EHH – FX – Didn’t upgrade the mount, so she won’t have enough difficulty, but this is excellent. Beautiful hit routine. Can we give this to her? Performance-wise it was no contest, and that should count in EFs. She goes ahead of Hunter. Could we really see a win here? I’d love that.
Ding – FX – Good first pass with a straddle + punch, drills double pike middle pass, lovely landings on everything in this routine. Best she’s done? Probably. She goes ahead of EHH, which is not appropriate, but this day is all about Kat Ding, and it’s hard to argue with that. Kat Ding NCAA FX Champion?
Neither routine was up to the standards of the greatest routines of the past. I can live with this result.
The French and Romanian WAG teams went head to head this weekend. The Romanians led the meet with a team score of 175.200, over France’s 165.550.
Romanians claimed the top two spots in the all-around too. Larisa Iordache somewhat unsurprisingly won the all around meet with a 60.150. Reports have it that the little ball of energy pulled out a double double on floor. …
… Tammy Biggs breaks down the round-off and gives several drills to make your round-off great. She covers the side cartwheel, the one arm cartwheel, cartwheel with ¼ turn in and out, the short and long round-offs, and how to connect back tumbling to it. …
Personally, I like the leg straight on hurdle for beginners, thinking it helps kids lunge late. As she says, it’s not the end of the world if they do lift the knee — it works for some gymnasts.
That clip’s from Tammy’s Developing Great Round-offs DVD available from GymSmarts.
Ponor — a triple gold medalist at the 2004 Olympic Games — won both women’s titles Friday.
On balance beam, she wobbled on her opening switch ring leap but hit the rest of her tricky set (round off, two-foot layout; double turn; Onodi, ff back pike; front aerial, ff layout; switch leap Kochetkova) before sticking her double pike dismount (6.5 Difficulty score).
The 24-year-old Romanian upgraded her floor routine from qualification, tumbling a double layout, two whips to tucked full-in, an untidy triple full and a double pike. …
Giulia Holzer was there, posting for Couch Gymnast:
… This competition let us know how deep the American field is and how will be difficult for Russia to overtake them. I liked a lot the dualism between the powerful and solid work from Raisman and co and the elegant, artistic but not so solid work from Russia. …
… On floor I think I saw the highest double double ever from Elizabeth Price. It was sky-high and the audience just went crazy about it! Her double layout was huge too. …
