More Yang Wei Controversy

Yang Wei is in some controversy in China again. Apparently he let it slip that he know that his baby will be a boy. However, in China you are not allowed to know the gender of a baby before it is born.

Rhythmic Gymnastics in Ukraine

This is an interesting news article about Rhythmic Gymnastics in Ukraine

Japan Cup Results

Well, Uchimura won this battle against Hambuchen and looks like he is moving from strength to strength. Five of his routines are shown in the following video



I was impressed with his P Bars, even with the new rule that you can't do the same skill in different positions he managed to show a lot of release moves. The routine also had a great flow.

Some of Hambuchens routines are shown here:



He has removed his maltese on rings, which is probably a smart move as he was probably getting more deductions on it that it is worth. Also, he has also gotten rid of his belle now that it has been downgraded to a D. I think this makes his P Bars look better as this is one of the rare skills that he does poorly.

The womens competition was won by China's Huang Qiushuang. Her score of 58.9 looks like it is a great score now that the women have reduced the number of skills to 8 (hopefully the men do this soon). It will be interesting to see how this compares to what the US women get at some competitions coming up soon.

It looks like there was a great crowd there and was a great competition. I believe it is on again next year. I think it is a great addition to the international calender, which needs some more team and all-around competitions like this.

Japan Cup

Japanese Gymnastics has posted the all-around line up for the Japan Cup. On the men's side, the all-around looks like it will be a great competition, with Hambuchen and Uchimura looking set to challenge for the all-around title at worlds with the retirements of Yang Wei, Paul Hamm and Tomita. Horton is also one of the worlds best, and if the Russians can knock any sense into Deviatovski (Disobedientovski) he can also challenge the best. It will also be interesting to watch the progress of Danell Leyva who looks like he will be one of the stars of the future.

On the women's side the top all-arounder from Beijing is Koko Tsurumi from Japan who came 17th there, however, there will be some top gymnasts on individual apparatus with Olympic Bars gold medalist He Kexin and Olympics beam finalists Li Shanshan and Koko Tsurumi and World Cup gold medalist Lauren Mitchell.

Aus Nationals - WAG Results

In WAG, Lauren Mitchell won the All-around over Shona Morgan and Britt Greeley. Mitchell also won Bars, Beam and Floor, while Emma Collister won Vault. There has been some talk about Lauren's beam having one of the highest start value's around.



Although GA didn't show her AA score from beam, only the 2 day total (29.15), but given that her 1st day score was 13.775, that means her AA beam score must have been 15.375, which should be very competitive internationally. Lets hope she can improve her consistency. She also got a great score of 14.725 on floor in finals.

chachakid has posted a few videos from nationals including this one of Stacy Umeh dancing in the stands

Aus Nationals - MAG Apparatus Finals

GA have finally put up the results from apparatus finals yesterday:

Floor
Sam Simpson QLD 14.725
Luke Wiwatowski NSW 14.65
Patrick Peng NZ 14.25

Pommel
Naoya Tsukahara JPN 14.95
Prashanth Sellathurai NSW 14.6
Sam Offord SA 13.75

Rings
Prashanth Sellathurai NSW 15.825
Sam Offord SA 14.775
Naoya Tsukahara JPN 14.45

Vault
Sam Offord SA 15.625
Luke Wadsworth VIC 15.062
Aaron Thanas VIC 14.912

P Bars
Naoya Tsukahara JPN 14.9
Philippe Rizzo NSW 14.675
Prashanth Sellathurai NSW 14.4

High Bar
Naoya Tsukahara JPN 15.075
Sam Offord SA 14.1
Aaron Thanas VIC 13.95

Aussie Nationals Update

2008 Olympian Naazmi Johnson won the Rhythmic section of nationals with a score of 92.55. Meanwhile, almost 4000km away in Perth, in the WAG section, ex-elites Chloe Sims and Monique Cowan helped Queensland win the level 10 team title.

Australian Nationals - MAG

Well, the 1st day of MAG nationals were held yesterday in Brisbane. As expected, the all-around competition was won by Naoya Tsukahara, although since he was a guest, the official champion was 2nd placed Sam Offord who put up a great score of 86.45. 2008 Olympian Sam Simpson came 3rd with 83.15. Luke Wiwatowski did well to finish 4th considering he had a nasty injury recently.

While training Weiler kips on loop bar earlier in the year, the loops snapped and Wiwatowski was flung off and he strained the medial ligament in his knee as he crashed to the ground. It was initially thought to be a serious injury. Luckily, he didn't require surgery and has since managed to recover quickly enough to be back in the all-around competition for nationals.

Prashanth Sellathurai scored an impressive 15.85 on rings, but it appears that he fell on pommel as his score of 14.75 is well below what he is capable of, but it was still the top score on pommel for the night. Pommel horse specialist Elliott Cook from WA posted a great 14.55 there.

Circus Oz

ABC has been showing a good 3-part series on circus Oz. It can be viewed online here on ABC iView. I believe this is only available if you are in Australia. So if you are outside Australia you will need to use a proxy server to view it. It is available for the next few weeks.

Ri Se Gwang

Looking at the results from World Uni Games, it appears that Ri Se Gwang received 2 7.2 D-Scores for his vaults in event finals (where he came 4th). This indicates that he performed his handspring double front pike 1/2 out and twisting full twisting double Tsuk. Well, it was most likely these vaults anyway as the only other 7.2 vault is the Li Xiaopeng. However, the bad thing is that this confirms that the FIG have indeed capped vaults at 7.2, and have not rewarded him with a 7.4 D-score for these vaults as they should have.

World Uni Games Videos

rhythmsofdevine has posted some videos from world uni games

UCLA Highlights video

From CBS Sports:

http://all-access.cbssports.com/player.html?media=129415

CBS Sports has some good college videos. Unfortunately it requires Silverlight.

Mediterranean Games

A couple of videos have appeared for the Rhythmic competition at the Mediterranean Games:





I haven't been able to find any videos for the Artistic comp yet, but hopefully some will appear soon. It looks like a good competition.

Full Twisting Double Tsukahara

This is Ri Se Gwang training a double Tsukahara with full twist. WOW! Even though he didn't land it, it is incredible. It will be interesting to see what value it will get from the FIG. It should get valued at 7.4, since a double Tsukahara is a 6.6 and a full twist is 0.8, however, I have heard that FIG is capping vaults at 7.2. I hope that it does get the 7.4 though, since if there is indeed a cap, it would defeat the purpose of the open-ended scoring system.