Detailed, excellent post by Lisa Wang just went up on International Gymnast:
The Chinese National Championships, which also served as one stop of the Olympic team trials, concluded Sunday in Tianjin.
When asked to recap the weeklong competition and where the Chinese women currently stand as a team, Head Coach Lu Shanzhen reiterated that “the [Olympic] team gold is of course of the utmost priority.” Comparing the Chinese and U.S. teams, Coach Lu noted that “the U.S. National Championships have not taken place yet, so we are not certain what secret weapons or new upgrades the U.S. team will unveil. However, from the information gathered so far, in a 6-3-3 team scenario, the Chinese team can now match or even outscore the U.S. on vault, on bars we can outscore the U.S., and on floor exercise if we hit our routines the way we’ve hit them today we’ll be on par with the U.S. team for a good fight.”
Coach Lu’s optimism is wisely tamed with caution though, as he emphasizes that “while we’ve made significant technical upgrades across the board, competition results are not determined on technical ability alone. We have a relatively young squad, so stress management under high-pressure continues to be an area we work on and improve upon.” …
read the rest of this article on IG
… there’s the rub. Can China hit 12 for 12 in the Olympic Team Final?
I’m still thinking the team with the highest start score will win preliminaries. The team toughest psychologically will win Finals. That will be the USA.
Some of the top contenders for the Chinese Olympic Team:
2008 Chinese National Championships
May 10-11, Tianjin
Women’s Vault
1. Cheng Fei 15.812 (Double-twisting Yurchenko, 15.50/Cheng 16.125)
2. Deng Shaojie 15.45
3. Deng Linlin 14.90
Uneven Bars
1. He Kexin 17.325 (7.7 A)
2. Yang Yilin 16.725 (7.7 A)
3. Pang Panpan 16.475
4. Jiang Yuyuan 16.40
Balance Beam
1. Sui Lu 16.575 (7.0 A)
2. Guo Wei 16.500 (6.9 A)
3. Zhang Nan 16.300 (6.8 A)
4. Cheng Fei 16.175 (6.8 A)
5. Li Shanshan 16.125
6. Cui Jie 16.050
Women’s Floor Exercise
1t. Sui Lu 16.200 (6.4 A)
1t. Cheng Fei 16.200 (6.5 A)
3. Yang Yilin 15.675 (6.2 A)
4. Cui Jie 15.500
5. He Ning 15.625
6t. Guo Wei 15.500
6t. Jiang Yuyuan 15.500
8. Xiao Sha 15.450
IMHO, the Chinese girls on Floor are not nearly “on par” with the USA. Here’s co-winner Sui Lu in Finals. Her score of 16.2 out of 16.4 for this routine is clearly absurd.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
I don’t particularly like Cheng Fei’s Floor routine (video) either.
more videos from the meet on YouTube posted by fanbutterfly
UPDATE:
Routine-by-routine analysis is bringing to light more questions about the validity of these scores. For example:
BEAM – Gold: Sui Lu (7.0 A-score, two wobbles and a sizable step on the dismount. A 16.575?! These Chinese judges put even the Scam Cup judges to shame when it comes to the outrageous over scoring of home gymnasts.)
Note: The “Scam Cup” is what brutally accurate bloggers call the American Cup, famous for too high judging scores.
Ooo. … I dunno. This is a GREAT BEAM ROUTINE with a few errors.
Click PLAY or watch Sui Lu win Beam Finals on YouTube.
polish101 does concede that Sui Lu will be on the Olympic Team.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 