Europeans News

All the WAG teams seem to have made it so we are in for an exciting competition!

The AllAround Gymnastics News had some notes on Junior podium training here

Some of the main points include:

Viktoria Komova: some problems on floor with triple twist and double arabian pass and overrotated her DTY. She looked good on bars though and she was the only Russian not to fall on beam. She performed an excellent routine but did not include the double arabian dismount.

Anastasia Grishina: performed a beautiful floor but with a sat down 2 1/2 at the end and showed a well executed bars routine. she fell on her full twisting tuck back and was hesitant throughout.

Violetta Malikova: She was showing the signs of her injury with a watered down floor and problems on bars. 2 falls on beam including on her layout to 2 feet.

French Juniors - problems on vault, all had good bars, the team as a whole were solid on beam with only one fall and a good amount of difficulty. Floor was not so good with some falls and average difficulty.

Swedish Juniors: One of the improving nations and showed good basics and execution throughout.

British Gymnastics have posted a few photos of Junior Podium Training on their facebook page. There is one of the Romanians and it seems that the team is now Larisa Iordache, Diana Bulimar, Madalina Neagu, Ana Maria Baicu and Beatrice Margarit. No Maria Balea which is a shame hope she is not injured.

the GB Teams have changed the Senior Team is Tweddle, Hibbert, Downie, Rippin and Hunt with Danusia Francis out from a hamstring injury. Junior Team is now Rebecca Tunney, Ruby Harold, Jessica Hogg, Billie Mckenzie and Laura Mitchell. No Venus Romaeo or Lizzie Beddoe both are my favourites, not sure if they are injured or not.

What are the best in Europe doing? - Senior Bars

I decided to do a series of post on the best gymnasts in Europe on each apparatus for Seniors and Juniors in the lead up to this years Europeans in Birmingham.

SENIOR BARS

Below in no particular order are the gymnasts I think have the best chance to make the bars finals and/or medal as well as some outsiders who could sneak in:

Beth Tweddle - D Score 6.80

Youna Dufournet - D Score 6.90

Aliya Mustafina - D Score 6.60 (with potential for more if adding her new dismount)

Tatiana Nabieva - D Score 6.50

Natalia Kononenko - D Score 6.40

Ana Porgras - D Score 6.30

Serena Licchetta - D Score 5.80

Others with a chance:

Laura Svilpaite - D Score 5.80
Becky Downie - D Score 6.10 (if she can hit)
Ksenia Semenova - D Score 5.90 (I would think she needs Nabieva or Mustafina to mess up in order for her to make the final but it is possible)
Ekaterina Kurbatova - D Score 6.00 (probably needs to improve her form a lot to beat the others on her team but she has the D Score needed)
Vanessa Ferrari - D Score 5.80
Pauline Morel - D Score 5.80
Celine Van Gerner - D Score 5.80
Marie-Sophie Hindermann - D Score 5.60
Raluca Haidu - D Score 5.50
Amelia Racea - D Score 5.60?
Aagje Vanwalleghem - D Score 6.10
Elisabeth Seitz - D Score 5.70

Paris World Cup

UPDATE: Lauren Mitchell is out and will be replaced by Georgia Wheeler who compete all 4 events and Jenny Pinches is also out and will be replaced with Niamh Rippin competing vault, beam and floor. Other changes: Halina Ivanets and Elsa Garcia are not competing, Jiang Tong has been added to the Chinese team (vault).

This is the 10 - 11 April and it actually looks like there is going to be some competition! Some of the most notable entries are below:

Lauren Mitchell - Bars, Beam and Floor

Larissa Miller - Bars

Emily Little - Vault, Beam, Floor

Halina Ivanets - All 4 Events

Bruna Leal - All 4 Events

Dominique Pegg - All 4 Events

Brittany Rogers - All 4 Events

Wu Liufang - Bars, Beam

He Kexin - Bars, Floor

Huang Quishuang - Vault, Beam, Floor

Ana Maria Izurieta - Bars, Floor

Youna Dufournet - Vault, Bars, Beam

Marine Brevet - Floor

Pauline Morel - Bars, Beam, Floor

Becky Downie - Bars, Beam

Jenny Pinches - Vault, Beam, Floor

Beth Tweddle - Bars, Floor

Valeriya Maksiuta - Vault, Beam

Elsa Garcia - All 4 Events

Ramilya Musina - Vault, Beam, Floor

Aliya Mustafina - Vault, Bars, Beam, Floor

Adela Sajn - Beam, Floor

Luisa Galuilina - Bars, Beam, Floor

Jessica Lopez - All 4 Events

There are some interesting new Seniors competing:

Wu Liufang who won Beam and Floor at the Doha World Cup last weekend, unfortunately she is not set to compete on floor but she will still be one of the favourites:




Jenny Pinches - She is one the of the new hopes for Team GB and is coached by Amanda Kirby the same coach as Beth Tweddle. I hope she can be competitive at Worlds this year so it will be interesting to see how she does here. She has 2 good vaults as long as she hits, a nicely presented floor routine with some upgraded tumbles and big skills on beam if she puts them in.


Aliya Mustafina- She is replacing Anna Dementyeva who was supposed to compete. She is stogon all 4 events and my favourite of hers is floor:

Emily Little - She is powerful gymnast and has a big chance of making the vault final and perhaps medalling depending on what her 2nd vault is.

Apart from the new senors against the older seniors there will also be some other interesting battles including He Kexin vs Beth Tweddle who are both competing on bars and floor, as well as Larissa Miller who will be looking for medals on bars. Lauren Mitchell, Huang Qiushuang and Youna Dufournet will be fighting with new seniors for medals on beam. And finally the vault competition will have a lot of young talent including Youna Dufournet, Brittany Rogers, Dominique Pegg and Ramilya Musina.

GBR - ROM - GER Friendly

This weekend there us a friendly in the UK and today was the senior competition. They had a 5 day training camp before the competition which was used to prepare for the European Championships. Results of the Team Competition:
1. Romania 221.850
2. Great Britain 221.600
I'm glad to see the British Seniors showing their potential finally and I hope they are this close to the Romanians at Euros this year. Germany only had 3 Seniors competing as Marie-Sophie Hindermann sustained a slight injury during Fridays training. Results of the AA:
1. Diana Chelaru 56.800
2. Ana Porgras 56.050
3. Niamh Rippin 54.650
4. Raluca Haidu 54.300
5. Elisabeth Seitz 54.100
6. Amelia Racea 54.000

Beth earned the highest scores on Bars (15.700) and Floor (15.050).! Her bars was much better than at the English Championships, she hit all of her difficulty, I saw a few short handstands and pirouettes but she ended with a stuckj full in dismount. Her floor was good, she added a split jump after her double pike arabian and her leaps are definetely improved from last year.


Becky Downie competed and seems in better shape than at the english. Don't think she did all around though there are videos o her yurchenko 1 1/2 with nice form and

Jenny Pinches competed her Handspring tuck 1 1/2 on vault that she slipped on at the British Champs last year and it looked good, hopefully we will see it at Europeans. She had trouble on floor with her whip to double arabian pass which she sat down but she successfully landed her 1 1/2 to 3/1.


Ana Porgras looks ok I'm sure she will improve further before the Europeans. She is still performing a yurchenko full but it was very well done with stuck landing. She had trouble on bars where she fell on her jeager and took a big step on her double layout dsmount. On beam she perfored fre walkover+sheep jump, flick+flic+layout 2 feet, a very nice switch ring, free cartwheel, split change+tuck back, full spin in split, side somi and flicks to a double pike dismount (chest low). Overall the routine seemed easy for her and she is definetely heading for more medals on beam this year. Her floor has not been upgraded (full in, 2 1/2+front layout, dbl tuck, dbl pike) and I think lacks a little difficulty (I would like to see a triple twist) but she definetely makes up for it with her artistry!


Amelia Racea - I liked her floor lively music with a nice mix of leaps and tumbles including full in, triple twist, 2 1/2+front tuck and double pike. On beam she had a new intersting combination of free cartwheel+tuck back as well as free walkover+flick+pike back, split change+side somi and double tuck dismount. Definietely a big improvement on form for these 2 pieces.


Diana Chelaru - She looks like her form is bette nd she mus have improved as she won the AA with 56.800. Beam was solid with a tucked full, free walkover+tuck back and dbl tuck dismount. Nothing really exciting though and choreography was average.
Cerasela Patrascu competed afer being injured for 2 years,she looks like shes getting there but she still has a little way to go. Beam was good, she missed a few connections but she did have a nice yang bo and split change+side somi connection.

Raluca Haidu - I love this gymnast and hope she does wel this year. There are not many videos of her from this weekend but on beam she had some cute choreography with improved form and an excellent double pike dismount.
Niamh Rippin best of GB in the all around showed a impressive floor routine including a stuck piked double arabian, 1 1/2 to 3/1, 2 1/2+front layout and double pike. She looked really good and has a better chance than I originally thought of making the Europeans team.

I'mgoing to mention Jocelyn Hunt again, although lacking the difficulty of others her style and form is beautiful and in her floor routine she performed a stuck triple twist and full in with knees locked together just needs to upgrade the other passes.
Nicole Hibbert - She was a completely different gymnast than a coulpe of weeks ago and she has definetely upped her game and was taking it much more seriously. I have never been a fan of her floor but she now has new music and performed this with great first 2 tumbles both a piked and tucked full in. I really enjoyed her performance:

Thanks to youtube user PavLiukin for all the videos.
Sunday is the Junior competition it will be interesting to see how the British Juniors compare to the top Romanians of Larisa Iordache and Diana Bulimar.

English Championships Videos

Some of the routines are now available to watch here on BGtv. After watching all the routines of the senior girls I've got to say I'm not impressed at all. The only gymnast who showed any routines that are going to be competitve at Europeans was Beth who I have already talked about in my earlier post. I know it is still earlier in the season but still accounting for that I was disappointed especially with a lot of the gymnasts attitudes and focus. Becky Downie for example who was obviously not in shape which is fine but she fell on her beam mount which was a straddle press to handstand! Nicole Hibbert performed a good bars routine until her double front dismount where she fell and got up and was smiling and laughing like it didn't matter and I think that sort of thing is why Great Britain is that successful as a whole in gymnastics. Our gymnasts don't want to win enough and are not made to fight for their position on the National Team like they are in the US because of our lack of depth which has caused GB gymnasts to be lazy annd have bad attitudes.

Anyway moving on! The only other gymnast (apart from Beth) who I think has potential to be competitive at Worlds and Europeans if she hits is Jenny Pinches. Unfortunately this weekend she wasn't at her best but overall I think Amanda Kirby has done a good job with her. On floor she has upgraded and performed a whip connected to a double arabian and also had a full in as her 3rd pass and I know she is capable of more difficulty. She had also upgraded beam to add 2 flicks into a straight back which she had trouble with but she still scored 13.500 with a fall. What I liked most was her presentation and attitude and I wish her success at the Europeans.

Another few things to take note of were Danusia's beam routine which had nice presentation but just not the difficulty. Niamh Rippin seemed well prepared and had nice form throughout but again lacks difficulty and the same comment also to Jocelyn Hunt who has a lovely style.

Beth Tweddle & English Championships

On Saturday she competed at the English championships on Bars and Floor. Bars (14.850) was going well until her shaposhnikova 1/2 which she left out, I just hope Bars doesn't start becoming a problem for her and she can leave her problems at Worlds behind her. Floor (14. was actually better than last year, she downgraded her last pass but she probab;y not completely fit yet. She also added a split jump after a tucked double arabian pass and the leaps as a whole were better. Still don't like the choreo though and please change that end position!


The All Around competition this weekend was dominated by new Seniors who will be hoping to compete at the Europeans in Birmingham this year and I think all 3 have a good chance:
1st Danusia Francis 54.250
2nd Jenny Pinches 53.500
3rd Nicole Hibbert 52.950
Looking at the actual scores apart from Danusia 14250 on beam, Jenny 14.00 on Vault and Nicole 14.150 on Vault, the rest of the scores were in the 13s and I really think they need to do better to be competitive at European and World level. Lets hope there are upgrades before then. Becky Downie and Rebecca Wing did not compete all around but from their scores they are not in competition shape.
There are no other videos yet but I will post when they appear (should be on BGtv).

The New Code

Last night I watched the Beijing Olympics Team Final again and although the new code that was used last year is not perfect I actually noticed the differences from 20089 especially the beam and floor routines. I forgot how packed they were for the Olympics with so much difficulty and no dance at all! So although I don't like parts of the code we are using now I've decided perhaps it is better than I originally thought on Beam especially. I prefer the beam routines from 2009 over 2008 with the just the 8 skills and a minimum of 3 dance elements as there is time in theory for some dance and artistry work! So we won't end up with routines like the one below:

I actually like Stela but the poor gorl didn't have time to breathe in that routine, let alone for artistry.
Floor is another piece that I think has benefited from the 8 skills only rule as last year in the Olympic Team Final you couldn't get a high score without a minimum of 4 tumbling passes and in most cases a 5th side pass! Kramarenko's floor below for example was beautiful with what I think are difficult tumbling passes could only score 15.025 for 5th place! I actually preferred her routine to watch over Izbasa and Johnson. Another similar routine is Anna Pavlova's floor routine in the All Around Final where she performed a near perfect routine for just a 15.050 which was not high for last year and I don't care about her difficulty that routine was underscored. I feel like Anna was always underscored her whole career the judges just seem to appreciate her artistry.

So at least again with 4 tumbling passes being the maximum now and artistry being given some value I hope that the judges start to take more points off for lack of artistry in some way and we can maybe start to see more artisitc routines again. However the rule of landing on two feet out of tumbles and no dance step out has to go, we do not want our women's floor routines to look like the mens, so please FIG take that rule away. I mean I love Beth Tweddle because I'm from the UK but her floor routine is awful and her dance although has got better, is embarassing for me to watch!