This report about the Olympic hopefuls from the Moscow’s Central Sport Army Club (CSKA) features Aliya Mustafina, Anastasia Grishina and weightlifter Alexander Ivanov. Mustafina is only talking but Grishina actually does some gymnastics and connects an onodi to an illusion turn on beam. The video is from the beginning of August but I haven’t seen it so far. Thanks for the link to mikeyy (fangymnastics) from the forum on onlinesport.ro!
To watch it click on the screenshot below!
Who has the higher difficulty and the better execution to outscore the competition in the team final at the 2011 World Championships? Russia or the USA? We know the Russian team and we also know who has good chances to make the US team. So let’s compare the rivals based on what we’ve seen at Visa’s and the Russian Cup by apparatus starting with vault. Of course, gymnasts from both countries still have the time to improve their performances but assuming they’ll improve pretty equally I’ll ignore potentially increased difficulty or better execution but calculate with what we know right now. Scores come from day 1 and 2 at Visa’s and the qualification and all-around at the Russian Cup.
On the Russian team are: Dementyeva, Komova, Afanasyeva, Belokobylskaya, Nabieva and Paseka.
I assume on the US team will be: Sacramone, Wieber, Raisman, Maroney, Memmel definitely and maybe Caquatto.
The US obviously has the best vaulters right now with two almost perfect Amanars from McKayla Maroney and Jordyn Wieber and a Rudi from Alicia Sacramone.
McKayla Maroney: Amanar – 6.5 D-Score + 9.3/9.5 = 9.4 E-Score = 15.900
Jordyn Wieber: Amanar – 6.5 D-Score + 9.3/9.45 = 9.375 E-Score = 15.875
Alicia Sacramone: Rudi – 6.3 D-Score + 9.5/9.45 = 9.475 E-Score = 15.775
15.900 + 15.875 + 15.775 = 47.550
This score is huge and absolutely doable. There’s nothing more to say.
Right now Russia has five DTY from Nabieva, Paseka, Dementyeva, Belokobylskaya and Afanasyeva.
Maria Paseka: DTY – 5.8 D-Score + 9.075/8.725=8.9 E-Score = 14.700
Tatiana Nabieva: DTY – 5.8 D-Score + 6.775/8.6=7.688 E-Score = 13.488
Ksenia Afanasyeva: DTY – 5.8 D-Score + 8.8/8.475=8.638 E-Score = 14.438
14.700 + 13.488 + 14.438 = 42.626
The last calculation is of course nonsense. First, Nabieva and Paseka surely will have Amanars ready for Worlds and second, though Nabieva’s execution is – let’s say – not perfect her E-score won’t be as low as it is here (unless she falls). But for now let’s assume everyone performs without falls and with the “normal” execution we’ve seen in previous competitions. Though there is still a lot of work to do for Nabieva and Paseka as they both scored less than 14.000 in the vault final at the Russian Cup.
Last year Russia also had two Amanars (Nabieva and Mustafina) and one DTY (Kurbatova) and got altogether 45.766. I think they’ll have the same start value again with a DTY from Dementyeva or Afanasyeva.
To sum up: USA is and will be the best nation on vault. All in all Russia will loose almost 2 points (or even 2.5 points if they have only one Amanar) on vault compared to the US team.
Bars is of course a different story…
I’m a big fan of these new posters for the World Championships in Tokyo. They really capture the movement of gymnastics.
Rie Tanaka
Kohei Uchimura
That’s the one which has already been revealed.
Uchimura
