Gymnastics News #15

UB is the one piece where China and Russia are likely to make an even bigger gap next year, but Ruby is looking to upgrade and hopefully so does Ellie.

I really like Ruby Harrold on bars (anyone who does a Zucchold deserves :respec:) and her routine has held up well (she has made apparatus finals at three world championships in a row) - but hasn't she been doing the exact same routine since 2013? I just wonder what upgrades she could make and why she hasn't made them yet.

What about Rebecca Tunney - she was doing some cool stuff on bars a couple of years ago (Church to Bhwardwaj connection) - but she's been injured (I think an elbow? I recall she didn't even do bars at her last international). Does anyone know her status?
 
I really like Ruby Harrold on bars (anyone who does a Zucchold deserves :respec:) and her routine has held up well (she has made apparatus finals at three world championships in a row) - but hasn't she been doing the exact same routine since 2013? I just wonder what upgrades she could make and why she hasn't made them yet.

What about Rebecca Tunney - she was doing some cool stuff on bars a couple of years ago (Church to Bhwardwaj connection) - but she's been injured (I think an elbow? I recall she didn't even do bars at her last international). Does anyone know her status?

Ruby has been doing the exact routine since 2013 and last year's lack of upgrades was due to her sitting almost the whole season out because of injury. Considering she only started competing a few weeks before worlds and was struggling with her Yurchenko 1.5 on vault, it's a miracle she managed to regain her UB routine and throw a good DTY when it mattered! In her post-world interview she mentioned upgrading bars as her priority.
 
Such a shame that the Zucchold 1/2 was given a C rating. It would have given her another option for a D skill with flight, assuming she could have learnt it.
 
I really hadn't figured Ruby for the Olympic team, but frankly - if she's healthy and upgrades even slightly, they need her bars. I expect Ellie's Bars to be a decent 14 by then and Catherine would be an option too.

Ellie has trained the Amanar steadily over the last couple of weeks and apparently it's looking sweet. There have been some sightings of the cheng into the pit too. :) Honestly, she is Key to GB team chances. I can see her Vault being mid 15, her beam up towards 15 with the Patterson and the floor being 15 with the DLO/Double Double or whatever she plans. The thing about Ellie is, she really won't show her cards until PT in Rio :lol:
I mean, THIS was her floor debut of 2015. :lol:
On a side note, I'm interested to see if Ellie is recruited for NCAA, or if she turns pro.

Beam with Catherine, Ellie and Becky would be in very safe hands IMO.

Tunney came back at the end of last year and her beam was massively improved too. I don't think she has Rio in her, but you never know.

I think I'd be surprised to see Mattis make it too - despite her huge skills, I reckon they'll skip her like they skipped Becky in 2012 to motivate her to go for another quad. She could be a staple when the older ones retire.

I'm just interested to see how it all pans out -
 
That's great news poths. I'm glad to hear she's considering upgrading both vaults. Seriously, if she'd competing for any other country she'd have had them since juniors. There's no way she's got less ability than Paseka on vault. The question is about national expectations!
 
That's great news poths. I'm glad to hear she's considering upgrading both vaults. Seriously, if she'd competing for any other country she'd have had them since juniors. There's no way she's got less ability than Paseka on vault. The question is about national expectations!
So says twitter anyway ;) Look forward to videos. I'm skeptical as to whether we'll see both, but if I had to put money on it - I'd say she'll have the Cheng and a DTY at the very least!
 
That's great news poths. I'm glad to hear she's considering upgrading both vaults. Seriously, if she'd competing for any other country she'd have had them since juniors. There's no way she's got less ability than Paseka on vault. The question is about national expectations!
I completely agree. She seems to be sitting on skills, surely you;d give the Olympics absolutely everything though? No?
 
Is there any chance of Britian repeating their bronze from worlds or is that too much of a stretch realistically? I suppose even with improvements one of China or Russia would have to badly implode, and Romania should be much better with the grand old hags Ponor and Izbasa back and possibly over Britian too.
 
Is there any chance of Britian repeating their bronze from worlds or is that too much of a stretch realistically? I suppose even with improvements one of China or Russia would have to badly implode, and Romania should be much better with the grand old hags Ponor and Izbasa back and possibly over Britian too.

Not sure which brit gymnasts are planning significant upgrades, and although I see a lot of potential there for Downie #2 I think GB might likely be fighting for 4th with Romania, and could be a really tough battle if Ponor, Izbasa and Iordache are on that team, if Russia has Komova with some upgrades, a consistent enough Afan and Paseka, and Mustafina leading the way they will be tough to beat for anyone aside from the US. Plus there's China who's won team silver in 2014 and 2015, the most recent without Yao Jinnan. Looking to 2020 though I totally see GB remaining up there and being a more solid medal contender, the development and depth seems to be stronger in GB these days than in Romania and Russia, I mean although all are fantastic gymnasts, Russia is likely to have 4 of the 5 women on the team again that they had in London and Romania 3 of the 5, maybe 4 depending on how things go for Bulimar.

How I'd see things going
1.USA
2.China
3.Russia
4.Romania (even though they have to qualify still I'd day this would be a likely outcome, although I'd be crying for a week if they managed a bronze)
5.GB
 
I haven't watched gymnastics in ages but what's Romania like now? I remember them as consistent but inspiring gymnasts who would perform the least amount of difficulty possible.
 
They were 13th at Worlds. Now they're uninspiring, inconsistent, and their bars routines are less difficult than Nadia Comaneci's 40 years later.

Belu and Bitang are also back, and have already exiled the gymnasts that they think have no hope for Rio. They have like 8 gymnasts. (And Ponor is still one of them)
 
Not sure which brit gymnasts are planning significant upgrades, and although I see a lot of potential there for Downie #2 I think GB might likely be fighting for 4th with Romania, and could be a really tough battle if Ponor, Izbasa and Iordache are on that team, if Russia has Komova with some upgrades, a consistent enough Afan and Paseka, and Mustafina leading the way they will be tough to beat for anyone aside from the US. Plus there's China who's won team silver in 2014 and 2015, the most recent without Yao Jinnan. Looking to 2020 though I totally see GB remaining up there and being a more solid medal contender, the development and depth seems to be stronger in GB these days than in Romania and Russia, I mean although all are fantastic gymnasts, Russia is likely to have 4 of the 5 women on the team again that they had in London and Romania 3 of the 5, maybe 4 depending on how things go for Bulimar.

How I'd see things going
1.USA
2.China
3.Russia
4.Romania (even though they have to qualify still I'd day this would be a likely outcome, although I'd be crying for a week if they managed a bronze)
5.GB

Actually my feeling is that this is GB's chance or never... In the juniors Taeja James is good but not Ellie/Catherine/Amy standard IMO. I hope I'm wrong but there are no power girls coming up to give continuity to the team. The technique of all the juniors is solid and much improved, but their difficulty is low, lower than the last couple of generations of GB girls at the same age.

For Rio though I think they can contend with Russia and China. It's more likely than not they'll have 2 amanars and nearly all of the girls have significant upgrades planned. They were really unlucky with beam scoring this year and if they hit a couple of extra connections (and have the judges on their side) they could gain a lot there. They would need to hit pretty much everything but it's not impossible. Also Afan is currently injured, so we'll see if she can make it healthy to Rio.
 
They were 13th at Worlds. Now they're uninspiring, inconsistent, and their bars routines are less difficult than Nadia Comaneci's 40 years later.

Belu and Bitang are also back, and have already exiled the gymnasts that they think have no hope for Rio. They have like 8 gymnasts. (And Ponor is still one of them)

Belu and Bitang are back? Damn, Romania was at their most uninspiring under them.
 
Ther latest in the minor celebs try a sport craze is "Bez Strakhovki" where Russian celebs get paired up with a gymnast (acrobat, circus performer, artistic or rhythmic gymnast). Berezhnaya is one of the celebs, as is Svetlana Feofanova, who has a rather unfair advantage having been a pretty good gymnast before switching. The gymnasts are minor names at best that I vaguely recognized from Russian competitions - Leila Gruzdeva, Anastasia Burdina, Anastasia Pogorelova


http://www.1tv.ru/sprojects_video/si6012/v615
 
Becky is training the DTY again - https://www.instagram.com/p/BBvbnCyQUIY/
It seems GB is really aiming for the medal and fighting for every tenth - Becky can outscore Claudia by 0.2 on this event.
If Becky didn't have a fragile body, she'd be doing the Amanar by now.
Have to say though, I'd prefer her to work on upgrading beam (any chance of a Patterson?) or alter the composition to ensure a consistent D score. The 5.6 she got at worlds against the 6.0 at Euros just can't happen in Rio. They need her to go 14 +

Now, excuse me while I get slightly delirious about her sister.....

Ellie Downie
EASY ftdb -open and huge - into the pit.
Then we have a double layout on the floor...big and airy
THEN, ladies and gentlemen - a FTDLO into the pit

If she can open with that, keep her two arabian passes and close with a full in or 2.5 into full - WOW!

She's also flying on bars, huge form improvement too

& Catherine Lyons

Hello
Whip into Triple twist (also DTY, triple twist off beam and toe on Tkatchevs)
2.5 into front full
(all from 9 months ago, but she's apparently getting back to her best ....)

Tyesha Mattis is also getting back to form too, but I've no recent video beyond Tweddle style bars release
She had a FTDLO/double double and easy DTY prior to injury!
Fragapane's olympic spot is literally disappearing. Mind you the Brits picked Cairns and Pinches over Downey and Francis in 2012 so they have a history of not giving two fcks about things like highest score potential :p
 
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These are awesome updates and for me it completely reaffirms one irrelevant thing - Madison Kocian is boring.

I don't disagree. But apparently she showed up to the WOGA classic with a 6.3 beam set. The Arabian is back and apparently she had a BHS, layout, layout series. I'm sure her score (and maybe SV) was inflated something fierce, but if she hits that beam consistently all season, there's no way Marta leaves her off the team.
 
Tyesha Mattis is also getting back to form too, but I've no recent video beyond Tweddle style bars release
She had a FTDLO/double double and easy DTY prior to injury!
Fragapane's olympic spot is literally disappearing. Mind you the Brits picked Cairns and Pinches over Downey and Francis in 2012 so they have a history of not giving two fcks about things like highest score potential :p
Every since Danusia joined UCLA, she's been driving home the point, one meet at a time, about who was the better gymnast...
 
So there's lots of rumblings that some big announcement is going to happen, and according to the gymnastics detectives worldwide, it's the gymcastic podcast with spanny tampson interviewing McKayla Maroney (recently). Many people seem to think based on the interview snippets released that McKayla is making a comeback.

o_O Whaaaa? Who dat is?!

:summer:
 
So there's lots of rumblings that some big announcement is going to happen, and according to the gymnastics detectives worldwide, it's the gymcastic podcast with spanny tampson interviewing McKayla Maroney (recently). Many people seem to think based on the interview snippets released that McKayla is making a comeback.

o_O Whaaaa? Who dat is?!

:summer:

I read about some big announcement to come from gymcastic tomorrow on facebook. Where did you see interview snippets?

Maybe the announcement is Maroney has been given a Belarussian passport like her clubmates and that they decided to give her their spot at the test event ;)

I'm not ready to give up my hope that she will become an all-around threat.
 
I'm reading on wwgym forum, I believe that paid members were given interview snippets already. At any rate, there will be an interview with her soon. That alone is :cheer: in my books!

I would love to see her in the AA also, she's only got limited time if it's going to happen though. Vault and floor would be her ticket I think. (Even just vault - she's a more likely medalist here than anyone but Simone. And compliments a UB/BB/FX gymnast like Laurie/Kocian)

I'm getting way ahead here :shuffle: it'll be nice just to hear something from her, even if it's explaining her retirement.
 
Okay..

http://youtu.be/X3AyyyzvqbI

As an editor, it's very clear to me based on the snippets and the order that they did it, and also the little small storyline it tells - she can't possibly be coming back. But I think it'll be an awesome interview and I love her. :respec:
 
Well you have to figure if she can still do a vault with that kind of block, maybe the girls could propel her to bigger and greater heights than ever before.

Maybe she's gay? :watch:
 
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