A Reason To Smile

My friends, it did not turn out the way we wanted it to go in the uneven bars final but the day still gave me many reasons to smile. Reason #1. Maria Paseka became the third Russian to win a vault title, the second to win two of them, and the first to ever defend her title with a back to back win. In combination with her Olympic silver and bronze medals, she surpassed recent vaulters, McKayla Maroney and Cheng Fei, in vault decoration. Less than one year ago, she was faced with the prospect of retirement from a possibile spinal fusion surgery. Salute this badass!!

  

Reason #2. Elena medals in her second final. It was supposed to be her big moment: she was wearing Melka's lucky leo, the All Around champion Morgan Hurd wished her luck on IG, and duh, she qualified in first. So expectations were set. Sadly, our dear girl couldn't overcome the extra two tenths Fan Yilin added to her routine and had to settle for silver. While Paseka's victory was easy there was some controversy after the hotlly contested UB final so let me extend my opinion. The bars judging was more lax than the qualification or AA final had been and I truly believe all scores for the top 3 finishers should've gone down not up. To start with, Fan Yilin had no rhythm (my common complaint among chinese ub workers) despite her terrific swinging. She's accomplished this routine with better rhythm in the past but today she was 'off' from the start, on the inbar 1/1, and had to muscle it around. The next break in flow was the inside geinger, a skill I believe rack up lots of deductions for the Chinese b/c it often results in dead hang. The last break in rhythm came on the healy which she nearly fell out of but again managed to straighten herself and save a likely fall. Form wise, she was lovely, except for those moments she had to fight for a save. The other big deduction should have been the dismount which was low and had a big step. However, new rules allow for such landings to receive only a tenth in deduction instead of three tenths. In order to receive the maximum deduction 1 meter (3.3 feet) must be taken. This is absurd since only the most over rotated or under rotated dismounts would ever have someone lunging so far forward or flailing so far backwards. Almost every landing will fall within these new parameters so there will be no distinction on landings . Either you stick your dismount or accrue the same penalty as everyone else. I believe Fan's quals routine was stronger than her EF's because she was really fighting on some of those skills. Nonetheless, she managed to make everything look as tidy as possible because she's a great talent on this apparatus.

My real complaint is that the Chinese need to be deducted for coaching their girls through bars. Her coach never leaves her side and I've witnessed them walking under the high bar to be beside them through their low bar work as well! It's too much and we can hear the coach huffing and making noises as a sign of his displeasure or approval throughout her routine. If she needs him that close at all times she shouldn't be in the final at Worlds. It's babysitting:

Waaat? Is this a warm up? In Glasgow, he traveled
with her every step of the way! The
Romanians are even worse than this. 

Elena had some problems of her own and I think her issues are endurance related (although she is doing the most difficult bar skill in the CoP so cut some slack). Her handstands were subpar, not as vertical as I've seen from her prior routines, and she got sloppy on the chow 1/2. Look at the difference in handstand, nabieva, and chow 1/2 between her quals and her EF's (gifs from illyria-and-her-pet.tumblr.com and mustafinesse.tumblr.com):

The nabieva will always be a work in progress but the other skills could be cleaner. Her strengths are that she has great rhythm and her routine construction highlights that, whereas Fan is very stop and go. She also dismounted better, but alas, we now know she and Fan were deducted the same penalty. Regarding Nina Darwael's routine, I think my biggest pet peeves are her paltry handstands and her flexed feet on every skill. I abhor bar workers who have the complete package ruined by bad toe point. Now none of these girls would be sitting in their positions if Iliankova hit because she has the purest execution the world has ever beheld and that is an understatement. But poor Ilya hit her feet on the shang and took a 5 tenth penalty (it comes out of the e-score not ND) which naturally decided the podium. A shame because she improved whereas others got sloppier. But even with five tenths taken off she had the third highest execution and I'm giddy just thinking about the fact that they were going to give her a 9.2 e-score. It's what she deserves. This competition has drained me so by the end of Day 1 EF's I had a choice: I could be bitter or I could see another fantastic result for Eremina and look toward an optimistic future for both girls. I chose the latter and hope you will too.



“I am not upset, I have something to strive for, there is an incentive. The judging was fair. For next time I will raise my D score, add connections, learn new elements and finish first.”

I'm proud that Nastia does not seek conspiracies. Remember she is the future and along with Eremina they do not seek pity, they seek vengeance. Nastia says she is moving on and will upgrade. We are raising fighters!

Ascending

Reason #3. David Belyavskiy finally gets his World medal. I'm not a pommels person and I'm not gonna pretend I know what's going on on pommels. All I know is he does a cool skill called the sohn and that he is the only person who looks sleek on PH. I don't know the breakdown of what he did but it looked great lol. My favorite moment in a competition is right after gymnasts just killed it in execution. It's so pure because they know they did a great job and feel excited about what they might score, but the best part is that the score hasn't come in yet to potentially ruin those dreams. It's just the gymnasts and the satisfaction they feel for themselves and the excitement the audience feels for them. Right after he dismounted he had one of those moments where he clapped along with the crowd for himself. Amazing. Finally his day has arrived. He dedicated his medal to his newborn daughter, Alicia. I know that this medal can never replace the one he felt he lost in the AA. It can never mean redemption but at least it is consolation. And confirmation, too, of how formidable he is when he fulfills his capability.

Reason #4. Denis Ablyazin returns and regains his prowess on rings. Oh man I just gotta give it up to these Russians. No pain is too great to keep them from returning to the sport. No injury is too threatening to stop them from competing. Denis had a broken leg that wasn't healing properly after Rio and he took a few months off to have surgery and recover. In April, when Euros began, he wasn't even training, just doing physical therapy. He promised he'd be ready for Worlds on his specialty events but it seems he over delivered. The head coach decided not to use Denis on vault and lied about him still being in recovery. There were no hard feelings between the guys but it is ironic that he made an event final and neither Nikita or Artur did. He proved his worth by qualifying and medalling in the rings final with a silver just one tenth short of gold. Once again, Denis is chipping away at the gap that always lies between him and Petrounias but there's little to no mobility on rings so the usual contenders are our podium placers. It was nice to see Turkey make an EF, how bout that?

Don't you EVER underestimate him again, Alfosov.

No offense to Canadian hospitality, but this is the worst Worlds ever. News is pouring in on the lack of organization and foresight from organizers. There was no bus to take the AA medalist to their hotels because no one factored in how long interviews would take. For days there was no water for athletes during training when previous Worlds have provided that necessary refreshment along with snacks. Some gymnasts did not get a podium training ! I'm sure the volunteers are doing amazing but the actual people who put this together are here to make money. This venue, they're actually charging astronomical prices for snacks which are typically provided to gymnasts for free in the training hall so that they don't pass out. I'm sure that's gone over well with the poorer federations travelling here under a strict budget and a mean currency exchange. I'm so over Montreal but whatever you have left to give, give it in support to David and Elena who are representing Russia in the last of the finals. The athletes have given this competition all of it's best moments. 

I can't find videos of David's qualifying P-bars and H-bar but below is the apparatus Elena will be on today. Isn't she lovely: