FX Final: Afan, Maggie, Sae, Shang

There was far less controversy regarding judging at Worlds 2015 than at Worlds past. 🙂

One of the biggest issues was the ranking of the top Floor finalists. The GOLD on floor was 2nd place, seeing as Simone was in the Final.

Click PLAY or watch Sae Miyakawa’s routine on YouTube.

Click PLAY or watch Margaret Nichols’s routine on YouTube.

Click PLAY or watch Ksenia Afanasyeva’s routine on YouTube.

Click PLAY or watch Chunsong Shang’s routine on YouTube.

At the time I thought Sae’s crazy difficult tumbling would win her the medal.

full results

Fan Yilin’s birthday present to coach

PQST linked to a heart warming story – Fan Yilin Gives the Best Birthday Present to Her Coach:

During her time at Glasgow World Championships, Fan Yilin shared a room with one of her coaches, Xu Jinglei. …

“I think it’s November 1st in Beijing time? November first is my birthday, and this is the most valuable present Yilin could have given me.

“She performed superbly,” coach Xu continued, “this is her first time participating in the World championships, and the fact that she could get into the finals and experience the process of competing with the best, all the while performing to her full potential—I am extremely proud of her! …

“She knows what her D score is, so of course, she has expectations for herself, she knows how people talk about her online, how people feels that since she’s got the highest difficulty, if she can perform without error, she can reach the top of the podium. To the honest, before the actual competition, I don’t want her to hear those things, because she’s still young, I worry that she would feel more pressured and be unable to cope with it …

read more

fan and coach

And how did Fan Yilin’s Bar routine go? Not well. In the end she had to SHARE her Gold medal. 🙂

Click PLAY or watch her Finals routine on YouTube.

Interestingly, she used a different dismount just a few months ago to win Chinese Nationals.

Click PLAY or watch that routine on YouTube. {6.7 + 0.1 bonus} + 8.4 = 15.2 – 1st

piibunina was there filming that meet, as he so often is. He was in Glasgow, as well. Every coach should be subscribed to his YouTube channel. He has about 7.5 million views, so far. Some really unique stuff including training hall footage from Worlds.

related – Consensus opinion online is that Komova was the best of the 4 Gold medalists. But that there is not much harm done by having no tie break at Worlds. It was fun. Nellie Kim, when asked, said that kind of thing is the decision of the FIG Executive, not the Technical committees.

gymnast Lloyd Morgan, Cayman Islands

I spoke to the coach of Lloyd Morgan from Cayman Islands. She’s 2nd last on the list of AA competitors from the preliminary competition.

Motions Unlimited is her home club in Cayman Islands (pop 58,000). Yet they are competing in Glasgow against China (population 1,376,049,000).

Yes that’s stupid. Yes it’s unfair.

But that’s how the Olympics work. How the World Championships work.

I sent my congratulations to Lloyd. She’s inspiring all the other kids doing gym in the Cayman Islands.

Actually, Lloyd recently moved to Ottawa, Canada for training. No doubt she’ll get back to her home Gym as often as possible.

Scottish Gymnastics improving

tumblr_nwyp7a3Mu91sklz4fo4_250 Daniel Purvis is the only Scot in the Great Britain team at the event in Glasgow this week.
Membership has grown by 13% since last year, with more than 20,000 members at 147 affiliated clubs across Scotland. …

“We’ve got the coaches but they’ve got other jobs because they can’t afford to just coach or the children can’t get out of school during the day – there’s no point in them being there if the children aren’t there.

“We’ve got the facilities but we’re sharing them with pre-school, recreational gymnasts and gymnastic parties, things like that.”

Twelve-year plan to increase World class Scottish gymnasts

I visited Dynamite Gymnastics in Glasgow. The kids are excited for a new facility currently under construction.

In fact, 40 different Scottish Gyms have facility improvement plans in the works.

BBC Gymnastics

Judges seating for H Bar

In Glasgow I heard that judges generally like the new seating. I’m assuming it will become permanent.

One issue is “crooked” catches on turning skills, especially Rybalkos. From the end many competitors are out of vertical line by as much as 45 degrees. It’s not easy to tell from their angle, so far away.

Plus the distraction of Yin when Danell is trying to salute. 🙂

Yin jumping
sparklesandchalk

Shang Chunsong – interview

Post AA-finals.

Mature. Honese. Well considered answers.

http://fiycso.tumblr.com/post/132327529441/shang-chunsong-post-aa-finals-interview-w

https://secure.assets.tumblr.com/post.js

Shang Chunsong is one of the great superstars of Gymnastics in 2015. I expect her to compete DTY in Rio. She’ll definitely be one of the podium contenders.

(via fiycso)

Worlds 2015 – You Guys, I Think We Fixed It

Balance Beam Situation’s hilarious wrap-up of day 2 Finals:

Sadly, the world championship has come and gone for another year, like a fleeting spurt from a stage-mounted flamethrower that you’re convinced is going to singe Max Whitlock in the everywhere. But it was a good one! …

… caffeinated jack-in-the-box named Marian Dragulescu. He catapulted his way back into the gymnastics world—and right to a silver medal—solely on the power of being a beautiful, lovable ham who understands that you can’t spell S-P-O-R-T-S without “I’m 7 and do airplane impressions.” …

read more …

This feels wrong

Bretschneider!

Andreas Bretschneider made the final without his namesake skill. But added it for Horizontal Bar apparatus finals.

Click PLAY or check to see if he caught it on YouTube. 🙂

In 2014 Andreas thought he had done it when – in reality – he had competed two single twisting double backs.

He’s coming back from a ruptured Achilles March 7th, 2015.

So … neither Bretschneider nor Hambüchen has qualified for the Olympics. Germany really needs to qualify a full team at the Olympic Test Meet.