Sanne Weavers withdrew; Yang Yilin withdrew due to a back injury. She's had that injury for a while, I think. Too bad Weavers withdrew from the BB finals. NastiaFan101 mentioned her excellent turn (I completely forgot about that) and she could have gotten it named after her (completely forgot that you could have skills named after you at WCFs).
BB:
1. Lauren Mitchell (!) 15.250
2. Yulia Lozhechko 15.200
3. Li Shanshan 15.150
Very close final! Cheng Fei had a very wobbly set, ultimately falling on her sheep jump (it took me awhile to find out what she fell on; the feed I was watching kept screwing up). Izbasa was very close to bronze, but knocked out by Lozhechko and Li. Dariya Zgoba had a decent set, but dismounted with a RO-LO. Must be that injured foot, but still, it's kind of odd to do a level 7 dismount at a World Cup Final.
The feed I'm watching is a Brazilian one and a Portuguese gym fan said that the commentator was rather biased in the fact that throughout the rotation, he was saying, "Next up is Hypolito, just wait to watch her fight for gold and don't forget that Diego won!" (Diego won FX, IIRC). Of course, Daniele fell on her mount, effectively removing her chances for gold...
And then the feed cuts out right to a lottery right after Daniele finishes her routine...
FX:
1. Cheng 15.375
2. Jiang 15.225
3. Izbasa 15.000
Suzanne Harmes, what horrible luck. She hurt her ankle on her FHS and on the video, you see her ankle snap. Ugh. Koko Tsurumi was doing so well right up to her dismount, where she fell on her double pike. I really think Zamo has given everything that was left in her to this sport. She seems so empty now.
Izbasa fell short on her triple and that really cost her. Cheng rocked her set. I think she has atoned for Beijing now. I think the biggest surprise of the rotation was Jiang's Gomez. When was the last time we saw that skill, aside from Gomez herself? I dunno if she was actually credited for that, though.
All in all, a very satisfying final World Cup final for the women. I would have liked to have seen Yang Yilin, since she's my favorite of the Chinese, underage or no. Can't have it all.
A couple of surprises:
VT:
1. Cheng Fei (not a surprise) 15.050
2. Ariella Käeslin 14.912
3. Aagje Vanwalleghem 14.425
Zamo splatted her vaults, unfortunately. Elsa Garcia was so close to bronze, but knocked out by Aagje.
Uneven Bars had an East Asian sweep:
1. He Kexin 16.250
2. Jiang Yuyuan 15.7
3. Tsurumi Koko (yush!) 15.250
Interestingly, He nearly peeled off the low bar like she did in Beijing. She saved it, but her B scores were rather funny. The Australian judge gave her a 7.5 while the Chilean judge gave her a 9.0.
Yang Yilin scratched. No reason has been given yet. Likely injury.
Nastia has been pursuing some modeling work, and with good reason. The above photo is stunning. She's poised to become a more commercially successful gymnast than Mary Lou (I know that many of us are
However, this is what happens when young people don't experience the '80s for themselves.
BTW: has anybody been able to find Nastia Flakes? The grocery stores here have only been selling Wheaties with Kevin Garrett on the box.
And now for something completely different: Triple Full reports that the World Cup final will be streamed live online. Let's hope that they will not be cruel to us Mac users. Don't be hatin' because our computers rule.
Recently announced:
Pan American Gymnastics Union Individual Event Championships, Rosario, Argentina, Nov. 19-23
Rebecca Bross of Plano, Texas/WOGA
Olivia Courtney of Orlando, Fla./Orlando Metro
Corrie Lothrop of Danvers, Mass./Hill’s Gymnastics
Samantha Shapiro of Los Angles,CA/All Olympia
I'm loving that team right there, especially Lothrop and Shapiro. Likely Bross will be competing all but vault, Lothrop bars and FX (and I'm hoping she's developing a second vault because she could be the vault specialist of the next quad), and Shapiro bars and beam. I'm not too familiar with Courtney's gymnastics to make any guesstimations on what she'll be competing.
International Artistic Gymnastics Challenge, Woluwe Saint-Lambert, Belgium, Dec. 13
Amanda Jetter of Milford, Ohio/Cincinnati Gymnastics Academy
Olivia Courtney of Orlando, Fla./Orlando Metro
Corrie Lothrop of Danvers, Mass./Hill’s Gymnastics
Funny how that Lothrop gets Olympic alternate before we really see her get any other assignments. I don't recall seeing her elsewhere as junior. Good on her either way. Obviously she and Courtney are showing something that Marta is liking to get these two assignments.
Jetter is a junior that will be going senior next year, so this may be good preparation for her. Her gym-mate Cassie Whitcomb was originally slated to go, but isn't now for reasons unknown to me.
Also Notable:
Ivana Hong (who has gone to the media about her complaints with her coach) was off the National Team roster for a short while, but is now back on there under "Independent." Still no definite word as to where she will end up for her 2012 bid. Chow's and WOGA are the loudest rumors, though. I still say AOGC is the best choice.
How many gymnasts (past and present) can you fathom doing this, so many years after an injury-forced retirement? With such a look on their face throughout?
Or participate in a rather original dance routine to music from the best movie EVER Amelie?
According to Dutchfan on The All-Around Forum, the Dutch federation is forcing the closure of all but two gyms in the Netherlands, and these two particular gyms are known for having weaker gymnasts. This forces gymnasts two choices, go to these substandard gyms or retire. If I read things correctly, the members of the 2008 European Junior bronze-winning team will likely retire. Sanne Weavers is coached by her parents and will no longer be allowed to do so (gymnasts can't bring their personal coaches). Yuri van Gelder, known for his brilliant rings work, is no longer being allowed to concentrate mostly on rings.
The main reason behind this seems to be that the Dutch Olympic Committee has decided, for some reason, to stop funding and that's where the gyms get their money from. Athletes and coaches are searching for new sponsors to keep the gyms open.
What I don't understand is why the two weaker gyms are being allowed to stay open and everybody else is being shut down? A little counter-productive, if you ask me.
Nastia did a phone interview with local DJ Eliot Segal for the show Eliot in the Morning. Hah, I love that show, but I'm never awake when it's on (it's at an unholy hour that I refuse to be up for if I don't need to be).
It's a pretty standard interview: he asks about how it's like being an Olympic champion, her upcoming Gossip Girl guest appearance, the infamous Alicia Sacramone punching a dude video, being in China and the ages of the Chinese girls, etc. Nastia also sounds like she still has some after-effects of that cold or flu she had previously.
Despite committing an error almost DPRK-esque in magnitude, China will get to keep their team gold. What does this mean for Chinese gymnastics and gymnastics in general?
1.) China will continue falsifying ages. It's naive to think otherwise. They're just going to be much more careful about it. Are they going to risk another He Kexin and fake the documents of another little prodigy and attempt to erase all articles referring to her as being age-ineligible for the Games mere months before the Olympics? Well, I don't know. That was a huge risk to take. Not only did it pay off for them, but they got away with it. If nothing else, they're no longer going to put important documents on the Internet anymore.
2.) China will now be put under a microscope. While I'm going to say that any articles about rising stars that end up on the Internet will not have any references to age, people will be keeping caches of any and all articles. Speculation will continually follow them.
3.) The FIG and IOC, long regarded as incompetent, have lost pretty much all credibility. This whole "investigation" was just a dog-and-pony show to put up the pretense that they're doing something and that they do not condone the cheating. They had the same evidence before the Olympics as they did when they started this whole thing. They just hoped that, like all news stories, it would soon fade away for the next big thing. Unfortunately for them, the only way that would have happened is if any team, not necessarily the USA, but any team had won over China. But China won and when a team that most people believe is cheating wins, those people want something done about it. What I wonder is what this will do to Grandi's bid to raise the age limit. When they refuse to enforce the age limit in place now, it's stupid and unfair to impose a higher limit.
Knowing that this decision will be unpopular, the FIG and IOC brought in Yang Yun and Dong Fangxiao from the 2000 Sydney Games. Yang famously said she was just 14 in a documentary aired on state-run television and Dong showed up as a worker at the 2008 Games with papers that suggested she would have been ineligible for Sydney, not to mention that her own blog also supported that. I highly doubt it's still up on her blog, though.
However, the statute of limitations for medal revocation is almost up. And what would be the point now? Some have suggested that China is barred from the 2010 Worlds (being barred from London 2009 isn't much of a punishment because the National Games are also around that time and China never sends their A-listers to the Worlds vs. the National Games). Given the rules in gymnastics, not only would China miss a major competition, but they wouldn't get to qualify for the Olympics. Since the top 24 teams in 2010 get to go onto 2011 and those 12 teams qualify a full team to the Olympics (that is, if I have that right).
But you want my prediction on the absolute outcome of everything? Nothing. Absolutely nothing will happen.
The sister made this. I think the American MAG team made a gym fan out of her.
I am so delighted by Nastia taking gold and the Americans going 1-2! And you know what was just as good? The medal winners all went 4 for 4 in their routines, the competition wasn't a huge splatfest and was a true competition instead of a process of eliminations like we've seen so many times in the lead up to this very day.
I have never seen Nastia perform so well. Her vault was as perfect as a 1.5Y could be. I do think it was scored a little low. I think it was because 1.) it was a 1.5Y and 2.) Yang Yilin had gone before her with a DTY and they didn't want to score a 1.5Y equal to or higher than a DTY. A friend pointed out to me that had this been 1996, Nastia's vault would have been a 9.8, easy. Probably, but that's another decade, another CoP, and an entirely different scoring system. But her vault was damn good.
Her UB wasn't as good as it was on previous nights, namely the landing, but was I nervous throughout that entire routine. I figured that the skills that she had issues with would be fine, but she would fall on her Gienger or something like that. Thankfully, she didn't.
Nastia's FX was her best ever. Crazy cowboy on her double front as usual, but she'll be no Ivana Hong on that skill, so she's got it as best as she can get it. She nearly gave away an OOB tenth, but saved herself (seriously, what has been with the Americans and the OOB line?).
Papa Liukin nearly had me going. I have never seen him so emotional. It must be crazy to see your little girl achieve something her dream and be right there next to her when she does. Their father-daughter moment was so adorable. All their tense moments, arguments in Russian, all that, for this.
Shawn, I want to give her a hug. I've never been her biggest fan and made no secret of it, but one tends to show their true colors when missing out on something huge as an Olympic gold (like that Swedish wrestler's temper tantrum) and she has been so gracious and sweet in the face of her own disappointment. I can't blame her. She's spent the past year hearing everybody say that she's got the gold, it's hers 100%, yes siree Bob, she's got the gold (especially after it came out that she had an Amanar). People in her town building creepy statues of her out of butter and bronze. Walking into local and national chain grocery stores and seeing herself as a life-size cardboard cutout and seeing herself on local and national products like Coca-Cola and Hyvee-brand ice cream sandwiches. She's 16. She probably bought into her own hype a little bit and probably did not expect to not only lose the gold, but by such a large margin (.6).
My hypothesis is that because Shawn was being so well gifted at domestic meets and hit a purple patch when she became senior (most of her direct competition was either out with injury or just coming back from injury) that they were well content to keep things as they were and and kind of lapse on the things that needed working on, namely her leaps and jumps, instead choosing to upgrade and hope that high A-scores would offset her flaws. Many armchair judges said that she would get slammed on those very things come Beijing. She did and it cost her dearly. I didn't think that the margin would be so wide between her and Nastia, but there you go. Plus, Shawn got very lucky in regards to her vault because given how long the judges pondered over that and even had Nellie Kim over there, I seriously thought they were going to downgrade that vault.
Either way, Shawn has a lot to be proud of. She's well-accomplished for a gymnast who only became an elite in 2005. Qualified elite in 2005, triple World Champion in 2007, double silver Olympic medalist (so far) in 2008. I'm not sneezing at that.
