Longines Prize for Elegance

I’m (so far) going to vote for Sui Lu (China) and David Belyavskiy (Russia).

Watch her Floor (VIDEO) from Team Finals.

Click PLAY or watch David Belyavskiy’s Floor on Gymnastike.

http://www.gymnastike.org/embed/OTc2NTA5Nzg2?related=1

It’s not easy being elegant in men’s gymnastics in 2011.

Longines Prize for Elegance is actually selected by a “special Jury”, not journalists or general media. But it’s nice to be able to nominate your own choice.

Leave a comment if you have favourites.

Komova – Olympic Champion?

When Viktoria Komova made errors in the Team competition, I immediately pictured her as Olympic Champion.

She’s trained lousy, in the recent Russian tradition, yet looked excellent in preliminary competition. That’s frustrating for coaches.

Click PLAY or watch her mistakes on Beam & Floor on YouTube.

I’m hoping these errors motivate her to prepare more methodically for London. She needs decide to win — then avoid injury. Vika’s likely still growing, too, so time is needed to adjust to longer body proportions.

Her principal competitors in London, I think, will be American (Wieber, etc.) and from her own team, hopefully Moustafina. She’s one of 4-5 favourites to win it all.

Beth Tweddle – Bars

The “hardest” routine in the world got the top score in Team Finals. Great to see.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. (15.666)

Sadly she didn’t make the apparatus final so this is the last time we’ll see it until Olympics.

McKayla Maroney – Vault

McKayla took the world’s best ever Amanar even higher, if that’s possible, in the Team final.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

SV: 6.50, Execution: 9.533, Score: 16.033

Vault execution judges are more inclined than any other apparatus to throw a score. If all apparatus did this, the Code would work MUCH better than it does now.

Women’s Team Final – YouTube

Universal is not available worldwide. Many nations and locations do not get it televised.  

Click PLAY or watch it in Chinese on YouTube starting here.

Find the following segments on the chinesegym1’s YouTube channel.

Or, in Spanish, here.

If you want to see just individual routines, check the links via Full Twist.

Women’s Team Final wrap-up

• Andy Thornton – U.S. exceeds expectations, wins team gold at Gymnastics Worlds

• Bullit Marquez – Young Americans up to task, taking gold medal at world gymnastics championships

Routines from the meet are already starting to reach YouTube.

1. USA 179.411
2. RUS 175.329
3. CHN 172.820

Justice was done. USA was the best prepared and most consistent. I’m happy they won.

… “This is a very young team and I knew they were well prepared physically, but we were not sure how they would hold up under the pressure of three-up, three-count,” said Martha Karolyi …

USAG

• Jordyn Wieber interview (VIDEO)
• John Cheng photos

Alicia Sacramone wins her 10th Worlds medal, putting her ahead of Shannon Miller and Nastia Liukin. Congrats.

Somebody update her Wikipedia page.

Russia, China & Romania all had BIG mistakes.

In fact, every team had at least 2 falls (I believe) aside from Great Britain and the Americans who basically hit 12/12.

To be fair, Romania did not literally all off the Bars as Laura pointed out in the comments. But they “missed” two routines of three, costing them a Team medal.

Often it was the big stars who missed: Komova, Mitchell, Tan Sixin, …

4. ROU 172.412
5. GBR 169.670
6. GER 168.479
7. JPN 167.122
8. AUS 166.739

The Olympic host nation was best of the rest:

Great Britain’s women achieved their best-ever result as they finished an impressive fifth in the World Gymnastics team final in Tokyo.

… don’t forget me for London 2012,” the 26-year-old told BBC Sport. …

Ollie Williams – BBC

GBR hit 12 for 12. Beth had the highest Bar score – 15.666.

USA, RUS, CHN

Final:
1. USA 179.411
2. RUS 175.329
3. CHN 172.820

4. ROU 172.412
5. GBR 169.670
6. GER 168.479
7. JPN 167.122
8. AUS 166.739

CONGRATS to the USA and everyone involved in the National Team program. You deserved this win.

Smart, disciplined and determined preparation.

USA was the only team without at least two falls, I believe.

Anna Li on the podium. She’s a World Champion!

Komova – Beam training

The day before team finals.

Click PLAY or watch it on Gymnastike.

http://www.gymnastike.org/embed/MTU1NTA5OTc4?related=1

Watch more video of World Gymnastics Championships Tokyo 2011 on gymnastike.org

Vault – Nabieva v Raisman

With the women’s Team competition about to start, let’s all watch closely the execution deductions for each routine. Since it’s televised, it will be easy to go back and compare the numbers.

Under the current Code of points, gymnasts with good execution suffer as compared with those with bad execution.

For example,

Nabieva DTY E=8.716
Raisman DTY E=8.866

Difference = 00.15

Now compare those two Yurchenkos. How different are they?

Click PLAY or watch Nabieva on YouTube.

Click PLAY or watch Raisman on YouTube.

… more than 00.15.

Thanks Ashlyn for this comparison.