Some notes/reflections :
– Missing is Anna Dementyeva, out with tonsillitis. Poor thing is always sick. Get her some vitamins and a happy meal, pronto. Anastasia Sidorova is also out. I was told she’s awaiting knee surgery. I probably read that on some third world message board, and can’t back up my sources, but she’s not competing for some reason, right? The last time she was injured was because she fell off her bicycle, so I suppose anything is possible. That’s 2 A-listers down.
– Aliya Mustafina was only supposed to compete a couple of events, but true to form showed up on all 4. She vaulted a DTY, and is clearly making progress. Her beam routine and her selection (and order) of skills is really odd to me. A front aerial + back tuck as her flight series? Really? It’s also odd not to see her doing a helicopter-legged twisting dismount. I’m sure this is a work in progress. Besides the dismount, she certainly didn’t give much away in the context of the routine.
(WARNING : This feed was extremely choppy, so excuse the video quality) :
She’s still clearly not in top form, but winning the All-Around at your National Championships a mere year after tearing your ACL is nothing to scoff at. She’s moving in the right direction.
– Grishina missed her new toe-on Shap 1/2 transition on bars. Actually, she wasn’t even close.
Her second fall of the day came on beam, where she would have scored a 15 +.
She never misses the double turn. Ever. It’s infuriating. Svetlana Khorkina was commentating, and sounded none too pleased with her. Her all-around tally (57.699) is still pretty impressive for 2 unnecessary falls, but she should have won the all-around outright.
Interesting that she had the highest score of the day on her “weakest event” (floor). Gone is her pesky double arabian in favor of a 2 1/2 + 1/1. She should twist as much as possible, her form is lovely.
She really is fabulous. Fabulous, but a headcase. A fabulous headcase.
– Speaking of headcases, it seems as though Ksenia Afanasyeva has passed her crown to her younger teammate. She had a great day. Her bars were the best I’ve seen her do in several years, yet her coach felt the need to spot her, thus losing valuable points. She also loses value of the skill, so down in the 13’s we go.
Her beam routine was the best I’ve seen her do in a long while.
Removing the arabian and replacing it with the free-roundoff is a wise decision, and her start value isn’t embarrassingly low without it if she could manage to connect everything. Which is asking a lot from her, we realize. Typically, homegirl has trouble connecting 2 b-level leaps. But we’ll give her an A-for-effort on the Onodi + side somi combo. It’s very close. That double pike dismount seems to be the demon-seed of her beam set. But I’d rather see it over-rotated than under-rotated.
She seems to be jumping on the leaping-out-of-passes-bandwagon just in time for London. Not in an obnoxious Lauren Mitchell way, but she’s trying to incorporate a stag leap out of her last 2 passes (again, LOL at the feed).
Khorkina made sure to praise Ksenia for not gaining weight. “She doesn’t have time for that.” What a shallow skank. We love her.
– Yulia Inshina is better on bars than I remember her. Her beam is still a snoozefest, but at least she hit for the most part.
– This is the second domestic meet in a row where Kristina Goryunova scored really well on beam (14.933). This is Russia’s most unstable event, so that makes things kind of interesting. Is she ever going to make another major team? No, but it’s still interesting. What’s also interesting is that she’s still competing after the whole doping ban incident. Either she really loves gymnastics, or she has no shame.
– Speaking of never making another major team, Pavlova continues to compete. She did a couple of nice vaults, a lovely (albeit wobbly) beam set, and continues to dismount bars with my old Level 6 compulsory flyaway.
– Finally, I have to bring up the rumor about Nabieva possibly retiring. I read this a week ago on a message board, but dismissed it as gossip not reliable enough to even mention. But then Khorkina brought it up during the broadcast, and Nabieva ended up not even competing. We’ll see if she actually retires, but I can honestly say that it wouldn’t surprise me in the least.
She seems more suited these days to drinking with the hockey team, feathering her bangs, and shoving $$$ down a strippers g-string than being bothered to do gymnastics. Which is fine by me. It’s how I usually spend my Saturday nights.
On the other hand, who can we count on to produce the next flying rabies of an Amanar?
Top 10 results below, and a report from IG here.
1. Mustafina – 15.167, 15.233, 14.8, 14.333 = 59.533
2. Afanasyeva – 15.1, 13.677, 14.887, 14.733 = 58.387
3. Grishina – 14.833, 13.8, 14.233, 14.833 = 57.699
4. Inshina – 13.3, 14.367, 14.4, 14.267 = 56.334
5. Pavlova – 14.8, 13.133, 14.367, 13.367 = 55.667
6. Goryunova – 13.6, 14.1, 14.933, 12.667 = 55.3
7. Stepanova – 12.45, 13.8, 14.325, 14.05 = 54.625
8. Rodionova – 13.633, 14.267, 14.267, 12.267 = 54.434
9. Belokobylskaya – 13.467, 12.1, 14.567, 14.0 = 54.134
10. Chibiskova – 14.0, 11.8, 13.633, 13.533 = 52.966 = 52.966
-Bronwyn
March 23rd, 2012 at 3:34 am
No doubt those jingoistic fuckwits at NBC will find some way to assassinate her character, Missy.
C
March 22nd, 2012 at 10:42 pm
Aliya contininues to look fab today!! She hit her UB routine but beam was kinda wobbly, I’m sad if she doesn’t bring back her standing Arabian 😦 Her DTY looks back for good too, oh and Afan hit again 4/4 😀
I can just imagine the Aliya fluff come London :p
March 23rd, 2012 at 4:51 pm
I definitely think she’ll bring back the arabian. The front aerial + back tuck combo was interesting. Front aerial + arabian, possibly?
-B
March 26th, 2012 at 12:06 pm
Training squad for London has been announced :
Aliya Mustafina
Anna Dementyeva
Anastasiya Grishina
Viktoria Komova
Yulia Belokobyliskaya
Maria Paseka
Anastasiya Sidorova
Ksenia Afanasyeva
Yulia Inshina
Tatiana Nabieva
July 11th, 2012 at 4:16 pm
omggg.. I didn’t even begin to Imagine.. the epic Aliya Fluff!
London is guna be so badass!
March 22nd, 2012 at 10:08 am
I bet you anything Aliya’s training a Patterson dismount rather than the triple twist. If she’s still pushing for the Amanar (and of course she is) and hasn’t given up many of her twisting elements on floor, it makes sense that her coaches might still want to lower the twisting numbers somewhere.
March 22nd, 2012 at 1:16 pm
That’s a very strong possibility, Julia. If she were still going for twisting dismounts, she probably would have dismounted with a 2 1/2 here.
March 22nd, 2012 at 3:34 pm
I’ve always liked her double arabian on floor, so I’d be psyched to see her unveil one on beam, as the triple was always, as you said, a bit of a helicopter mess. I also agree that her beam was a bit of a snooze in the individual comp, but the execution was pretty excellent and it was a hit. Frankly, regardless of the composition of the routine, she’ll want as many hit routines under her belt as possible prior to the Olympics, so I’m counting this one as a win.
March 22nd, 2012 at 9:59 am
LOL seeing as Khorky starved herself in 04 Athens I can see her totally making that comment 😀
March 22nd, 2012 at 8:34 am
I literally laughed out loud when you called Khorkina a shallow skank and when you said that Nabs would be better suited to drink with a hockey team. LOL. Anyway, I’m impressed with Musty so far. I think maybe the front aerial + back tuck is in place of what may soon be a front aerial + arabian? Not sure though, that sounds like a pretty ambitious flight series goal.
March 22nd, 2012 at 1:18 pm
If that’s her goal as a flight series, she needs to have a back up (Onodi + side aerial, Onodi + side somi) somewhere in the routine in case she doesn’t hit it. All the time off of the big tricks seems to have paid off elsewhere though. I used to really dislike her switch 1/2, but it looked good here, choppy feed and all. But 2 leap passes? Again, I’ll assume it’s just a work in progress. Her beam is pretty blah right now.
-B
March 22nd, 2012 at 5:04 am
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