Ponor. Here are some fun videos.

2013 Mexico Gala de Estrellas de las Gimnasias

There was a recent Gala in Mexico with Ksenia Afanasyeva, Sandra Izbasa and others. Sandra Izbasa was the big star of this promotion so I had no idea that Afan was in Mexico. I think many fans didn't know about this recent gala. I only knew about it this week. I'm growing to like Izbasa's floor routine. Here are some videos recorded by NanSz21

 

Kohei Uchimura - All 2013 Worlds AA Routines

It's Monday, dark, cold and raining. So to make things better I'm watching all of Uchimura's AA performances from worlds.