Myself and “piibunina” from Estonia are two conspicuous foreigners at the Henderson Cup 2011 National Gymnastics Championships in Hong Kong. (details and links)
WAG prelims are completed. MAG goes today.
piibunina has been sleeping little, staying up late editing and posting routines to YouTube.
Click PLAY or watch Deng Linlin on Bars on YouTube.
See more videos.
The Tokyo Worlds team (aside from Wu Liufang) and some others from the top group were excused from this competition. Actually, the meet seems very low stress as it’s not qualifying for any major meets.
Everyone is happy to have Nationals in Hong Kong, especially for shopping. 🙂
Here are some general impressions of the Senior competitors.
• Firstly, it’s an honour to be here. China is clearly the top gymnastics nation, MAG and WAG combined, in the world.
• Chinese girls show better form and body position than any other nation, including Russia. Twisting is generally very clean. Feet are together on round-off and backward handspring. Impressive attention to detail.
• very few girls used simple jumps out of tumbling. It seems China feels that trend will end soon. Most girls were trying to land tumbling lines like men.
• strongest apparatus = Bars, especially amazing el-grip and el-grip Endo combinations. Jaegers are strong. All other release moves, including Tkachev, not strong nor consistent.
• dismounts and low to high Bar transfers are weak elements, for the majority of girls. I cannot understand why.
• almost every competitor used Pak rather than overshoot. Almost every competitor had significant deductions getting out of Pak.
• about half the Seniors wear grips
• There was much excellent Beam work, as expected. But more falls that I expected. In China gymnasts and coaches show very little emotion during the meet. There are no tears nor fist pumps.
• Vault is the weakest apparatus, as you might expect. There were more Tsuk pikes than DTYs. Many use Handspring front vaults. There was one Tsuk double twist.
• One thing I’ve always admired about Chinese coaches is that when the skill is not ready … they replace it with a simple skill. One tiny girl competed only Handspring, quite proudly. Coach and gymnast both smiling.
• Floor was good but not great. Most girls in this competition had only just enough power to barely complete double pike or double tuck. (The Floor is not springy.)
There were no double layouts. Only two 1/1-ins … that I can recall. In China the strategy is to use twisting elements.
• China in WAG would definitely benefit from reducing the importance of difficulty, rewarding more execution.
There were very few girls in the gym who you could call “power” gymnasts. If the Code continues in the direction we’re going, the talent I.D. system in China needs look for girls with better leg strength. Likely that will result in less flexible kids in future.
They need more gymnasts like Cheng Fei.
Initially I was surprised to see some gymnasts competing who were past the peak of their careers. And some conspicuously weak gymnasts, as well. It was explained to me that each Province is dependent on government funding, based on results. Many girls are asked to continue to support their gym and region.
Congratulations to all the girls and coaches who competed Hong Kong. You put on a good show.
I’ll try to get my hands on printed results and get the names translated.
(via Couch Gymnast … who managed to post a link to these videos before I did.)
Gymnastics Coaching.com 