Mia Lazarewicz was at the meet in France. A few comments:
1) The Russian juniors were every bit as incredible as people are saying. Far, far, far more exciting to watch than the Russian seniors (Pavlova included, though I adore her). They deserved to win the junior title by the 10 points they won by – no other team was even close on any event.
2) Hungary has a junior girl named Renata Toth with great potential on every event, but she shone on floor especially, with a front handspring double front that was extremely reminiscent of Podkopayeva’s height and control. I can’t find any videos of her (my camera ran out of batteries – sigh), but I could see her making her mark on the sport in years to come.
3) Italy’s juniors were incredibly impressive, which I was delighted to see. And one girl, I unfortunately forgot to write her name down (UPDATE – Paola Galante) was a testament to the fact that a gymnastics audience still loves to watch the dance portion of floor. This girl clearly used to study rhythmic gymnastics, and she did a 2 and a half Memmel turn, absolutely stellar, with her leg in a complete 180 split. It was so beautiful, the crowd gasped and applauded more than for any other trick I saw all weekend (except for Tweddle’s new bar release – more on that later).
4) Romania’s juniors are in trouble, from what I saw – consistency was a major problem, and it was only on beam that we saw a semblance of the great Romanians past. Every other event, I was hardly interested enough to follow them…they need a coach who can follow in Belu’s footsteps – no easy task.
5) Due to an incredibly inconvenient bout of food poisoning, I was unable to attend the senior team finals on Saturday. I watched on TV, but it was terrible coverage and I was in a haze and can’t properly comment on the competition. I do know that the Russian seniors have some big holes, and that it was not surprising to see Romania take gold.
6) Event finals were outstanding. Chusovitina deserved to win vault, even with her fall. Her handspring 3/2 was beautiful. And I saw Difficulty plus Execution said she was miserable, but I can confirm that she was jumping up and down and hugging everyone when her score came up. I’m sure she was mad about falling, but she was psyched about gold. And she was all smiles during the awards ceremony. The two Italians who finished second and third were also impressive vaulters – I am excited to see the dawning of this new, hopefully great Italian program. I’d love to see another country start challenging for medals. Additionally, Pavlova threw her Amanar, and wasn’t even close – not in warmups or competition. Both times, she just barely got her feet to the floor before falling. She’s got a lot of work to do if she hopes to compete that in Beijing.
7) Bars. First of all, let me start by saying that Beth Tweddle was absolutely robbed on bars, and just goes to show again why this new code isn’t working: they encourage ridiculous series of tricks with ridiculous difficulty, and then slay the gymnast for any errors in the process. It’s a lose-lose game. Her routine was packed with interesting skills (her only rival was Semenova), and the new Tkatchev with a half is BRILLIANT. She nailed it in team finals, though she was a little off in event finals. She connects it into a straddle hand, and in event finals she lost control of the straddle hand and had to quickly pirouette to save herself. With no other major deductions, her execution scores were in the mid 8’s, which is absurd. She finished in 4th place. However, I believe she was still pleased for 2 reasons: 1) the gasp and cheer that accompanied the Tweddle – it really was breathtaking. 2) the massive boo that erupted when her score came up (15.475). The place went crazy. As for the others, Semenova’s routine was gorgeous, of course, Nistor’s was surprisingly clean, and Zgoba was a surprise for third (but deserving). …
Here’s Beth’s astounding bar routine, including the Tweddle. Brilliant!
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
8) Beam. Semenova’s routine was nearly flawless and should have broken a 16.0. More than one judge took more than 1 point of deductions, when the only visible errors were a slight balance check in her handspring 3/4 to handstand and a small step on her dismount. But none of the other competitors held a candle to her precision, poise, and deliberate placement of skills. She’s quite phenomenal to watch. Izbasa’s routine, for second place, was lovely, with an exceptional triple twist dismount. Kozich’s routine was clean but unremarkable. And I must add here that Vanessa Ferrari, although disappointing all weekend (she, too, has a lot of work to do for Beijing), has a truly original, beautiful beam mount.
9) Floor. I had big problems with the judging on floor. It was consistently low (although it was consistent, at least). Izbasa’s floor routine was so lovely, and definitely deserved the gold. Similarly, Tweddle’s deserved the silver (if she could figure out how to hold that arabian double pike in a straight pike the entire time, she’d gain 3 tenths on her score). Bronze was the issue. Glad that Tamirjan took third place, since I like to see the underdog get her piece of the pie, as it were. But her routine is certainly not the routine I’d have chosen for third place. It was so unremarkable, I’d forgotten it as soon as she finished. I’d have loved to see Chusovitina take third (when did she start competing a full-out double lay??), although I recognize that she’s extremely weak in dance. But her tumbling was fabulous, and again a testament to extremely difficult gymnastics not being rewarded. Pavlova didn’t fare much better. Beautiful, sophisticated floor routine with tumbling to match. She slightly stumbled on a few of her jumps, but I didn’t find them offensive enough to merit her 14.875. After all, an inferior routine from the French girl Vericel was given a 14.775, and she stepped out of bounds THREE times.
All in all, a very entertaining weekend. It was great to see competitors from countries I’d never watch otherwise, like Latvia or Iceland (both competing at pretty standard level 9). The meets were all exquisitely organized. Next stop: Nationals in Boston, and then Olympic trials in Philly. Haha, maybe I should start my own blog?
~ Mia
You SHOULD start your own blog, Mia. Merci for the input.
If not, send me your comments from Boston and Philadelphia, both meets I am missing. (I will be in Houston. Also both NCAA Championships.)
Has anyone seen 
Gymnastics Coaching.com 