Recently, a wonderful, creative, and talented member of the gymnastics community has passed away. I have no idea what to say when others have already said it better (except 21 is way too young to die), so I'm going to let my favorite montage by him speak for itself:
Rest in peace.
So apparently China held an internal test event recently. News to you? To me, too. Wenshuli from one of the gym boards graciously provided information. The girls were divided into two teams: blue/white & red/yellow.
Jiang Yuyuan (my favorite of the Chinese; she's so cute!) does indeed have an Amanar (15.7). But her overall AA score wasn't where it needs to be if she's going to contend for an AA medal.
Cheng Fei won FX and VT, of course. Was there any doubt?
He Kexin broke 17 on UB.
Li Shanshan has a 7.3 BB A score, but was wobbly. The Olympic BB gold would be hers to lose, but she's so inconsistent. Not to mention that her inconsistency could lose her spot on the O-Team.
Deng Linlin (also adorable) won the AA with a DTY and a 7.0 BB A score.
Xiao Sha also had a 7.0 on BB and won the event.
Sui Lu (?) has a 6.4 on FX and 7.1 on BB. I have no idea who she is.
Yang Yilin's foot is still injured, so she only competed UB. Did well, placing second.
Pang Panpan was 4th AA. She has a FTY, but a 7.1 UB A score.
Not much about Zhou Zhuoru. Zhang Nan is fit, but without much difficulty (this does not bode well for my hopes). Same could be said about He Ning.
Pictures:
http://sports.qq.com/a/20080423/000664.htm
http://sports.qq.com/a/20080423/000652.htm
It's looking more and more like it'll be China's gold to lose.
One of these ladies will not be on the podium. This is a final I am so looking forward to.
*Note: I tried to find the latest videos of each girl, not necessarily the best. Obviously, Liukin, Semenova, and Tweddle are the top three in the world, having medaled at World Championships, and He is certainly showing herself to be a force to be reckoned with.*
Aren't you all lucky? When it's days or even weeks between posts, it's only been a couple of hours! I'm feeling posty today.
- Super consistent. What else can one call a gymnast who is called at the 11th hour to compete AA in TFs at her first World Championships and nails each routine? And wasn't even an alternate in the first place, more like the alternate to the alternate? Even after puberty and into the next quad, she's kept her consistency. So you know she'll hit when it counts in high pressure situations. Not even the It Girls and locks for the O-Team can boast such a thing (except for Alicia Sacramone, also a rock, though it took a few years and NCAA for her to reach rock status).
- Is rather self-sacrificing. She injures her shoulder in the UB rotation in Aarhus and instead of saving herself and preventing further injury, she continues to compete and rips up her shoulder something fierce, taking her out of commission for a year and a half. So she sees the bigger picture and while probably somewhat masochistic, would probably be willing to make the sacrifice again for the team.
- Tenacious and determined. At an impasse after being picked as an alternate for the 2004 O-Team, despite being a double World Champion the year prior, she decided to continue on and go for 2008. And many gymnasts would have seen the shoulder injury as a career-ending one.
- Is favored by the international judges. Her scores speak for themselves, despite her form issues. I would love for her gymnastics to be all Ivana Hong-Samantha Shapiro pretty-like (in fact, wasn't she supposed to spend at week training with Shapiro's coach?), but it's not going to happen.
I dunno. I think I'd want her on my team, assuming her SVs are where they need to be. And she's a sentimental favorite. After the hell she's gone through trying to make a spot for herself on the Olympic team, I'd be a little heartbroken to see her left off again.
And Amanda on the Difficulty Plus Execution blog brought up a good point: only in America will we leave not one, but two double World Champions off the O-Team. In other countries, that's like an automatic seat reservation to major competitions. Then again, that was done in favor of a failed gamble on a virtually untested gymnast and a one-event gymnast. *shrugs*
- World/Olympic rhythmic gymnast Alina Kabayeva is reportedly marrying outgoing Russian President Vladimir Putin. Um...yeah.
- NBC aired the Pacific Rim Championships:
- Dasha got a fluff!
- Elfi tried to imitate Dasha's accent. No, Elfi. Just...no.
- Britt Greeley of Australia shows promise, but the house music FX needs to go and the UB set needs some cleaning.
- Many of the Canadians were shown, including my favorite junior, Peng Peng Lee (her UB routine was shown and they replayed her gut-busting Bhardwaj several times in slo-mo)
- Samantha Shapiro won over many fans and looked like an overjoyed wriggling puppy. She was so cute!
- Rebecca Bross, the PRC AA champ, was shown only once on UB. Rebecca Clark wasn't shown at all.
- Darlene Hill got plenty of airtime, but was accompanied by the Head Trauma Trio's constant schmaltzy commentary about how her grandmother (and guardian) had passed away the month prior. Condolences to Darlene, fist shaking to Al, Elfi, and Tim. Was it really necessary to mention her mother's drug addiction?
- None of the Japanese gymnasts were shown, much to my chagrin. Not even Erika Lynn Danko and one would figure NBC would love to comment on a half-American half-Japanese gymnast.
- Nastia got a bit too much of a pass by the commentators on her FX. I like her and all, but FX isn't her event and you know if another gymnast performed like Nastia on FX, they'd be downright nasty.
- Not shown in the NBC broadcast, but Myzdrikova of Russia did a rarely-seen combo of triple twist-back tuck.
- The 2008 European Championships in Clermont-Ferrand, France came and went:
- Romania is a drama-llama, what with Stelliana Nistor doing AA in qualifications (there was no AA competition) and Romania winning the team title, Russia taking silver and France the bronze.
- Sandra Izbasa unveiled one of her best FX routines (and I did find out her music!) and won the FX title.
- Anna Pavlova showed the world that she is back with probably one of the most artistic FX routines in this quad (including a double layout!) and showed an Amanar vault (of which she flopped, but she has time to fix it up and make it pretty).
- Isabelle Severino had to say goodbye in one of the worst ways possible: torn Achilles' tendon.
- Beth Tweddle did indeed compete and unveiled an impressive new skill on the uneven bars. And she got braces!
- Vanessa Ferrari came, competed, and left...with nary a medal to her name. Everybody wonders what this could mean for her Beijing AA medal prospects. Her FX music makes me want to stick something sharp in my ears.
- Cottbus came and went:
- He Kexin (CHN) got an impressive 16.85 on UB. The UB EFs in Beijing will be the EFs to watch, what with Tweddle, He, Liukin, and Semoynova all gunning for the top spots and one of them will be left off. It'll be exciting and I for one, cannot wait, even if I know fuck all about UB.
- Chusovitina won vault.
- Marta did not send any of the USA girls. Not even any of the bubble girls like Hong or Sloan (who had to miss out on her chance with the Italy meet due to tweaking her knee).
- Izbasa won FX again.
- Daiane Dos Santos competed a very watered down FX and ended up last.
- Sanne Wevers (NED) did a double turn with leg at horizontal on BB flawlessly when most can barely do a single turn without a wobble or fall (see: Li Shanshan 2007 Worlds BB EFs).
- Jade Barbosa only performed a DTY and LO Pod on VT, not her Amanar and Cheng. Took 2nd, though.
- Yang Yilin supposedly broke her foot colliding with another gymnast. There really is not much other information out there about her injury.
- A US Olympic Media Summit was recently held. GettyImages has portraits of the athletes. Ivana Hong looks seriously buff. Since her foot was injured for so long, maybe the Fongs worked heavily on arm conditioning? *crosses fingers and hopes her bars have vastly improved*
- Speaking of Ivana Hong, her mother has told the New York Times about her escape from Vietnam.
I think that's it, word-wise. How about some videos?
What in the @#$%& is Sandra Izbasa's floor music called?
Oh, yeah. It's a good routine and she ended up winning FX EFs with it (15.775!).
But seriously, make with the title of the music.
Sorry, I would do a more comprehensive post, but too many days in a row at work + a nasty back injury = me being tired and lazy:
- Darlene Hill kicks a little butt, wins FX, and begins making her case to Marta et. al for Beijing.
- Erica Lynn Danko, a half-Japanese half-American from Japan wins silver on vault, beaten by Rebecca Bross. Bross and Danko were the only junior vault finalists to do DTYs.
- Speaking of Bross, she proves that she's a tough little cookie. After taking a nasty spill on her head on the UB and opting to not to continue, she comes back big time to win on floor and tie for gold on BB.
- Danko's teammate, Shizuka Tozawa, ties for silver on FX.
- Samantha Shapiro didn't have as good a night as she did for TF. While she did win gold on UB (kind of helped by Bross' 6.025), she stumbled on the other events. Here's to hoping her consistency is remedied in the next quad.
- Peng Peng Lee landed her Bhardwaj in UB finals and won silver and surprisingly did not qualify to BB finals.
- Nastia Liukin messed up on UB in finals, including falling on her Geinger and takes silver behind teammate Jana Beiger. Liukin does come back to win gold on BB, but doesn't medal on FX. Who really expected her to, anyway?
- Jana Beiger finally starts her comeback trail and takes home gold on UB and bronze on BB. Her feet and toes still haven't figured out the pointed position yet.
- Some generous scoring, especially for Liukin's FX, but who is surprised by that?
Yeah, I think I got it all. I know I promised videos, but the videos aren't the best (and many are completely unlabeled, so I don't know who's performing), plus some of the really good performances ones aren't even up yet.
I'll start on the Euros soon. Finally have a few days off coming up.
