Sunday, October 16, 2011

The Champions: Part Deux


A nice surprise!




One of the stars of this week.


Danell is the comeback kid!


Han Seon Yang won vault.


Golden again.


Jordyn had a solid week, but I'm glad they didn't reward her 'style' on beam with a gold medal.  I can stomach a token bronze.

Aly Raisman had a solid week.



Bar Finals



Beam Finals

33 comments:

  1. I'm so happy for Afanasyeva for doing such a good routine, maybe her most solid ever, and winning gold! Awesome moment to end Worlds! Sui Lu is also amazing.

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  2. The Chinese girl was robbed. I don't even know her name but she was blatantly cheated. This sport is a joke.

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  3. Which Chinese girl on which event?

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  4. How the judges can even justify the cheating that went on here disgusts me.

    AFan stands around waving her arms and calls it dance and she took steps on every landing.

    My sister and I were going to buy Olympic trial tickets tomorrow and we just both decided we are not wasting our time. I'll put a down payment on a new car.

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  5. Hi AJ,

    This is a skatey thing rather than gym, but I didn't see anyplace else to contact you.

    anyhow, adorbs pics in the Boston Globe of little kid cancer patients skating with the folks who'll be in the Jimmy Fund show. Bonus for you, Oksana B is in one of them!

    http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/gallery/jimmy_fund_kids_skate/

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  6. I feel bad for Sui but i mean the owed russia a gold medal after robbing poor little komova of the AA gold and giving it to a girl who basically crashed and burned on UB and stepped oob on fx. SO they kind of owed russia a gold.

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  7. Russia was owed nothing. Komova effed up on beam AND floor and was lucky to get 2nd. End of story.

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  8. Anyone saying Lu was robbed on FX apparently isn't familiar with artistic gymnastics.

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  9. No one was robbed in the entire WAG competition. There were a few spots including the gold on FX and AA that could have gone either way, but no one robbed. This is actually one of the first major competitions in a while where I think all of the placements on each event are completely justified. Just because your favorite fails to win the gold doesn't mean he/she was robbed.

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  10. In today's standards, I don't know how people are saying Afanasyeva isn't artistic. I understand having preferences, but she's hardly a Beth Tweddle out there.

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  11. I'm starting to feel some people just hate the Russians. first the big issue with Komova's reaction to losing the AA,now it's a problem that Afanasyeva won floor.

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  12. to the olympic trials person...
    if u live in the area just volunteer for the event u get in free.

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  13. Love Afan & her floor. So happy she finally got her own individual (*GOLD!*) medal. Though slightly sad to read that even she acknowledges it maybe her last chance (assuming she is referring to her long shot of making russia's 5 person olympic team).

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  14. Who are the Americans everyone is calling ugly sloppy and stupid? I think Aly has received criticism, but to be fair she can be pretty fugly on some of her elements.

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  15. Aside from Raisman getting ridiculously high bar scores (for her, obviously), I thought the women's judging was fantastic all week. The all around is highly debatable, but there was no score there that I questioned. My gosh a .033 difference is a tie-- Nobody was robbed. It could have gone either way.

    Afanasyeva is obviously artistic and expresses more with her body that Sui Lu, who just goes through the motions (which are beautiful, but expressionless). It was really close between them, and when both routines are that good, sometimes it's a matter of preference. I think Afan shows more power/variety in her tumbling, and that may have been the difference. Having a double layout and also being able to do front and backwards twisting well is very impressive. For someone to say they won't buy Olympic Trial tickets over a close event final result at Worlds is absolutely ridiculous. But hey, it's your loss if you don't go to the meet!

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  16. What does a world meet have to do with a country's Olympic trials? Also, if poor judging disgusts you that much (and I don't think judging has been much of an issue here), there have been legitimate instances before. Why cancel your trip now.

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  17. No way Afan was better than Raisman. Not only is her difficulty lower but her execution was poor also. She had steps on every landing and fell out of her difficult piros. The one hop after a landing was so disconnected, that I would just give her the stick actually, but still...bizarre.

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  18. And has the Nastia skew-twisted bunch of pencils fault on her triple full.

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  19. If execution is only about sticking your landings then fine, Raisman was better.

    Except that execution is more than that.

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  20. Afan fell out of her piros??? Watch it again, she hit every turn beautifully!

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  21. Um, Afan was credited with the same exact difficulty as Raisman, 6.1, so no, Raisman's set was not more difficult. How can people claim one routine was better than another when they don't even bother to look up the gymnasts' d-scores?

    And Raisman doesn't even listen to her music (as was evident by her Team Final routine, where she went WAY ahead of the music) and has no artistic quality whatsoever. As for twisting form, Raisman doesn't have perfect form there either, legs are apart and feet flexed.

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  22. Those were the best piros I've seen Afan do in a while! It was easily the best routine she's done all week. Good for her!

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  23. Afanasieva was totally the best in this competition...Nobody was robbed

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  24. she sure as hell did not hold the L at the end of the second turn. Watch one of Sean's better 2008 beam turns to see what it really looks like when you finish up.

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  25. You don't have to like the COP, but it might help to read it before making claims about difficulty.

    Evidently the end of the cold war passed some by.

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  26. The code does not require the end of the turn to be held.....

    2.402
    2/1 turn (720°) with heel of free leg
    fwd at horizontal throughout turn,
    (support and free leg may be
    straight or bent)

    She may possibly have taken the 0.1 precision deduction as the ending could have been sharper.
    – Precision (Each movement has a clear start and
    finish position. Movement has to demonstrate
    perfect control)

    It's Shawn Johnson.

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  27. Wow, the crazies are coming out here.

    Anyway, Sui Lu's beam was fabulous. Nice to see two Chinese gymnasts hit so solidly in a finals!

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  28. Jordyn needs some new beam choreo. The shoulder shrugs she does are just strangely awkward.

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  29. I thought the gold on FX could have gone either way, but Raisman was safely third for me. Even given that all three routines had the same quality of choreography and the same expression from each gymnast, Afan/Sui have cleaner lines, flexibility, and range of movement in their dance. They all had the same D-Score, so, voila.

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  30. "No way Afan was better than Raisman. Not only is her difficulty lower but her execution was poor also. She had steps on every landing and fell out of her difficult piros. The one hop after a landing was so disconnected, that I would just give her the stick actually, but still...bizarre.
    October 16, 2011 10:03 PM"

    That little beat jump Afan does gives her no connection points you dummy. Afan poor execution? Look at her fab leaps and toe point and compare it to Raismans. Raisman needs dance class asap!!!!!!

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  31. I love watching all gymnastics, and appreciate almost all styles and sometimes cringe when things just get ugly.

    In particular on beam, I like seeing girls be confident, but also miss the extra flair that just doesn't seem many have now a days. The girl that won was certainly solid, but apart from being "elfin" in stature I wouldn't describe that routine as graceful or particularly enlightening, or any more stylish than the other finalists.

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  32. People have been calling Aly 'big' and worse on different sits but she's no bigger than Afan. I think some American coaches (like Aly) are emphasizing upper body training to the point of over-bulking up their gymnasts. On tv they look quite muscular giving them a larger appearance than say the Russians, Romanians, and Chinese with a few American exceptions like McKayla, Gabby, and Sabrina. Perhaps ballet training early on would give gymnasts like Aly longer, leaner looking muscles that lie flat rather than bulk up almost like a wrestler's or weightlifters. Jmo.

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