Nastia Liukin took a skating lesson from Evan Lysacek as a promo for the skatenastics craptacular. Universal Sports has a photo gallery. Nastia shows off that as expected, she has enough flexibility and is enough of a complete bitch to be a fabulous figure skater like Sasha Cohen. Nastia interview Miss Evan. Like it or not, we are stuck with her as a commentator. Hmm, you think Nastia could afford to buy real figure skates. I want to see a number with her doing a fabulous spiral.
Marissa King will represent Great Britain at the Commonwealth Games.
CGA had a visited from Allison Arnold this week to 'tighten their minds.' The visit is curious as Allison aided CGA in the '90s and produced a rather curious result. It turns out that one of Sapunar's numerous injuries was more of a psychological one. Sierra Sapunar had been struggling with a skill when Dr. Arnold had her imagine everything that could even go wrong on a simple skill like a back handspring or roundoff. The result was a paralyzing fear. Hopefully Dr. Arnold did not give Whitcomb any beam tips.
Video of Walter Toigo, the Italian judge from the Courchevel JGP, is making the rounds online as he is shown copying the marks of the judge next to him. It certainly shows why anonymous judging is complete bullshit.
Drama is heating up at UCLA between Anna Li and Miss Val. This is not the first time the two have clashed and certainly not the first time Miss Val has butted heads with a former gymnast. Anna Li, as rumored, has indeed been training at AOGC to get back in shape and possibly make a run at 2011 and 2012. The UCLA coaches are quite against this as they feel it could hurt recruiting and appear that they are not able to train someone able to make a US Olympic Team. Given how trying a situation doing both NCAA and elite is, it is highly improbable that an athlete would truly be able to do both simultaneously. Martha wants what she wants and isn't going to let a dual meet get in the way if she wants an athlete at a particular competition. Given that Anna's best shot is as a bars and beam specialist, Galina Marinova might just be a slightly better suited beam coach to get her to where she needs to be. AOGC's rigorous diet wouldn't hurt either. Martha likes them thin.
Evora and Ladwig will be skating to Nessun Dorma this season. They have chosen to work with ISU Technical Specialist Judy Blumberg on improving their levels. Blumberg has labeled the two "hackers" and is working on vastly improving all areas of their skating.
Texas Dreams showed gymnastike how they used an inclined air track to improve their tumbling.
Yu-Na Kim will now be training at the Granite Club. She will also be working with Shae-Lynn Bourne on her new short program while skating at the club.
"hackers" is exactly how I would describe it too. Thank you Judy.
ReplyDeleteWhy would Nastia buy figure skates for a half hour lesson? lol. The rentals are crap, but it's good enough.
No one can show off their best stuff in rentals. Usually when people are put on skates for TV segments, they always wind up being put in real figure skates. If you notice, even all of the Today Show hosts have their own pair of skates. Even local reporters who only report on skating one time are usually given a pair. I'd love to see what Nastia could do with a few lessons in a real pair.
ReplyDeleteHopefully Alaina Johnson's floor is s good as advertised, but I won't get my hopes up. I remember everyone was saying that Grace Taylor's routine was so great last season, and I was really disappointed when I saw it.
ReplyDeleteGrace's was done by a different choreography. I loved Grace's other three routines. Last year's wasn't awful, but her other routines were better.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I saw that Italian judge do was yawn. What could he really be looking at on the lady's screen?
ReplyDeleteOh great, Nessun Dorma. More music that builds naturally so the crowd will surely react even if the performance is lackluster, thereby allowing the defeat of Inoue and Baldwin.
ReplyDeleteWTF? I thought Li was graduated, so who cares about Miss Val. Also, Gymnastike talked about Li hanging it up. Also how does Zam fit into the picture?
ReplyDeleteAnd was the whole Miss Val video a passive aggressive way of saying she wants her athletes staying out of elite?
(And men seem to have no issue doing college season and world events, btw.)
Things are way different for men than women with regard to how college fits into the season and the USAG elite program. Miss Val wants Anna to train with some of the girls doing both elite and NCAA at UCLA---they want girls to think they can do both so they don't postpone college or forego NCAA completely.
ReplyDeleteThat "interview" Nastia did with Evan was a hot mess! Nastia just looked at him, smiling and nodding her head to everything he had to say. And who knows what he really had to say since the background noise overpowered them both?
ReplyDeleteSigh.
The more I see of her the more mind boggling her supposed interest in fashion is. The hair, the over done permatan, yeesh. And she's got nothing on Cohen.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, ucla can not put a gymnast on the olympic team. The fact that they are claiming to is fraud. The fact that they are saying that is like Penn State claiming that they put gymnasts on the world championship team. They both put their gymnasts on the respective international teams after they leave and go to other programs. People forget that Kate would not have made it if she had not gone to Canada.
ReplyDeleteIf Miss Val wants to convince girls that they can do both and wants to have an innovative program that tries it, that would be great. But then why they hell did they REFUSE to try out for Worlds? The whole thing seems bizarre. Step up to the plate if you're going to step up to the plate. Or just admit that you're not.
ReplyDeleteAnd I thought Anna was out with her back regardless!
Nastia is normal size but it's somewhat weird see her that size. She was so long and thin.
ReplyDeleteI thought Anna Li had given up elite, too--that was what was going around on the boards (not always reliable, I know) but also it seemed like Jiani said much the same in her Gymnastike interview.
ReplyDeleteSeriously can't imagine Alaina Johnson as "dark" & "sexy" after I had to sit through her uninspired 2009 Visas performances, especially in that hideous Day 2 Tex-ass leo. Rhonda & her main gay will be miracle workers if they can pull this off.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ADW8MIJVZ8
So someone tell me agin why Evan Lysacek has such a bizarre way of speaking?! And spare me the flaming gay stuff- I will be astounded if he makes it in the entertainment biz, he is so wooden. It makes me sad that he's leaving skating- seriously doubt he'll come back, but everytime I hear him in an interview I think he will be better. and he isn't. sigh.
ReplyDeleteDid anyone else notice the captions on the Nastia/Evan pictures? Maybe I just have a dirty mind, but they seemed to be thinly veiled attempts at double entendre..."Nastia learns stroking, has she mastered gliding, Evan shows off his spread eagle...."
ReplyDeleteNastia needs to quit with tanning bed she looks way too brown.
ReplyDeleteI don't see what the big deal is with Anna training at AOGC, other than their hideously crappy rate of injuring their elites. Anna's scholarship is up, she can't compete for UCLA anymore and wasn't she planning on training with her mom in Illinois once she graduates anyway? Or is she staying in LA to take advantage of stunt doubling opportunities?
Speaking of AOGC Sam Shapiro smartypants Jew that she is verbaled to Stanford. Maybe we should start a pool to guess how many meets she can compete in before she breaks.
watch the Nastia/ Evan vid with the sound off. Something is obviously going on with these two. look at how he looks at her when she is speaking to the camera. this is a couple in love. sorry folks.
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