Thursday, September 8, 2011

This and That



Volosozhar and Trankov's Black Swan in hideous Russian attire.


Major bar drama went down at the ranch today.  Both Macko and Anna Li fell during the verification.  For Anna Li, bars was the only event she verified this week and it was also the only bar routine she missed in Texas.  Bridget Sloan also fell, while Memmel didn't compete on bars.  Shawn Johnson hit her routine, but the routine isn't worth enough to land her a spot on the world team.  Ironically, Gabby Douglas hit bars.  It is going to be a last minute decision to see who makes the squad, as girls are improving and messing up by the second.  Camp concludes tonight with a final workout.  All of these girls should make the next camp because the US just doesn't have that many bodies available to fill two full teams for Pan Ams and Worlds.

John Geddert's Facebook stated that Wieber scored a 14.85 on FX and a 16.00 on VT.




Elizaveta's new short




Ilinykh and Katsalapov's Free Dance


Voronov's short


Shelepen's short


Kavaguti and Smirnov's SP


Gerboldt and Enbert LP

14 comments:

  1. All of the bar workers are a huge risk at this point. It is all going to come down to the next camp. I hope they have to verify everything twice at that camp. This was a mess.

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  2. Not sure why people are hating on Anna Li specifically. They are all a disaster.

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  3. i dont see the point of having 2 camps. they should be aloud to train in there own gym with out the wicked witch looking over there shoulder for as long as possible.

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  4. I'm sick of people whining about the camp system. These girls clearly need a kick in the ass to learn how to compete. They'd likely benefit from living at the ranch year-round.

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  5. I also don't understand peoples hatred for Li. Shes a great bar worker, and if she was consistent she should make the team...unfortunately she is not consistent. If Gabby Douglas can put together good bar routines at the next camp she could make it. Its important to note that she hit her routine at classics, day 2 at nationals, and only had a under rotation on her dismount day 1

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  6. I am just amazed at what a great gymnast Anna Li has become ever since she left UCLA. It is amazing that with all that talent, they really could not do much with her at all. I can only imagine what she would have become if she had not wasted four years with UCLA. I am waiting for Sam P to make her comeback.

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  7. I'm not sure people have hatred for Anna Li so much as she keeps missing sets when competing. Marta never seems to like that. Over all, Anna seems to be adored by fans, or at least that's the impression I have.

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  8. By Shawn's twitter it seems she's definitely gunning for a World spot. At Nationals she was excited at the thought but cautious. I know her SV's are low but if I'm Marta I want a team captain that can lead-off the team and hit (with scores to then be dropped). I'd put her on the team. On all 4 events, she's on of the few usa gymnasts that 9x out of 10 will hit (the others being Raisman and Weiber). However, given bars issues it makes the line-up questionable...

    So 6 girls to Pan Ams and 6-7 girls to Worlds. That's basically the entire National team going somewhere, right?

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  9. V/T are not getting programs worthy of their talent this season. His costume is bad but he still looks pretty good, her costume makes her look ridiculous.

    The only program that held my interest was Voronov's, but more because it was bizarre and kind of funny then I liked it, per se. Have NO idea what he was going for there.

    It is to the rest of the world's benefit that Morosov is mostly only coaching Russians right now.

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  10. I just looked at Shawn's bar routine from Nats and simply doing a stalder shoot after the bail would get her to a 5.7. That seems doable, but I think she would need around a 6.0 D-score to make it with Maroney, ASac, and Raisman likely being locks, and I don't see her getting that in time for Worlds.

    If Douglas is hitting her bar set consistently, it might make sense for Marta to take her and ONLY allow her to do UB and VT (in prelims) at Worlds. If she cant handle that, then Marta can go ahead and mark her off the list for London.

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  11. Gabby Douglas had such an epic meltdown on day 1 of Visas, though. I don't think Marta will forget that. She had, what, two or three falls on beam? That belies a pretty serious mental breakdown, and I doubt Marta is willing to risk it. Send her to Pan Ams, in my opinion.

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  12. AJ you need to do a NCAA this and that, so many things have happened. Liz Green is off the roster at UF. Nicole Johnson who was doing great in July is off the ASU roster(she isn't injured), Lara Albright left UW and is now at OU, and i heard Ranzy will be visiting LSU soon. Oh and the deets on why she left OSU is super juicy.

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  13. I like that V/T skate as if they have actually seen and understand the ballet Swan Lake. Why she was half black i don't know because she never became the black swan though. Interesting that he portrayed the Voldemort charachter and she the captured maiden/swan. They did not make use of the excellent music, and some of the cuts were just bad. She also needs to lose the tutu.

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  14. ^^^
    Sounds like you've never seen and understood Swan Lake either. Swan Lake isn't about flapping arm movements, but portraying characters rooted in dark psyche with a touch of fairy tale thrown in. Swan Lake is never and should never be about bird-like arms, as many 3rd rate dancers and casual audiences tend to believe. A dancer who portrays Odette/ Odile too literally will risk becoming a caricature herself. After all, there are many parodies of The Dying Swan, in fact the most parodied character in ballet IS the swan.

    All I saw in V/ T skate are lots of uncoordinated arm movements, in other words arm movements that do not have any flow or connection between head, shoulders, and torso. The whole thing looks disjointed.
    .

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