Sandra Izbasa's return to competition.
Phil Hersh spoke to Nicole Bobek about her legal situation. Unfortunately, her meth face appears to be unable to go away. It is promising to see her appear quite sincere about getting her life on the straight and narrow and speaking about about the mistakes she's made in order to help others.
Qualifying took place at the final World Cup event before the World Championships.
Vault is another typical World Cup hot mess.
A recent feature on Rachael Flatt indicates that she plans on competing a double axel+triple toe and triple lutz+triple loop in her long program.
Universal Sports has an interview with Ross Miner (our great straight hope.)
At the JGP Romania, Elizaveta Tuktamysheva captured gold despite two error-filled performances and wearing hideous gloves. Kristiene Gong was a strong second. It is amazing how quickly a skater can improve under the tutelage of Frank Carroll. As predicted, Samantha Cesario is the queen of the new underrotation distinction that awards partial credit for jumps that aren't total Sarah Hughes-quality. (Speaking of Sarah, she is now represented by Tara Modlin.)
On the men's side, Keegan Messing came from behind to defeat teammate Joshua Farris. Keegan continues to be a skater on the rise.
Ross Miner won the senior men's event at Mid-Atlantics. Ksenia Makarova won the senior ladies short with a Triple Toe-Triple Toe, Triple Flip (turn out) and Double Axel. There has been some drama surrounding training locales in Northern NJ lately. The Petrenkos left Ice Vault without much discussion with the owners. Galina wanted to stay at Ice Vault, but has since moved to the Ice House. Johnny Weir continues to skate at Ice Vault at times, but Galina is not welcome to work there. She wanted to come with a few students and work with Johnny, but the Petrenkos are persona non grata. There have already been several blowups at the Ice House, which is not unusual for the drama-filled Russian rink (where the alcohol is known to flow among the coaches.) Two skaters left the Ice Vault after an event that Johnny Weir mentioned via facebook status a few weeks ago. He had been trying out outlandish new costumes when homophobic hockey players began making a scene. They then teased two young male skaters whose parents quickly had them change rinks.
Yu-Na Kim started training at the East-West Ice Palace. Evan was skating there during the same session as Yu-Na on her first day, which caused the young skaters to stop in their tracks and watch in awe. It was not a very productive day for most skaters at the rink.
Yang Yilin's 15.225 on Uneven Bars:
Ana Porgras' beam routine from earlier today:
Good for Yang Yilin for coming back with a more womanly body. I like the double front dismount - I don't think that I've seen a Chinese gymnast perform one in competition.
ReplyDeleteAna Porgras is divine. I just wish that she would dump the double pike dismount and perform a 2.5 twist (or a triple, if possible). It would look so much prettier with her long lines.
I must ask you, Aunt J, how you feel about Sandra Izbasa performing to Hava Nagila. Please share.
SO many updates today! Thank you in advance for all that you do!
ReplyDeleteROFL! Blythe Lawrence really called Izbasa's floor music "a Middle Eastern-sounding cut of the same music used with great success by Russian Ekaterina Lobaznyuk at the 2000 Olympics." We don't know Hava Nagila in all out klezmer awesomeness when he hear it? SHAME.
ReplyDeleteI love all the gymnasts coming back from injuries!! Impressive just to see them out there doing well.
ReplyDeleteMay every skater learn from the screw up that Nicole Bobek was. There are no excuses for drugs, smoking, heavy partying... Don't do it! Don't even try it because you see what the consequences can be!
ReplyDeletePorgras and Yilin look awesome!
ReplyDeleteIzbasa landed out of bounds with her triple. How did she only get .3 neutral and full D-score?
ReplyDeleteI wonder if there should be a rule that only Power Jews can use Havah Negila?! Just seems weird to have a shiksa use it.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous- Romanians benefiting from wonky scoring?! SHOCKER. psych.